Gloucester station needs an east-facing bay platform

[whole diary]

[Mark A]

A very infrequent user** of Gloucester station writes...

An accident of history has stranded what is called 'platform 1' in a remote location - unfortunately, while Gloucester has had track laid here there and everywhere, there doesn't ever seem to have been a platform face on the 'south side' of the current long platform, as that would probably have been retained. As there was nothing there to retain, has building one been considered? The current arrangement isn't really fit for purpose.

Photo shows the view to the train from near the ticket gateline.

Mark

**Perhaps three times, ever.

[Image from here is not available to guests]

[Witham Bobby]

[Image from here is not available to guests]

That garden in and around the middle roads is going to look lovely, come summer

[Mark A]

Ah, the middle roads. By the time I returned to the station my phone's battery had collapsed, so, no photo of the Class 37 loco that burbled slowly through the station beneath the late afternoon sun, or a photo of the train for Westbury, waiting in that distant 'Platform 1' with the last of its passengers making their way along the tarmac towards it.

The shelter there is at the point at which passengers would once have found the long (in several senses - of considerable length and also long-gone) footbridge to Eastgate. The shelter itself does not appear to be a relic of those days, mind.

Mark

[grahame]

The shelter there is at the point at which passengers would once have found the long (in several senses - of considerable length and also long-gone) footbridge to Eastgate. The shelter itself does not appear to be a relic of those days, mind.

Old map follow ... I was there on Monday and took the opportunity to take a look at the new subway too.

One - wonders - if platform 1 should be renamed "Gloucester Road" but then that might lead to confusion.

[Mark A]

Thanks for the photos. Going 'Full maps.nls.uk' for a moment, I'd not realised that the... avoiding line... was out of use completely at one point, to the extent that the track was lifted. I'm puzzled as to the benefit to the Midland Railway from that. Also, the 25" map is good enough to record the position of the 'T station' by name, even though by that time it was on no railway at all.

(Side by side comparison of the 25" to the mile from the 1880s and 1:2500 from the nineteen fifties.)

Mark

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/side-by-side/#zoom=14.8&lat=51.86163&lon=-2.23123&layers=178&right=258

[rogerw]

The avoiding line is off the map.
The walk to platform 1 is very unattractive, especially in inclement weather. In addition the short canopy is badly located away from the point where trains stop

[Mark A]

If anyone needs a more-than-excellent walk-through of the Gloucester and Cheltenham Tramroad, this from one Roger Farnworth would be difficult to top. (It's reminded me that the rail approach to Gloucester Station involved a flat crossing of the tramroad.)

Mark


https://rogerfarnworth.com/2020/04/23/the-cheltenham-and-gloucester-tramroad-part-1/

[IndustryInsider]

An extra south facing platform (or two) at Cheltenham should be way higher up the list IMHO^▸ ('in my humble opinion').