Gloucester Midland Lines Part 3: South Stonehouse to Westerleigh

In 1845, the Midland Railway, formed only a year earlier, outflanked and outbid the GWR for the purchase of the Birmingham & Gloucester and Bristol & Gloucester railways, who themselves had just agreed to amalgamate as the Birmingham & Bristol Railway. As a result, the railway map of Gloucestershire was to have a Midland red spine, with an important and busy main line running through the county from Ashchurch in the north to Yate in the south and with numerous branches breaking off from it. Volume 4B begins back on the main line at Stonehouse and follows it all the way to Westerleigh West Junction, where it joins the ex-GWR 'Badminton Line', passing the long closed stations at Frocester, Coaley, Berkeley Road, Charfield and Wickwar on the way, as well as the original station at Yate which has since re-opened but as a completely new build. The pictures range from circa 1959 to 1975, illustrating the end of the steam age, the dawn of the diesel age and the start of the BR blue years in colour.