The museum is open from 10.30am to 6.00pm on all days the GWR is operating train services
Our display of historic artefacts from the 19th & 20th centuries
is housed in a 1935 built former Great Western gangwayed brake coach located in the dock adjacent
to the main platform at Toddington station on the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway. This
exhibition covers a multitude of past aspects of industry, trade & culture. Our desire
has been to promote interest & nostalgia for visitors to the railway. Many of the items
on display, some of which were restored from near basket case condition, have long
since disappeared from everyday life.
In the autumn of 2006 a second display area was opened in a venerable wooden building to the rear of platform 2 at Toddington, further details regarding which can be seen here 'Toddington East'. A further facility was opened in 2011 on the west side of Toddington carpark where the old 'Honeybourne North Loop Junction Signal Box' has been refurbished & opened as a toy museum. There is no charge for admission to the museums and we hope to maintain this policy for all such future facilities that are established. For visitors who are moved by the displays and wish to make a small contribution to assist with ongoing costs there are donation boxes available in all locations. The coach also includes a sales area offering a wide range of items, proceeds from which also help fund future developments. In addition we are always interested to hear from any person wishing to donate items for display in the museum and we undertake to do our utmost to restore them as necessary and place them on view to the public. Equally we would like to hear from anyone having items that are not too bulky that they wish to dispose of, that might be suitable for sale in our shop.
The Trust is pleased to be working with the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway and looks forward to co-operating with them
in future ventures to improve visitor attractions along the railway. Our thanks also go
to Andrew Goodman, owner of the coach in which the museum is established, who is proud
to possess the largest individually owned collection of former Great Western Railway
rolling stock in the country.
Click here for further details regarding some of our acquisitions
Some of the items on display in the coach
The former LMS refreshment trolley seen above is situated in the south end compartment
furthest from the entrance door and contains a display of the sort of items that
would have been on sale from 1930s through to the 1950s, including as seen below a
railway sandwich and a range of fruit. The trolley also offered cigarettes and cigars for sale in
those days so our display also includes an old cigarette packet. This compartment also
contains a range of old gardening tools and equipment as seen in another of the pictures below.The central compartment now contains a range of domestic items that are generally related to cleaning such as the old vacuum cleaner and carpet sweeper that are seen in the picture on the left.
This was originally the guards compartment and would have contained a handbrake, vacuum gauge, small deck and a seat.
Future projects include a display relating to the "navvies" who built the railways and the equipment that they used; which will be located in the area alongside the hut at the back of platform 2 at Toddington. Another display will be developed in the connection with the centenary of the first world war in a location yet to be decided. A 4th museum building is planned with the move of the former coal office in Winchcombe yard to a position to the north of the buiding on platform 2 referred to earlier. This will be restored as a period office.
