Part of the Great Western Railway from Birmingham to Bristol.When did GWR lost ownership?

Question

I am looking for the dates when the railway was built, was it Broad Gauge? what connection did it have with the Glouscester and Warwickshire railway? Could one travel directly from Birmingham to Bristol?

Answer 1

The GWR never owned that line.

It was a Midland Railway route and was Standard Guage throughout.

The Midland line carried on serving a gasworks and through Clifton Down tunnel to Avonmouth and then ended at Severn Beach.

The old Bristol depot was Midland Road and the only bit of that which still survives is a siding for collection of the city's rubbish into big skip trains.

I remember seeing huge great concrete towers which used to lift 10 ton coal trucks and decant them into locomotives at Midland Road.

If you travel Brimingham to Bristol now it's via Cheltenham, Gloucester, Yate to Temple Meads.

Answer 2

The GWR didn't have a direct route from Birmingham to Bristol. The line ran via Stratford-upon-Avon, Honeybourne  and Cheltenham.(The Gloucester and Warwickshire railway to which you refer). Looking at my reprint of Bradshaw 1922, there were only 5 through trains a day by that route. The main Birmingham-Bristol route was via the Midland Railway which  used the route we know today but diverged at the southern end to reach Bristol via Mangotsfield. There were far more trains on that route (same source) than on the GWR. The GWR  route was very much a secondary route. The GWR did not loose the ownership of its lines until nationalisation in 1948. I believe the GWR line from Bristol to Gloucester was broad gauge. It met there with the Midland and the transhipment problems at that city were a very real problems and one of the reasons which led to Parliament settling on a national gauge of 4ft 8&1/2ins

Answer 3

More info:

The GWR built the "Honeybourne Line" from Cheltenham to Birmingham in the first decade of the 20th century to give it's own route into Birmingham.

This closed in the late 1970's but part of it lives on in the Gloucester and Warwickshire railway, which runs from Cheltenham Racecourse Station to Toddington.