Gloucester railway station (formerly known as Gloucester Central station) is a railway station serving the city of Gloucester in England. The station was originally built as the terminus of the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway in 1840,but the arrival of the (broad gauge) Bristol and Gloucester Railway and Cheltenham and Great Western Union Railway in 1844,and then conversion to a through station for the South Wales Railway in 1851 resulted in a very complex layout. Subsequent closures and rationalisation have left Gloucester with a station that is located off the main Bristol-Birmingham line,meaning Great Western Railway services must reverse,while CrossCountry and Transport for Wales services continue to Newport.
A 1910 Railway Clearing House map of railways in the vicinity of Gloucester (shown here as G.W. STA)
The railway development at Gloucester was very complex involving four different railway companies and five distinct railway stations. The first company to open was the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway,which was a standard gauge line opening 4 November 1840.[1] This line from Cheltenham was built by the Birmingham and Gloucester railway on a formation built by the Cheltenham and Great Western Union Railway (see below). The first station was a terminus built on land near the cattle market. This was seen as a temporary structure to be replaced by a more permanent structure nearer the docks when more finance was available,but this never happened and this structure determined the site of the station today.
At the same time as the C&GWU opened,the Bristol and Gloucester Railway also opened a broad gauge line from Bristol to Standish Junction a few miles south of Gloucester,and shared the tracks of the C&GWU into Gloucester station. In 1845,the Midland Railway,which had already bought the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway,also absorbed the Bristol and Gloucester Railway.[3] Similarly,the Great Western Railway had taken over the C&GWU,which resulted in a jointly-owned (MR &GWR),mixed-gauge station from which trains ran on shared mixed-gauge track both northwards and southwards from Gloucester.
In 1847,the GWR opened the Cheltenham Loop line which completed the triangle junction east of the station. This allowed GWR trains to avoid the reversal at Gloucester,but so as to allow GWR passengers to access Gloucester,a link line was built to a station on the loop called the Gloucester T station. Carriages were detached from trains at the T station,turned on turntables and taken into the main Gloucester station. This operation was not very successful and so was abandoned,along with the loop line,in 1851. Hereafter,GWR trains from London to Cheltenham continued to reverse at the main station,a practice that continues to this day.
On 19 September 1851,the Gloucester and Dean Forest Railway and the South Wales Railway opened a line southwestwards from Gloucester towards the Forest of Dean,Chepstow and South Wales. A new,2-platform through-station was built immediately north of the existing station,although this was rebuilt in 1855 with a longer,single platform after it was found the original station was too small.[4]
On 22 May 1854, the Midland Railway opened a new, standard gauge railway between Gloucester and Standish Junction, thus avoiding running on the ex-CGWU line into Gloucester. This new line paralleled the old route as far as Tuffley, where the Tuffley Loop swung into Gloucester and looped back onto the main Bristol-to-Birmingham line. The MR also rebuilt the old 1840 station, lengthening platforms and adding new buildings, but because this was still a terminus and the Tuffley Loop headed eastwards, trains still had to reverse in and out of the station. This anomaly was not sorted out for another 40 years until the MR opened a new station on 12 April 1896, south-east of the existing station, on the Tuffley Loop.[5] The old station was demolished, to be replaced by sidings, and the new MR station was linked to the GWR station by a 250-yards-long, covered footbridge.
In 1901, the Cheltenham Loop, now known as 'the Gloucester avoiding line', was re-instated, primarily for goods traffic, but also for passengers from 1908. Between 1914 and 1920, the GWR station was expanded with a second long platform north of the running lines, two centre tracks for through movements and bay platforms. The two main platforms were also split in two with a scissors crossing in the middle. In 1951, the Western station was renamed Gloucester Central and the Midland station renamed Gloucester Eastgate to avoid confusion.
The station in 1962Two 0-4-2Ts employed on the auto-train service to Chalford in 1962View towards Birmingham in 1968
By the mid-1960s, plans were floated to rationalise the stations - the 1914 upside platform at Gloucester Central was reduced to a parcels-only platform and Gloucester Eastgate was reduced to two platforms. There was also a proposal for an entirely new station on the triangular junction east of the existing stations, to avoid the troublesome reversals, but this was not taken further. Even then, although the through-platforms of Gloucester Eastgate on the Bristol-Birmingham (former Midland Railway) line avoided the still-current problems with trains having to reverse direction, it was seen as a hindrance because the Tuffley Loop line had five level crossings, which caused a lot of traffic problems in town. Therefore, in 1975, Gloucester Eastgate and the Tuffley Loop line were closed and all operations were concentrated at Gloucester Central.[5] This station was redeveloped and re-opened in 1977 with new station buildings and an extended platform at 1977ft, long enough to take two Inter-City 125 trains then being introduced to the Western Region.[1] In 1984, the 1914 parcels platform was brought back into use as a passenger platform and a new footbridge was opened to provide access.
On New Year's Eve 2010, a fire broke out in the booking office due to arson and the ground floor was severely damaged.[6] The booking office was closed for over a year while the station was refurbished and a temporary ticket office was erected to the right of the entrance. In May 2013, the new booking office was reopened by Richard Graham, MP for Gloucester[7] and new lifts were installed. Further redevelopment is being planned after complaints that the station does not give a good impression for visitors to the city.[8]
In September 2015, Gloucester Railway Station was the first to sign up to a football style card system for dealing with constant trouble makers.[9]
William Orton 1891 - 1901[19] (formerly station master at Redditch)
Richard William Mapp 1902 - 1903[19] (formerly station master at Belper, afterwards station master at Leicester)
John Henry Garton 1903[19] - 1908 (formerly station master at Kettering)
H.L. Bailey 1908 - 1925[20] (formerly station master at Bath)
William Hardy 1925 - 1927 (formerly station master at Willenhall, afterwards station master at Lincoln)
James Davies 1927[21] - 1928 (formerly station master at Bath)
Douglas Harold Day 1928 - 1931[22] (afterwards station master at Stoke on Trent)
Walter James Burfitt 1931 - 1938
Harry James King 1938[23] - 1946[24] (formerly station master at Evesham)
Alfred John Pickthorne 1946 - 1950
Description
At 1,977feet 4inches (602.69m), Gloucester has the second-longest platform in the UK— the longest is Colchester's platform at 2034ft (620m), albeit Gloucester has the longest unbroken platform, as Colchester's is two different physical platforms. The platform was lengthened as part of the 1977 rebuilding by British Rail and was intended to handle two InterCity 125 trains at the same time. These trains were put into service on the Western RegionLondon Paddington to Cheltenham Spa services at this time and all services were handled by the same platform.
The ticket office just inside the station entrance is open for most of the day, seven days a week. There is a Costa Coffee outlet on the main concourse of the station.
Planned redevelopment
In 2018, the government approved a £3.75 million redesign of the station with the backing of GFirst and Gloucester City Council but the funds were unavailable until April 2020. In February 2019, the council began a £425,000 redesign of the station. The project includes a new underpass and access, redesigned forecourt and cladding.[25][26]
Exeter St Davids is the principal railway station serving the city of Exeter in Devon, England. It is 193 miles 72 chains from the zero point at London Paddington on the line through Bristol which continues to Plymouth and Penzance. It is also served by an alternative route to London Waterloo via Salisbury and branch lines to Exmouth, Barnstaple, and Okehampton. It is currently managed by Great Western Railway and is served by trains operated by Great Western Railway, South Western Railway and CrossCountry.
The Birmingham and Gloucester Railway (B&GR) was the first name of the railway linking the cities in its name and of the company which pioneered and developed it; the line opened in stages in 1840, using a terminus at Camp Hill in Birmingham. It linked with the Bristol and Gloucester Railway in Gloucester, but at first that company's line was broad gauge, and Gloucester was a point of the necessary but inconvenient transhipment of goods and passengers onto 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in gauge that became the national standard. Nearly all of the original main line remains active as a "trunk" route, also known as an arterial route or line.
Cheltenham Spa railway station is a railway station serving Cheltenham in Gloucestershire, England. Situated on the Bristol-Birmingham main line, it is managed by Great Western Railway and is about one mile from the town centre. The official name of the town is simply Cheltenham, but, when the station was renamed in 1925, the London, Midland and Scottish Railway chose to add Spa to the station name. The station is a key regional interchange and is the fifth busiest rail station in South West England.
Ashchurch for Tewkesbury is a railway station serving the North Gloucestershire and South Worcestershire Area from the outskirts of Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire, England. The station is located less than 1⁄4 mile (400 m) from junction 9 of the M5 motorway and located on the main Bristol–Birmingham main line 7+1⁄4 miles (11.7 km) north of Cheltenham Spa and was opened on 1 June 1997 by Railtrack. There are regular bus connections from the station to Tewkesbury town centre, which is located two miles to the west. Apart from a few peak journeys on service 41/42, there are no bus connections in the opposite direction from Tewkesbury to Ashchurch.
Gloucester Eastgate railway station was a station in Gloucester, England, used by trains from Birmingham to Bristol. Originally the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway used a terminus station roughly on the site of the current Gloucester station car park.
Stroud railway station is a railway station that serves the town of Stroud in Gloucestershire, England. Stroud railway station was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel.
Kemble railway station is a railway station that serves the village of Kemble in Gloucestershire, England. The station is on the Swindon to Gloucester "Golden Valley" line. Despite its rural location, Kemble station has a high number of passengers, due mainly to the proximity of Cirencester.
The Birmingham and Bristol Railway was a short-lived railway company, formed in 1845 by the merger of the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway and the Bristol and Gloucester Railway.
Cam and Dursley railway station is a railway station serving the village of Cam and the town of Dursley in Gloucestershire, England. It is located on the main Bristol-Birmingham line, between Yate and Gloucester, at a site close to where Coaley Junction railway station was situated from 1856 to 1965.
Kings Norton railway station serves the Kings Norton and Cotteridge areas of Birmingham, England. It lies on the Cross-City Line from Redditch and Bromsgrove through Birmingham New Street to Lichfield. The station's main entrance is located on Pershore Road South, the A441.
The Bristol and Gloucester Railway was a railway company opened in 1844 to run services between Bristol and Gloucester. It was built on the 7 ftBrunel gauge, but it was acquired in 1845 by the 4 ft 8+1⁄2 instandard gauge Midland Railway, which also acquired the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway at the same time.
Swindon railway station is on the Great Western Main Line in South West England, serving the town of Swindon, Wiltshire. It is 77 miles 23 chains down the line from the zero point at London Paddington and is situated between Didcot Parkway and Chippenham on the main line. It is managed by Great Western Railway, which also operates all the trains.
Barnt Green railway station serves the village of Barnt Green, North Worcestershire, England. It is situated 9+1⁄2 miles (15.3 km) south west of Birmingham New Street. The station, and all trains serving it, are operated by West Midlands Trains.
Droitwich Spa railway station serves the town of Droitwich Spa in Worcestershire, England. It is located just to the south-west of Droitwich Spa Junction of the Worcester to Leamington Spa Line and the Worcester to Birmingham New Street line. The station is managed by West Midlands Trains, who also operate all trains serving it.
Toddington railway station serves the village of Toddington in Gloucestershire, England. Since 1984 it has been the main base of operations for the heritage Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway.
The Cheltenham and Great Western Union Railway was a railway company intended to link Cheltenham, Gloucester and Swindon, in England. It was authorised in 1836 but it found it very hard to raise money for the construction, and it opened only a part of its line, between Swindon and Cirencester, in 1841. It sold its business to the Great Western Railway, which quickly built the line through to Gloucester in 1845 and Cheltenham in 1847; part of that route was shared with other companies.
Dursley railway station served the town of Dursley in Gloucestershire, England, and was the terminus of the short Dursley and Midland Junction Railway line which linked the town to the Midland Railway's Bristol to Gloucester line at Coaley Junction.
Cam railway station served the village of Cam in Gloucestershire, England. The station was on the short Dursley and Midland Junction Railway line which linked the town of Dursley to the Midland Railway's Bristol to Gloucester line at Coaley Junction.
Brimscombe was opened on 1 June 1845 on what is now the Golden Valley Line between Kemble and Stroud in Gloucestershire. This line was opened in 1845 as the Cheltenham and Great Western Union Railway from Swindon to Gloucester, and this station opened 3 weeks after the general opening of the line, originally as "Brimscomb". The station was renamed as "Brimscomb near Chalford" in June 1865 and finally to Brimscombe on 2 August 1897.
Blackwell railway station was a railway station serving Blackwell in the English county of Worcestershire.
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