Gloucester railway station (formerly known as Gloucester Central station) is a railway station serving the city of Gloucester in England. The station was originally built as the terminus of the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway in 1840, but the arrival of the (broad gauge) Bristol and Gloucester Railway and Cheltenham and Great Western Union Railway in 1844, and then conversion to a through station for the South Wales Railway in 1851 resulted in a very complex layout. Subsequent closures and rationalization have left Gloucester with a station that is located off the main Bristol-Birmingham line, meaning Great Western Railway services must reverse, while CrossCountry and Transport for Wales services continue to Newport. History The railway development at Gloucester was very complex involving four different railway companies and five distinct railway stations. The first company to open was the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway, which was a standard gauge line opening 4 November 1840. This line from Cheltenham was built by the Birmingham and Gloucester railway on a formation built by the Cheltenham and Great Western Union Railway (see below). The first station was a terminus built on land near the cattle market. This was seen as a temporary structure to be replaced by a more permanent structure nearer the docks when more finance was available, but this never happened and this structure determined the site of the station today. The Cheltenham and Great Western Union Railway (C&GWU) opened a broad gauge line from Swindon to Gloucester on 8 July 1844, and built their station adjacent and to the north of the Birmingham and Gloucester station. The line from Gloucester to Cheltenham was upgraded to mixed gauge so that the C&GWU could share tracks to Cheltenham, which meant trains had to reverse at Gloucester. At the same time as the C&GWU opened, the Bristol and Gloucester Railway also opened a broad gauge line from Bristol to Standish Junction a few miles south of Gloucester, and shared the tracks of the C&GWU into Gloucester station. In 1845, the Midland Railway, which had already bought the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway, also absorbed the Bristol and Gloucester Railway. Similarly, the Great Western Railway had taken over the C&GWU, which resulted in a jointly-owned (MR & GWR), mixed-gauge station from which trains ran on shared mixed-gauge track both northwards and southwards from Gloucester. In 1847, the GWR opened the Cheltenham Loop line which completed the triangle junction