A Hereford to Gloucester train at the station, in 1958
The station was opened on 1 June 1855 by the Hereford, Ross and Gloucester Railway, four years after line had received parliamentary consent to be constructed. A line from Ross-on-Wye to Tewkesbury was authorised by parliament in 1856, but was never built.
On 29 July 1862, the line was amalgamated with the Great Western Railway and, in 1869, the line was converted from broad gauge to standard gauge in a five-day period. The wide door of the broad gauge engine shed was partially bricked up, leaving a standard gauge opening that remained for the life of the shed.[1] In 1873, the Ross and Monmouth Railway to Monmouth via Lydbrook was opened and it terminated at the station. The station then passed on to the Western Region of British Railways on nationalisation in 1948.
The lines to Ross closed in stages. On the Ross and Monmouth Railway, passenger services were withdrawn and the section from Lydbrook Junction to Monmouth Troy was closed on 5 January 1959. The remaining section remained open until 1 November 1965 for freight traffic only. The Hereford, Ross and Gloucester Railway closed to passengers on 2 November 1964 and the line south to the junction at Grange Court closed on 1 November 1965. The line going north to Rotherwas Junction and Hereford closed when passenger service were withdrawn in 1964.[2]
The Severn Valley Railway station at Kidderminster Town is based on the design for Ross-on-Wye even down to the decorative cast roof crestings; the patterns for which were derived from measurement of segments of the original ones.[3]
The former station yardA former Great Western Railway shed, now a garden centre
The brick built station building has been demolished and the site redeveloped into an industrial estate.[14] The brick goods and engine sheds still stand.
Parkhouse, Neil (2013). "6: The Ross & Monmouth Railway". West Gloucester & Wye Valley Lines. British Railway History In Colour. Vol.1. Lydney: Lightmoor Press. pp.167–200. ISBN9781899889 76 1.
Further reading
Mitchell, Vic; Smith, Keith (2008). Branch Lines around Ross-on-Wye. Middleton Press. figs. 26-43. ISBN9781906008307. OCLC370350430.
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