Gloucester to Swindon & Branches Pt 1: Gloucester to Stroud

The broad gauge line from Swindon to Kemble (and on to Cirencester) opened in May 1841 but it was not until June 1845 that the Great Western Railway were able to complete the line then to Standish, from where it used Bristol & Gloucester Railway metals to reach Gloucester. Here, the Midland Railway terminus was shared to begin with, the GWR finally opening their own station on the line through the city to South Wales in September 1851. Gloucester’s status as a major railway centre had begun. The GWR station became Gloucester Central under British Railways and the first section of this volume covers it in detail, the infrastructure and the varied traffic on view on a daily basis. We then take an extended tour of Horton Road shed and its facilities, showing many of the locomotives that resided here, before exploring all three sides of the Gloucester triangle. After that we head south to Standish Junction, where the Western lines are illustrated and then followed to Stonehouse and finally Stroud.