Hereford railway station

Hereford railway station serves the city of Hereford, England. Managed by Transport for Wales, it lies on the Welsh Marches Line between Leominster and Abergavenny, is the western terminus of the Cotswold Line and also has an hourly West Midlands Trains service from Birmingham New Street. The station has four platforms for passenger trains and two additional relief lines for goods services.

Hereford
LocationHereford, Herefordshire
England, United Kingdom
Coordinates52°03′41″N 2°42′30″W
Grid referenceSO515405
Managed byTransport for Wales
Platforms4
Other information
Station codeHFD
ClassificationDfT category C1
History
Original companyShrewsbury and Hereford Railway
Pre-groupingShrewsbury and Hereford Railway
Post-groupingShrewsbury and Hereford Railway
Key dates
6 December 1853 (1853-12-06)Opened as Hereford Barr's Court
1893Renamed Hereford
Passengers
2015/16 1.226 million
2016/17 1.228 million
2017/18 1.240 million
2018/19 1.216 million
 Interchange  57,141
2019/20 1.194 million
 Interchange  51,354
Notes
Passenger statistics from the Office of Rail and Road

Accorded 'Secure Station' status in 2004,[1] the station has a staffed ticket office, self-service ticket machines, a café and indoor waiting rooms. Automated ticket barriers have been in operation since 28 February 2006.[2]

History

There were originally two stations in Hereford: Barton and Barrs Court.

Hereford Barton (52.0563°N 2.7245°W / 52.0563; -2.7245 (Hereford Barton railway station)) lay to the west of the city and had been built by the Newport, Abergavenny and Hereford Railway (NA&HR). However, Barton was small and in a cramped location, and was not big enough nor could it be enlarged for the greater traffic that would entail from the arrival of the Shrewsbury and Hereford Railway from the north.

The resolution was an agreement to create a new joint railway station to the north-east of the city, called Hereford Barrs Court. This would be a joint standard gauge/broad gauge station, sponsored jointly by the standard-gauge Shrewsbury & Hereford Railway (S&HR) and the GWR-sponsored Hereford, Ross and Gloucester Railway (HR&GR). When the Midland Railway sponsored Hereford, Hay and Brecon Railway entered the town, they were given access rights, as was the later Worcester and Hereford Railway,[3] which joined the S&HR's route to the north of the city at Shelwick Junction.

In civil engineering preparation for this, and as the only company planning to enter the town from the north, the S&HR built a brick works north of Dinmore Hill in 1849, which was fed by clay from the earthworks of digging a tunnel south underneath it. In 1852, 2 12 years later and having used 3 14 million bricks the tunnel was completed, freight traffic started in July 1852 to provide cash flow. However, construction continued, with the massive earthworks for a cutting to enter Barrs Court started in August 1852.[3]

The plan was to jointly open both stations between all four railways on 6 December 1853, with what was planned to be a Railway Fete. However, the first S&HR passenger service arrived at Barrs Ct. on Saturday 28 October, which carried the chairman Mr Ormsby-Gore and engineer Thomas Brassey.[3] As the negotiations and financing of the joint station had taken so long, they arrived at an incomplete facility.[4] Whilst completion of the station would follow shortly after, significant rebuilding would occur later in the nineteenth century, when the current Victorian Gothic buildings, designed by R.E. Johnson,[5] would be constructed.[2] The station opened on 6 December 1853, and the name was simplified to Hereford in 1893 on the closure of Barton station to passengers.[6]

2-6-0 on pilot duty in 1959

In 1866, a line connecting the NA&HR's route to the south of the city, branching off from the line to Barton at Redhill and joining with the HR&GR's route into Barrs Court station from the south, rendered Barton station obsolete, as through north-south services could now utilise the larger and better equipped Barrs Court station. However, Barton clung onto passenger services until January 1893,[7] the last services to use it being Midland Railway trains to Hay-on-Wye and Brecon. It would remain open as a goods only station until 1979, and the route through it from north to south, used as a goods only line to avoid Barrs Court, also remained until approximately this time.

The former branches to Brecon via Hay-on-Wye and Gloucester both closed to passenger traffic in the early 1960s; Brecon services were withdrawn from 31 December 1962,[8] whilst the Gloucester via Ross-on-Wye line fell victim to the Beeching Axe on 2 November 1964.[9]

Services

Railways in Hereford
Hereford Barrs Court
Hereford Barton
Rotherwas Junction
Hereford, Ross
and Gloucester Railway
Hereford Barrs Court
Hereford Barton
Rotherwas Junction
ROF Rotherwas
Dinedor tunnel
Holme Lacy
Ballingham tunnel
Ballingham
Fawley Tunnel
Fawley
River Wye
Backney Halt
Ross-on-Wye
Weston under Penyard Halt
Mitcheldean Road
Lea Line tunnel
Longhope
Blaisdon Halt
Grange Court
Grange Court Junction

Hereford is served by trains operated by Great Western Railway, Transport for Wales and West Midlands Trains. It is the terminus of the routes from Birmingham New Street and London Paddington via Worcester Foregate Street and is served by all trains on the Manchester Piccadilly to Cardiff and Carmarthen route. Trains run hourly to Birmingham, Manchester, Shrewsbury and Cardiff Central (Mon-Sat), two-hourly to Wrexham General, Chester and Holyhead and less frequently to Oxford, Reading and London.[10]

Preceding station National Rail Following station
Abergavenny   Transport for Wales
Welsh Marches Line
  Leominster
Abergavenny   Transport for Wales
North-South "Premier" service
  Ludlow
Terminus   West Midlands Railway
Hereford to Birmingham
  Ledbury
  West Midlands Railway
Hereford to Dorridge
 
  Great Western Railway
Cotswold Line
 
  Historical railways  
Holme Lacy   Hereford, Ross and Gloucester Railway
British Railways
  Terminus

See also

References

  1. "Award for rail station". Hereford Times. 29 January 2004. Archived from the original on 28 September 2007. Retrieved 27 January 2007.
  2. "Full steam ahead at railway station". Hereford Times. 6 March 2006. Archived from the original on 28 September 2007. Retrieved 27 January 2007.
  3. "Hereford and the railways". archenfield.com. Retrieved 8 January 2010.
  4. Cavalcade of a Century, 1832-1932, 100 years of the Hereford Times. Hereford Record Office - BH74.
  5. Marks, R.; Farnworth, R. (27 January 2007). "Hereford Barrs Court". The Railway Station Gallery. Archived from the original on 18 May 2007. Retrieved 27 January 2007.
  6. Butt, R.V.J. (1995). The Directory of Railway Stations. Yeovil: Patrick Stephens Ltd. p. 118. ISBN 1-85260-508-1. R508.
  7. "Herefordshire through time". Herefordshire through time. 16 May 2016. Archived from the original on 3 June 2016. Retrieved 16 May 2016.
  8. "Hereford, Hay-on-Wye and Brecon Railway" Archived 2 February 2017 at the Wayback MachinePastscape; Retrieved 25 August 2016
  9. "Ross-on-Wye- The Railway, The Decline"Ross-on-Wye.com; retrieved 25 August 2016
  10. GB eNRT December 2015 Edition, Tables 71, 126 and 131

Further reading

  • Mitchell, Vic; Smith, Keith (2004). Worcester to Hereford. West Sussex: Middleton Press. figs. 112-120. ISBN 9781904474388. OCLC 862604858.
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