Hereford Revisited

My first visit to Hereford was in May 1973 to watch King Class No. 6000 King George V being prepared for action in the Bulmer’s siding. A lads’ train day saw us back in the city in April 1992. Hereford was our destination from Crewe, travelling behind Coronation Pacific Class 8P No. 46229 Duchess of Hamilton.

Last week we let the train take the strain from Leominster for a day out in Hereford. It’s a bit of a walk from the station to the centre, something that would not even have crossed my consciousness in earlier times. The Grade II-listed Hereford station, with its rather grand and extensive façade, is now managed by Transport for Wales, which seems a little strange on the face of it, with Hereford still being firmly in England. It was opened in 1853 for the Shrewsbury and Hereford Railway and later the route was run jointly by the GWR and LNWR. As well as serving the Welsh Marches line linking north to south Wales, it has an hourly West Midlands Trains connection to Birmingham New Street and is the terminus of the GWR Cotswold line to London Paddington, via Worcester and Oxford.

On the inside, the station is spacious and pleasing to the eye, though some parts would benefit from a lick of paint. There are some well-tended, raised garden beds on the island platform. Four platform roads are separated by two central tracks for the apparently infrequent freights.