TIME will be turned back on the Cotswold Line in September to celebrate the reinstatement of double track on the Rail route between Oxford and Worcester.

A special steam train will run along the line to London Paddington and back, powered by a Great Western Railway Castle class express locomotive, a type long associated with the route.

Organised by First Great Western, which runs the route’s passenger service, and steam tour specialists Vintage Trains, the excursion will be branded as the Cathedrals Express, a title given to the line’s premier train in the 1950s by British Railways.

The express linked London with the cathedral cities of Oxford, Worcester and Hereford.

At the head of the train on Saturday, September 17, will be preserved Castle class loco No 5043 Earl of Mount Edgcumbe, which sometimes worked on the route in steam days.

Castles powered most express trains between London, Oxford and Worcester from the mid-1930s until 1964, when diesels took over.

The special will run from Vintage Trains’ depot at Tyseley in Birmingham, via the city’s Snow Hill station, to Worcester Shrub Hill station, where it will join the traditional route of the Cathedrals Express.

The train will call at Evesham, in Worcestershire, before tackling the four-mile, 1-in-100 climb up Chipping Campden bank, then make further calls to pick up passengers at Moreton-in-Marsh and Charlbury.

After a stop at Oxford to take on water, the train will run to London Paddington station. Passengers will have three hours in the capital before the train retraces its route to Worcester and Birmingham.

A Vintage Trains spokesman said: “We are proud that in conjunction with First Great Western, we are to run a steam-powered Cathedrals Express in celebration of the completion of the double track on the Cotswold Line, appropriately hauled by a GWR Castle class locomotive.”

Network Rail is currently carrying out a £67m project to reinstate 20 miles of double track on the route, reversing cost-cutting measures from the 1970s, when much of the line was reduced to a single track.

Four miles of new track between Charlbury and Ascott-under-Wychwood was brought into use last month.

The remaining 16 miles, between Moreton-in-Marsh and Evesham, will be commissioned in late August.

For more information about the Cathedrals Express steam special, visit the Vintage Trains website or call 0121 708 4960.