The Birmingham and Gloucester Railway (B&GR) was the first name of the railway linking the cities in its name and of the company which pioneered and developed it; the line opened in stages in 1840, using a terminus at Camp Hill in Birmingham. It linked with the Bristol and Gloucester Railway in Gloucester, but at first that company's line was broad gauge, and Gloucester was a point of the necessary but inconvenient transhipment of goods and passengers onto that became the national standard. Nearly all of the original main line remains active as a trunk route, also known as an arterial line.
Its main line incorporated the Lickey Incline of track climbing a 1-in-37 (2.7%) gradient, northbound (and descending in the other). The climb was a significant challenge for many heavy loads and less powerful engines during the era of steam traction.
Having attracted its own patronage and capital, and accomplished the full transformation and use of land, buildings, labour force, and rolling stock, it was acquired by the Midland Railway in 1846.
First proposals The idea for a railway line between Bristol and Birmingham was put forward during the construction of the Stockton and Darlington Railway. 78,000 tons of goods were conveyed from Birmingham to Bristol annually, a journey that took nearly a week, and the cost of the journey was high. At a meeting in Bristol on 13 December 1824 subscriptions were taken for a proposed Bristol, Northern and Western Railway. Investors, among which wealthy venture capitalists, were enthusiasts of the scheme and before the fund promoters' prospectus meeting closed, all the 16,000 shares allocated to Bristol were taken up. A further 9,000 shares were created, the subscription fee and paying-up of which was allocated to other locations, and the total amounted to £1.25 million (equivalent to £ million in ), in an era when cheap and plentiful labourers' and professional work would have enabled the construction of thousands of houses or road modifications (e.g. regular bridges) for such a sum. The company surveyed the route in 1825 but there was a financial crisis in 1826 in which investors asked for the project to be suspended, which the company did.
In 1832 the company advanced a new scheme; Isambard Kingdom Brunel was asked to survey a cheap route between Birmingham and Gloucester. He avoided the barrier of the Lickey Hills and his maximum gradient would have been 1 in 300. This scheme too failed to make progress due to lack of funds.
Birmingham and Gloucester Railway proposed The idea was revived when in 1834 Captain W. S. Moorsom was engaged to survey a route; once again economy was considered to be essential, and his route avoided large towns thus lowered cost of the land. Bypassed townspeople expressed disappointment and Cheltenham was particularly vocal. Moorsom modified his intended route to provide it a station, but that was not considered convenient for the centre of the town, and a branch line was proposed. When the B&GR promoters refused to contemplate the expense of that, Pearson Thompson, a prominent Cheltenham resident and a member of the Gloucester Committee of the B&GR, offered to build it himself at his own expense.
Around Birmingham local politics and geographic factors proved easier; a connection to the London and Birmingham Railway close to the nascent city was agreed, moreover, L&BR agreed to shared use of their Curzon Street station on payment of a toll. As well as giving a direct connection to London, and over the Grand Junction Railway to the north west of England, this avoided the expense of constructing a new terminus in the city.
Moorsom estimated the cost of construction to be £920,000. Moorsom's route did climb the Lickey Ridge directly, involving a long climb. This was divided into two sections: at 1 in 54 worked by a stationary engine, and at 1 in 36 worked by a machine. there was also to be an inclined plane at Gloucester to reach a goods depot at the canal, and another at the connecting line to the L&BR in Birmingham, at 1 in 84.
In the 1836 session of Parliament, the Cheltenham and Great Western Union Railway's plans were likewise considered, and between Gloucester and Cheltenham the two companies proposed almost identical routing. They came to an arrangement by which they would collaborate in the construction. The line between Gloucester and Cheltenham was to be divided, the Cheltenham end being built by the Birmingham company and the Gloucester end by the C&GWUR. Each would build one of the stations and both would have freedom to run over the whole line and use both the stations. The means of dealing with the complexity of the different gauges was not fully specified at first.
A functional plateway tramroad ran between the two: the Gloucester and Cheltenham Tramroad that opened in 1810. As well as connecting the two, it had an important branch to quarries at Leckhampton, in the hills south of Cheltenham and terminus at the Gloucester docks. Stone for house building was in demand at the time. Acquisition of the tramroad was sought by the B&GR and the C&GWUR; its alignment was unsuitable for a main line railway but its dock trade and access were very attractive. The collaborative approach to building the new main line extended to the issue of acquiring the tramroad, and it was agreed to do so jointly, for the sum of £35,000.
Authorisation
At this stage the line was conceived as a toll railway (on which independent carriers would run trains, paying the B&GR a toll for that right). The railway received royal assent for its act of Parliament, the (6 & 7 Will. 4. c. xiv), on 22 April 1836, with authorised capital of £950,000.
Opinion among the parliamentary borough of Worcester's elite and businesses was strong for a much closer line. To assuage fear of other railway company competition, the B&GR agreed to provide it a branch line, from Abbotswood in the county. Similarly Tewkesbury had to be pacified, with a branch line from Ashchurch. These were authorised by the (7 Will. 4 & 1 Vict. c. xxvi) of 5 May 1837. for extensions to Worcester and Tewkesbury.
Construction had been delayed due to high prices and the difficulty of obtaining access to the land on the route, but in April 1837 it was started in earnest. However a group of shareholders cast doubt on Moorsom's ability and it was agreed that there would be a six-week delay while an eminent engineer reviewed the technical aspects of the proposed line. This was done by Joseph Locke, and his report on the technical aspects, including the Lickey Incline, was favourable.
The Cheltenham and Great Western Union Railway company had been short of money from the outset, chiefly due to its parliamentary battle won with a rival to reach Cheltenham. In November 1837 it made clear it its easternmost part (Swindon to Cirencester) took total priority. Thus its agreement to lay the line between Cheltenham and Gloucester, on which the B&GR depend had banked, was put back. The B&GR were alarmed by this; if the C&GWUR were to become insolvent and their powers lapsed, the B&GR had no powers to form the line themselves.
The C&GWUR had a bill before Parliament in the 1838 session, and it was mutually accepted that protective clauses for the B&GR could be inserted; power was given for the B&GR to build the line itself if the C&GWUR failed to do so by a date; each company would build and own one town station. The B&GR under these provisions soon built the line itself.
By August 1839 the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway had four locomotives, and 35 wagons had been delivered but an early opening that was anticipated was delayed by extremely bad weather. The directors joined the first public passenger journey on part of the route on 1 June 1840; involving two round trips.
Opening of the line The line was opened in stages; from Cheltenham to Bromsgrove was opened to the public without ceremony on 24 June 1840 for passenger traffic. On 17 September 1840 it was extended to a temporary terminus at Cofton Farm a little south of semi-rural Longbridge, south of Birmingham. The Cheltenham to Gloucester section was opened on 4 November 1840. On 17 December 1840 northern extension, to Camp Hill, opened which became the Birmingham terminus for a time, as very early planned.John Gough, The Midland Railway: A Chronology, self-published, 1986,
The Tewkesbury branch opened on 21 July 1840.Rex Christiansen, A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain: volume 13: Thames and Severn, David & Charles, Newton Abbot, 1981, It was horse-operated until 1844; doubletrack was installed in 1864 in connection with the construction of the Malvern and Tewkesbury line.
The line was more widely linked, as agreed, by building then opening a junction with the London and Birmingham Railway beyond Camp Hill on 17 August 1841 when Camp Hill was relegated to a goods station and Curzon Street station became a major junction station and further operational route terminus. Goods traffic started on the line in April 1841.
One tunnel exists and was engineered for the line at Grovely Hill, near Bromsgrove; in length, lined in brick with no invert. The largest bridge is over the Avon at Eckington, Worcestershire, when built having three cast-iron segmental arches of span supported on two lines of iron columns.
The rails were Vignoles rail weighing , laid on longitudinal sleepers, except on embankments over high where cross sleepers were used. The construction had cost £1,266,666.
Locomotives
Edward Bury, locomotive builder and superintendent of the London and Birmingham Railway, was engaged in 1838 as consultant for motive power, workshops and stationary engine for the Lickey Incline. He promptly organised the purchase of two second hand engines, the Leicester and the Southampton to assist in line construction and ordered four from George Forrester, the first two arriving in November.
In 1838, during the construction period thought was being given once again to the working of the Lickey Incline by locomotives. Although Brunel, Robert Stephenson and Bury declared this to be impossible or advised against it. Captain Moorsom said that he had seen locomotives working similar gradients in the US, An order was placed with engine builders called Norris Locomotive Works in Philadelphia for a number of 4-2-0 locomotives. The key requirement for the B&GR was for three 12 ton Class A Extra locomotives to assist trains up the Lickey Incline, but astute and possibly duplicitous salesmanship by the Norris team resulted in additional sales of seven Class B and three Class A of eight and ten tons respectively.
After the initial deliberations about engines fit for the Lickey incline, several American engines were obtained. The prototype Norris engine was described as a Class A Extra locomotive, supposedly capable of taking up the Lickey incline at . Three more of these were ordered. Norris's British agent persuaded the B&GR to purchase smaller "Class B" locomotives, and the prototype, England, was trialled on the Grand Junction Railway (as the B&GR was not ready) in March 1839, and found to be non-compliant with the specification as to load haulage. Undeterred, the B&GR purchased six of the class B engines. A Class A Extra locomotive, Philadelphia, was delivered at the end of May 1840; it had a sandbox and water tub "for wetting the rails to improve adhesion". In a trial on the uncompleted Lickey incline, it performed better than a Bury locomotive, taking 24 tons up at .
However Rake comments that, "The American locomotives were, however, afterwards superseded, as it was found that an ordinary tank engine, assisted by a pilot, worked the traffic in a perfectly satisfactory manner." Moreover, the fireboxes and boiler tubes were iron, and soon had to be replaced with brass fittings.