Great Western Coffee Shop

From Plymouth Live (https://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/whats-on/music-nightlife/railway-workers-vanished-laira-railway-2646423)


The GWRSA club at Westbury has gone and been replaced by a car park

I recall attending meetings at the Taunton club just to the north of the station, and at the Bristol club (felt like underneath the old train shed).

Sports and Social club changes and refunctioning not unique to the rail industry ... Spencer's Sports and Social Club in Melksham is a thriving club where perhaps the name is the only survivor from the heavy engineering plant.   Melksham House, once the sport and social club of Avon Tyres, became "an altertross around our neck" [company manager's comment a few years back] and is now in the hands of the local council who have taken a very long time to progress their "Melksham Campus" plans beyond plans.

GWRSA club in Didcot seems to be always threatened of disappearing through some kind of redevelopment, but with South Oxfordshire DC taking an age to do anything round the station area it maybe safe for a while.

Both Taunton and Bristol's 'Railway Clubs' are long gone. I believe there are still open GWRSA's in Yeovil, Exmouth, Exeter (x2), Plymouth, Hereford, Bridgend, Port Talbot and Didcot.

GWRSA Reading survived the rebuild, being just outside the operational station boundary, and I think it's still open.

Redruth and St. Blazey still open but St. Austell and Truro gone, although Truro is open as a public house... "The Railway"

There's one in Slough I think, right next to the station?

I used to commute weekly to Basingstoke and there was a very busy-looking one at the back of their station - can't remember the platform number as it's probably ten years ago now and lots of trains have passed under the bridge since then. 6 or 7, I think. Basingstoke was also the last place I saw slam-door stock in regular service.

Isn’t that where the Slough and Windsor Railway Society meet these days?

Civil Service clubs are also going, as the few that are left no longer play snooker and tend to booze less.

It may surprise some, given the railway status of the place these days, that there was until fairly recently a BR(WR)SA branch at Honeybourne.  Last time I checked, it was still going as a social club, but no longer connected with railways

[Edit:  It's still functioning. The club's Facebook page claims a 60 year heritage]

Basingstoke Railway Social Club on the North side. Used to be a CIU club; the last time I tried to get in they weren't affiliated any more - but they let me in anyway.

Yes, Honeybourne used to be quite a 'railway town' for a village! The station was a junction with no less than four signalboxes.

It's now the home of Slough and Windsor Railway Society.

If you are ever in Slough on a Friday night look in there is likely to be something on, we meet every Friday most years except when Xmas comes on Friday.

It once had five boxes but North Loop closed in 1933.

I've been through Honeybourne numerous times but never even seen the station.  :-[

Back to the GWRSAs, isn't (the site of) the one in Bristol now a trendy style coffee place? And also I think a nursery school in part of it.

'Twas a good venue for the Didcot Red Hot Blues club nights, especially as the beer was sold at a keen price.

On the main line, heading from Campden towards Evesham - Honeybourne South Loop,  H Station South, H Station North, Sheenhill (WWII ARP style 'box - short lived 1943 - 1962???).

On the Branch (only a brief existence, before the junction control was moved to Station South in 1933) was Honeybourne North Loop Jcn.

On the Cheltenham to Stratford line, heading from Broadway towards Long Marston - Honeybourne West Loop Jcn and H East Loop Jcn.

Sheenhill and North Loop Jcn were not functioning at the same time.  So I make it six boxes, rather than four. 

North Loop Junction box was removed to someone's garden in the village and could be viewed from trains on the OWW route.  The top of it now resides in the car park at Toddington

There was a little loco "shed" at Honeybourne, mainly for locos on banking duty.  When I was signalman at Moreton in Marsh during the mid 1970s, it was a great delight to hear the tales of Honeybourne from the older hands who had joined the railway before WWII.  It was a very significant place.