STEAM and air power will combine in a special 50th birthday celebration on Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway (GWR).

A Spitfire aircraft, from the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, will fly low over GWR’s Toddington station at 3.15pm - weather permitting - on Saturday, August 8 to mark the 50th birthday of Black Prince, a locomotive that has been running on the Toddington-Winchcombe-Cheltenham heritage line for more than a decade.

GWR is inviting people to travel along the line to Toddington, for the fly-past, aboard the 2pm departure from its Cheltenham Racecourse station.

Anyone celebrating their 50th birthday this year will be able to travel aboard this train, to be hauled by Black Prince, for free provided they are accompanied by a fare-paying passenger and can show booking office staff they were born in 1959, the year the locomotive was constructed.

Aboard the train will be wildlife artist David Shepherd, who has owned Black Prince since buying the locomotive from British Railways in 1968.

The celebrations will continue on Thursday, August 20 when three World War II aircraft - a Spitfire, Hurricane and Lancaster bomber - will fly over Toddington station at 2pm, weather permitting.

That day will see TMC (The Model Centre), in conjunction with Dapol Model Railways, launch an ‘N’-gauge limited-edition model of Black Prince.

Only 150 of these models will be available and they will be sold in GWR’s shop, with proceeds going to the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation.