The Hereford, Ross & Gloucester Railway (SMR 21729)

On the 1st of June, 1855, Hereford celebrated as the Hereford, Ross & Gloucester Railway was opened using Isambard Kingdom Brunel's broad gauge system.

The line was 22.5 miles long from the Grange Court Junction in the Forest of Dean. On the 11th July, 1853, the line opened between Grange Court Junction and Hopesbrook and Hopesbrook to Hereford opened on the 1st of June, 1855.

Four tunnels were built on this line. The tunnel at Lea was 771 yards long, Fawley 540 yards, Ballingham 1,210 yards and Dinedor 110 yards long. There were also four viaducts over the River Wye, each one made of timber on stone piers with 6 openings 44ft wide.

The First Train enters Ross.

The official opening day of this line was the 1st of June, 1855, but the line had been vigorously tested the day before by an engine weighing 50 tons that ran from Gloucester to Hereford and back.

On the opening day a special train was run from London, which carried representatives of the Great Western Railway and which picked up local directors at Gloucester. 150 passengers left Gloucester Station at 8am and the train arrived in Hereford at 9.25am, having made a brief stop at Ross at 8.50am.

The engine of the train carried the Union Jack on its funnel. 5,000 people came to meet the train when it stopped at Ross and although it stayed only a few minutes, the children of Ross were paraded to catch a glimpse of the train. The procession was headed by the Ross Band and 8 boys carried an enormous tea urn beneath a canopy of evergreens and flowers. On top of this were the flags of the allied countries in the Crimean War: England, France, Turkey and Sardinia.

Ross Station in the 1900's © Mary Sinclair-Powell at Ross Heritage Centre

Nearly 2,000 children sat down to a celebratory tea, which was provided in the goods station. In half an hour more than one quarter of a ton of plum cake and 180 gallons of tea was eaten and it was finished by singing the National Anthem. A public tea was held in the Town Hall for 200 people, followed by a ball for 150 couples, who danced until the early hours of the morning.

There was also a ball at the Swan Hotel for 60 couples, and a dinner at the Royal Oak Inn for 50 navvies who had worked on the railway line nearby. During the evening 3 balloons were sent up, canons fired and fireworks let off.

The Train Arrives at Hereford.

The train eventually arrived in Hereford at 9.25am and the city had been decorated with flags and banners celebrating the opening of the new line. In the morning the church bells rang and crowds assembled to see the procession.

A notice in the Hereford Times of the 25th May 1855, had announced that the engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel and the partners of the new line Mr Thomas Brassey, Sir Morton Peto Bart MP and Edward L Betts would be present at a public dinner in the Assembly Room of the Green Dragon. The dinner was to begin at 3pm and tickets cost 10s 6d. Unfortunately letters of apology were sent from Thomas Brassey, Morton Peto, Betts and Brunel, so none of the partners or engineers were actually present on the day.

At the dinner there were the usual speeches and toasts to the Queen and her family and the prosperity of the railways. At the same time that the public dinner was being held the navvies were being treated to a dinner in the large carriage shed at the station, and the band was given a meal at the Kerry Arms. Other pubs and hotels in the city advertised their services for the travellers and those who had come to celebrate the opening of the new line.

There was a full dress ball in the Shire Hall, which was catered for by Messrs Bosley of the Green Dragon and a Mr Smyth of the City Arms Hotel in Broad Street (now Barclays Bank) supplied the wine. The ball went on into the early hours of the next morning. Another ball was held in the Old Town Hall where the upper middle classes could mix and celebrate.

Gauge Conversion.

On July 29th, 1862 the line was amalgamated with the Great Western Railway who agreed to work it for 60% of the receipts. In 1869 the line was used as a guinea pig for its programme of gauge conversion.

The Hereford, Ross & Gloucester line was one of the first to adopt a gauge conversion from broad to standard gauge in 1869. It took 5 days to convert the 21.5 miles of track, with the lines closing on the 15th August, but coaches were run to ensure passengers could still get to their destinations.

The track was divided up into 4 mile sections and then subdivided into quarter mile sections, each entrusted to a gang of about 20 platelayers, most sections were completed in under 4 hours. A broad gauge train would drop the gang off at the various points along the line and then travel to the end of that days section. At the end of the day a narrow gauge train would pick the men up and travel to the point where the broad gauge train had stopped, ready for the next days work.

The staff at Ross Station: 1907-1910? ©B.Maggs of Bath and W.H.Smith

Eventually under the Beeching Plan (Dr Beeching was the chairman of the British Transport System in the 1960's) the Gloucester to Hereford line was closed on the 2nd November, 1964, which meant that the line from Hereford to Ross closed entirely, the goods line from Grange Court Junction to Ross to Lydebrook Junction closed on the 1st November, 1965.

MG