Gloucester Midland Lines Part 2: South: Eastgate to Stroud and Nailsworth

In 1845, the Midland Railway, formed only a year earlier, outflanked and outbid the Great Western Railway for the purchase of the Birmingham & Gloucester and Bristol & Gloucester railways, who themselves had just agreed to amalgamate as the Birmingham & Bristol Railway. As a result, the railway map of Gloucestershire was to have a Midland red spine, with an important and busy main line running through the county from Ashchurch in the north to Yate in the south and with numerous branches breaking off from it. It also served to turn Gloucester in to one of the country\u2019s great railway centres of the steam age, where the Midland had a separate station, goods yards, dock system and locomotive shed. Having covered the Midland lines in the north of the county in Volume 3 of this series, Volume 4 was intended to cover the lines south from Gloucester Eastgate but, again, the sheer quantity of material has necessitated splitting the book in two as Volumes 4A and 4B. However, t.