caption: This is aa picture that I thought that I would never be able to take in the Twenty First Century, harking back the the era before express multiple unit trains. From 1977 - with Eastgate Station and the Tuffley Loop closed - trains once again had to make a three point turn at Gloucester station when travelling between north east and south west. The arrival of High Speed Trains in 1982 made the change of cabs for the train driver a simple formality but the alternative for more traditional engine-and-carriage trains was either running the locomotive round the rake or operating a relay as became the practice at Gloucester. This allowed a train to arrive at either Platforms 1 or 2 prior to the locomotive - a Class 45, 47 or 50 perhaps - being uncoupled. A second locomotive would then run from ``the hole'' - the siding being occupied by 45 112 here - and couple on to the back of the carriages ready to take the train out on the next stage of its journey - either north or south. The locomotive that had brought the train in would then move on to the hole and wait for the next arrival.
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