Worcester and Hereford Railway

The line was conceived chiefly as a through railway for passenger and goods trains; the local traffic remained thin.

The broad gauge interest promoted a different line joining the two cities, intending to keep the LNWR and its friends out of South Wales.

[2][3] The broad gauge line was thrown out; but at the time Parliament was suspicious of large groupings of railways in the hands of one dominant company, and it struck out all the clauses in the bill giving powers of subscribing for shares, or for working arrangements, by the LNWR or the Midland Railway.

The Worcester and Hereford Railway was therefore authorised, but left on its own, and it found itself unable to raise capital to build its line.

The first section was from Henwick (at Worcester but on the west side of the River Severn) to Malvern Link was opened on 25 July 1859.

When it was presented to the Board of Trade inspecting officer, he declined to sanction its use for passenger trains as the slender arches had too great a deflection.

[2]Friendly relations between the OW&WR and the NA&HR ripened into a proposed amalgamation, which would also purchase the Worcester and Hereford Company.

A bill for the purpose was introduced into the 1860 session of Parliament and eventually became enacted as the West Midland Railway Act 1860 (23 & 24 Vict.

[note 2] At the same time the Worcester and Hereford Railway ceased to exist, its undertaking having been absorbed by the new company.

It had the effect of physically connecting the two parts of the West Midland Railway: the former OW&WR and the former NA&HR.

It also provided a new through narrow (standard) gauge route between London and South Wales; this was important as most of the collieries in South Wales were on narrow gauge lines there, and transhipment of coal had been a major deterrent in conveying coal to London and Southampton over the GWR and its partners.

The 1895 Bradshaw shows six daily stopping trains, supplemented by three running from Worcester to Gloucester via Ledbury.

There were three daily North and West Expresses, generally with through coaches from Manchester, Liverpool and Birkenhead to Bristol and Cardiff.

In 1938 the local service was broadly similar, but with several additional journeys from Worcester to Malvern, shown as third class only, suggesting they were auto-trains.

By the late 1970s, there were relatively few through Birmingham trains, with the majority of those calling at most stations north of Stourbridge and very few using the direct Droitwich loop line between Worcester Foregate Street and Tunnel Junction, all of which made most end-to-end journey times very uncompetitive.

Apart from these and the remaining through London trains, most services on the line ran just between Worcester Shrub Hill and Hereford, calling at all stations.