Hereford railway station

Hereford
Location
Place	Hereford
Local authority	Herefordshire
Coordinates	52°03′41″N 2°42′30″W / 52.0614°N 2.7083°WCoordinates: 52°03′41″N 2°42′30″W / 52.0614°N 2.7083°W
Grid reference	SO515405
Operations
Station code	HFD
Managed by	Arriva Trains Wales
Number of platforms	4
DfT category	C1
Live arrivals/departures, station information and onward connections from National Rail Enquiries
Annual rail passenger usage*
2010/11	1.017 million
2011/12	1.081 million
2012/13	1.086 million
2013/14	1.104 million
2014/15	1.193 [note 1] million
History
Original company	Shrewsbury and Hereford Railway
Pre-grouping	Shrewsbury and Hereford Railway
Post-grouping	Shrewsbury and Hereford Railway
6 December 1853	Opened as Hereford Barr's Court
1893	Renamed Hereford
National Rail – UK railway stations
* Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Hereford from Office of Rail and Road statistics. Methodology may vary year on year.
UK Railways portal

Hereford railway station serves the city of Hereford, England. Managed by Arriva Trains 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 London Midland service from Birmingham. The station has four platforms for passenger trains, and two additional relief lines for goods services.

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.

Barton (52°03′23″N 2°43′28″W / 52.0563°N 2.7245°W) 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 GWR-sponsored extension of the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton 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, in 1849 the S&HR built a brick works north of Dinmore Hill, which was fed by clay from the earthworks of digging a tunnel south underneath it. In 1852,  2 ¹⁄₂ years later and having used  3 ¹⁄₄ 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 Ct. station from the south, rendered Barton station obsolete, as through north-south services could now utilise the larger and better equipped Barrs Ct. 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 Ct., also remained until approximately this time.

The former branches to Brecon via Hay-on-Wye & 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
Legend
Welsh Marches Line (S&HR) Cotswold Line (OW&WR) Hereford, Hay & Brecon Rly Hereford Barrs Court Hereford Barton River Wye Rotherwas Junction Welsh Marches Line (NA&HR) Hereford, Ross & Gloucester Rly

Hereford, Ross and Gloucester Railway
Legend
Welsh Marches Line (S&HR) Cotswold Line (OW&WR) Hereford, Hay and Brecon Railway Hereford Barrs Court Hereford Barton River Wye Rotherwas Junction ROF Rotherwas Welsh Marches Line (NA&HR) Dinedor tunnel Holme Lacy Ballingham tunnel Ballingham River Wye (Ballingham Bridge) Fawley Tunnel Fawley River Wye Backney Halt River Wye Ross-on-Wye Ross and Monmouth Railway Weston under Penyard Halt Mitcheldean Road & Forest of Dean Junction Railway Mitcheldean Road Lea Line tunnel Longhope Blaisdon Halt Gloucester to Newport Line Grange Court Grange Court Junction Gloucester to Newport Line

Hereford is served by trains operated by Arriva Trains Wales, London Midland, and Great Western Railway. It is the terminus of the routes from Birmingham New Street & 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 & Cardiff Central (Mon-Sat) two-hourly to Wrexham General, Chester and Holyhead and less frequently to Oxford, Reading and London.^[10]

Bus Connections

• Sargeants of Kington

See also

• Herefordshire and Gloucestershire Canal

Notes

1. No explanation is offered by the Office of Rail and Road as to the 89,000 increase in numbers since the 2013/2014 statistics

References

1. "Award for rail station". Hereford Times. 29 January 2004. Retrieved 27 January 2007.
2. "Full steam ahead at railway station". Hereford Times. 6 March 2006. 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. 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. Retrieved 16 May 2016.
8. "Hereford, Hay-on-Wye and Brecon Railway"Pastscape; 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 & 131

External links

• Train times and station information for Hereford railway station from National Rail