And that sealed the fate of the Great Central, its use as a diversionary route while the WCML was electrified no longer required ...................... or so they though 55 years later HS2 is following much of the old GC route ............ progress 

 

A very old article came up for me the other day about the transfer of the Broadway to Honetbouned section to the Gloucestershire and Warwickshire Railway - https://www.railadvent.co.uk/2021/08/gwsr-could-take-on-broadway-to-honeybourne-trackbed.html - and got me thinking as to whether the jigsaw pieces might ever be rejoined.

Birminhgam to Statford-upon-Avon
Statford-on-Avon to Long Marston
Long Marston to Honeybourne
Honeybourne to Broadway
Broadway to Cheltenham Racecourse
Cheltenham Racecourse to Cheltenham Spa

 
[quote author=Robin Summerhill link=topic=25829.msg316770#msg316770 date=1641223644

As an aside, the old GWR formation between Lansdown and St James, and also onwards from Malvern Road towards the Racecourse (but not all the way to Racecourse)’is now a footpath and cycle track.

[/quote]

As an aside, you can pretty much get to the racecourse "off road" along the old line formation buy taking the footpath skirting road the sports ground to the old railway embankment, the top of which is (or certainty was) used as an unofficial footpath.  From the Hunting Butts tunnel portal there is an official footpath that goes over the hill to the racecourse.   It was a trifle muddy in parts when I did it a few years ago and I would imagine it's even more so right now.

 
As another aside, 3rd January 1966 was also the date that the S&D was originally scheduled for closure. That of course was postponed for 9 weeks

 

That’s interesting, but I have a hunch as to why that might have been the case.

In 1839 Lansdown was on the edge of the town. There are additional earthworks and quite a deep cutting beyond where the GWR and MR lines diverge, and there would also probably be the cost of purchasing buildings and knocking them down to take the line any further.

As an aside, the old GWR formation between Lansdown and St James, and also onwards from Malvern Road towards the Racecourse (but not all the way to Racecourse)’is now a footpath and cycle track

 
The argument about where to put the station predates the railway. In the Worcester Journal of 8 August 1839, we read:

"On Monday, at a large meeting of the inhabitants of Cheltenham and its neighbourhood at the Assembly Rooms, it was unanimously resolved to raise money by subscription and otherwise for the purpose of bringing the terminus of the Great Western Railway to Cheltenham, instead of Lansdowne [sic], where it is at present intended by the Company to stay their works."

 
That article is slightly misleading.

The first station in Cheltenham was the Midland station, admittedly on the edge of the town in those days and opened in 1840. Trains originally only ran towards Gloucester until the line down from Bromsgrove was built. As that construction continued southbound, a temporary station was provided at Swindon (an area usually now known as Swindon Village to avoid confusion with the one in Wiltshire) that provided a service between (IIRC) 1844 and 1846.

Also the Midland station in Cheltenham got its Lansdown suffix after Grouping. It was never called Cheltenham Lansdown Road – the name comes from a nearby estate

 
The original railway station in Cheltenham Spa was "St James" - opened when the railway first arrived in Cheltenham in 1847 as the terminus of the Great Western branch from Swindon via Kemble, Stroud and Gloucester. It was relocated nearby in 1894; a central location for the town, and destination of the "Cheltenham Spa Express". But it was a terminus, not easily extended northwards, and when the Midland Railway arrived they came into the area alongside the GWR, but branched off to the West as they headed from Bristol to Birmingham.  Then the GWR line to Honeybourne branched off too, leaving the original terminus rather awkwardly placed in railway geography terms. GWR opened another station at Malvern Road, and the Midland also had High Street and the GWR High Street Halt ...

Come the rationalisation of the Beeching Era, St James closed on 3rd January 1966, as did Malvern Road. Only Lansdown Road, on the old Midland line was left, with the few remaining trains from Gloucester via the old GWR line not calling in Cheltenham Spa at all, until those services succumbed too.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheltenham_Spa_St._James_railway_station

---

Also on the same day (Monday 3rd January 1966) full 100 mph electric services ran for the first time on the West Coast main line from London to both Liverpool and Manchester.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Coast_Main_Line