Gloucester railway station 4.11

Gloucester railway 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 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 rationalization have left Gloucester with a station that is located off the main Bristol-Birmingham line, meaning trains that call at Gloucester usually have to reverse. Only trains that continue along the Gloucester to Newport Line do not have to reverse.HistoryThe railway development at Gloucester was very complex involving four different railway companies and five distinct railway stations. The first company onto the scene was the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway, which was a standard gauge line opening 4 November 1840. 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.