Stroud Wallgate railway station

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Stroud Wallgate railway station served the town of Stroud, in Gloucestershire, England. The station was on a short 2 km-long branch from Dudbridge on the Stonehouse and Nailsworth Railway, part of the Midland Railway. It was not connected to the earlier and still used Stroud railway station on the Great Western Railway.

Dudbridge had opened as "Dudbridge for Stroud" with the Stonehouse and Nailsworth Railway in 1867.[1] The railway was quickly taken over by the Midland, whose main line between Bristol and Gloucester it joined at Stonehouse. In 1885, the Midland Railway built a short branch line from Dudbridge to a new station at Stroud. The new line opened for goods traffic in 1885 and for passengers the following year.

The station at Stroud was perched on a high embankment above the Thames and Severn Canal. The building was wooden and was described at the opening to passenger traffic as "temporary", though it lasted throughout the station's life and beyond. Goods traffic was always more important than passenger traffic at the station, and there was a large goods yard to the east of the passenger platforms.[2]

The station was latterly known as Stroud Wallgate, but the April 1910 edition of Bradshaw's Railway Guide refers to it as "Stroud Cheapside". That 1910 timetable shows the journey between Dudbridge and Stroud taking an average of five minutes, with less than 10 trains a day, a few of them directly running to or from Stonehouse.[3]

The Stonehouse and Nailsworth Railway, along with the rest of the Midland Railway, became part of the London Midland and Scottish Railway at the 1923 Grouping. Passenger services were suspended on the line as an economy measure to save fuel in June 1947, and were officially withdrawn from 8 June 1949. Stroud Wallgate remained open for goods traffic until 1966, though much of the freight had transferred to the former Great Western station. The station buildings at Stroud Wallgate have now been demolished and are covered by the town's ring road.

[edit] Services

Preceding station Disused railways Following station
Dudbridge
Line and station closed		   Midland Railway
Stonehouse and Nailsworth Railway		   Terminus


[edit] References

  1. ^ Mike Oakley. Gloucestershire Railway Stations, 2003, Dovecote Press, Wimborne, pp64–65. 
  2. ^ Mike Oakley. Gloucestershire Railway Stations, 2003, Dovecote Press, Wimborne, Dorset, p129. 
  3. ^ Bradshaw's April 1910 Railway Guide, 1968 reprint, David and Charles, Newton Abbot, page 606. 
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