Railway volunteers are celebrating after hosting 4,500 people for the Cotswold Festival of Steam.

The event, held between Saturday 25 and Monday, May 27, saw thousands of paying customers over the three days.

Hosts Gloucestershire Warwickshire Steam Railway (GWSR) benefitted from excellent weather as seven steam locomotives, including three newly built visitors, paraded across the 14-mile Cotswold railway between Broadway and Cheltenham Racecourse.

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One of the three new locomotives, a Great Western Railway-designed ‘Grange’ class 4-6-0, known as the no. 6880 Betton Grange, had only just made it to the event.

Managed by the 6880 Society, the engine was only completed days ahead of time, acting as a tribute to the once 80-strong class of mixed-traffic locomotives, all of which were decommissioned and scrapped by the end of 1965.

The locomotive will remain on the GWSR until Sunday (June 16), operating each day.

Chairman of the volunteer organising committee Tom Willson said: "This was without doubt, one of the most successful Cotswold Festivals of Steam ever and the attraction of the new locomotives, running alongside our own fleet, clearly had broad appeal."

“Of course, we all enjoy putting on the show even though it can be stressful at times, pulling all the separate threads together.

"But the most important thing is that our visitors enjoy it too: the icing on the cake is comments such as “the best steam gala I have ever attended” and “the GWSR really knows how to stage a spectacular event”."

Richard Winstanley, the railway’s voluntary finance director, said: "Putting on a really ambitious event like this is extremely expensive. Many costs have risen significantly over the past four years – not least the cost bringing in locomotives by road transport and coal, which now has to be imported from overseas following closure of the last British mine extracting suitable coal.

“There is an obvious financial risk but I’m so pleased that the event was in the black by the time the first train had departed Toddington on the Saturday.

"The Cotswold Festival of Steam brings a very welcome income boost to help us to maintain our wonderful railway for all to enjoy."