The Mitcheldean Road and Forest of Dean Junction Railway was an independent railway company incorporated in 1871, to provide a northerly outlet for iron ore and coal products from the Cinderford and Whimsey area in the Forest of Dean, to the Hereford, Ross and Gloucester Railway line; mineral traffic to industrial centres in South Wales and the Midlands was foreseen.
The company ran out of money during construction, and the Great Western Railway purchased it and completed the line about 1882. By then the intended mineral flows were being adequately handled on other routes, and the GWR did not open the line to traffic, although in 1885 a short length at the southern end was opened to connect mineral workings.
The line remained dormant until in 1907 the Great Western Railway introduced a service of railmotor passenger trains, opening several low-cost stopping places on the line as far north as Drybrook Halt. The service was successful at first but declined later, closing in 1930. Ammunition was stored in the disused tunnel on the line during World War II, but later use was confined to a bitumen plant near Whimsey, and the line closed completely in 1967.
Background
The considerable iron and coal wealth of the Forest of Dean, coupled with exceptionally poor road facilities, had encouraged the promotion of tramways to convey the heavy minerals to market. At first this was locally focussed, and then conveyance to waterway transport became important.
In the early 1840s the Great Western Railway (GWR) was sponsoring the Monmouth and Hereford Railway, to build a line from Standish, south-east of Gloucester, to Hereford via Ross-on-Wye, with a southward branch line from Lea, near Mitcheldean, to Whimsey, near Cinderford. At the time Whimsey was an important centre of the mineral extraction industry in the Forest of Dean. The Monmouth and Hereford Railway was incorporated by the Monmouth and Hereford Railway Act 1845 (8 & 9 Vict. c. cxci), but limited in scope by Parliament, and the powers were not exercised. However, in 1851 the Hereford, Ross and Gloucester Railway received its authorising act of Parliament, the Hereford, Ross and Gloucester Railway Act 1851 (14 & 15 Vict. c. xl), and it opened a line on a similar alignment from Hereford to Grange Court on 1 June 1855. The GWR itself built the connecting section from Grange Court to Gloucester, and the South Wales Railway opened its line progressively from Grange Court to Chepstow.
The South Wales Railway took over the Forest of Dean Railway (FoDR), successor to the Bullo Pill Railway, which had been built as a tramway. The South Wales Railway converted part of the network to a broad gauge railway branch, and this was completed to Whimsey in 1854. It was realised that Whimsey was close to the Mitcheldean Road station of the Hereford, Ross and Gloucester Railway, and a branch connection would give a useful northward and westward outlet to South Wales industrial sites and to the West Midlands for the minerals of Whimsey, and on 29 November 1856 details were published of a proposed Forest of Dean Central, Lydbrook & Hereford, Ross & Gloucester Junction Railway. This was to extend the Forest of Dean Central Railway northwards to Mitcheldean Road and later to Ledbury; but in fact nothing came of the idea.
A viable scheme at last The plan was dormant for several years until 1870 when a bill was deposited in for the "Mitcheldean Road and Whimsey Railway". The terrain was extremely difficult, and the line would climb from Mitcheldean Road at 1 in 30 and 1 in 34 to a summit near Drybrook, and then descend at 1 in 40 towards Whimsey.
At first the line was opposed by the Great Western Railway and the Severn and Wye Railway, both of which regarded it as a threat to their traffic. On 22 May 1871 a meeting was held at Paddington between GWR directors, an S&WR deputation and Alfred and Thomas Goold, representing the Mitcheldean Road concern. The Goolds claimed that the line was necessary for the development of the iron ore at Drybrook, Westbury Brook and Wigpool, and said that if the S&WR had given any assurance that it would be constructing its Lydbrook Valley line in the near future, the bill would never have been promoted. The GWR offered to accommodate the traffic and to reimburse the expenses of the bill, but the promoters declined. The GWR then declared its implacable opposition to the scheme, but a select committee of the House of Lords gave the GWR and S&WR short shrift, finding that they had no proper grounds for opposition, and the bill went forward smoothly.
The name of the incorporated company was changed slightly, and the (34 & 35 Vict. c. cxv) was passed on 13 July 1871. The company had powers to build a railway 4 miles 5 furlongs in length from Mitcheldean Road station to the Forest of Dean Railway branch at Whimsey. The capital was £30,000 in £10 shares, and there were borrowing powers for £10,000. The GWR was authorised to subscribe up to half the capital. Five years were allowed for completion of the line; there was no mention of carrying passengers. The engineer's estimate for construction was £28,268, no stations being envisaged. The company was authorised to enter into agreements with the GWR for working and maintaining the line. By the time of the act of Parliament, the Hereford, Ross and Gloucester Railway line was standard gauge but the Forest of Dean Railway branch was still broad gauge, giving the Mitcheldean Road company a significant, but temporary, commercial advantage, in that onward transit of loaded wagons did not require transshipment.
Construction difficulties The first ordinary meeting of the company on 13 January 1872 was abortive as only the Goolds were present and there was no quorum, so that no business could be transacted. At a shareholders’ meeting on 8 May it was decided to ask the GWR to work the line for 55% instead of the agreed 60% of the receipts, if the ruling gradient was reduced by substituting a tunnel at the summit for the cutting originally proposed. A ruling gradient of 1 in 35 was now to be achieved, by construction of a 638-yard Euroclydon tunnel, as well as another tunnel 97 yards in length and a very deep cutting at Drybrook.The business calculation was therefore that a moderately long tunnel would be paid for by a 5% margin on forward expenses.
At a meeting on 6 June 1873 the proposed working agreement with the GWR was adopted. The tender for construction of the line by Miller & Roberts in the sum of £30,000 was accepted. G Wells Owen was the company's engineer. Construction began in 1874 and in May the secretary, Thomas Goold, and Alfred Goold, having walked over the line, suggested that the tunnel should be lengthened and a deviation made at Drybrook. This was agreed, and Crown sanction was received for the changes on 2 July 1874.
Relations between the company and the contractor were unhappy, and there were complaints about slow progress and counter-claims about obstruction. The company engineer's assistant Coulthard had "ordered the North heading of the tunnel to be stopped in consequence of an error in his engineering by which the tunnel had been driven out of its proper course past the No. 1 shaft without touching it". The outcome of all this was the contractor's abandonment of the work.
The company took over the work, and on 10 December Coulthard reported that a shaft, abandoned because the contractor could not complete its sinking, had been finished by him within three days and had struck the tunnel only 3 inches out of line instead of 7 feet off as the contractor had forecast. By 29 February 1876 considerable progress had been made and work was expected to be finished by July or August. This proved considerably optimistic, but in August 1876 it was reported that "The Mitcheldean Road and Whimsey Railroad is so far progressing that it is expected that the line will be completed by December next, when it is proposed to open it; it is intended to carry passengers as well as mineral traffic".
This forecast too proved unreliable, and on 20 July 1877 the directors decided to dispense with Coulthard's services, as he had misled them as to the time of completion and cost. W G Owen estimated that well over £5,000 was needed to complete the line. A new contractor, Griffiths of Lydney was approached to take over the work, but he declined. A Mr Harris then took over supervision of the works but, owing to some misunderstanding, dismissed all the workmen so that work had stopped entirely by mid-September except in the tunnel. On 9 October 1877 W G Owen reported that £12,000 would still be required to complete it.
Taken over by the Great Western Railway By now the £10,000 from the GWR had been swallowed up, with little to show for it, and the GWR demanded an inspection of the accounts. On 18 October, Hadingham, the company clerk, travelled to London with the books, and GWR officials began to reaudit the accounts. When they wrote to Thomas Goold for various documents and bills to help them in their task he decided to call a halt. He pointed out that the GWR had two seats on the board, but that their nominees had never attended a meeting, and if they were to allow the GWR to audit their accounts they might have to extend the same facility to all other shareholders.
Nevertheless, the company itself was incapable of progressing the construction, and by early 1878 the GWR had made traffic and working agreements with the company, and the Great Western Railway Act 1878 (41 & 42 Vict. c. ccviii) of 22 July 1878 enabled the GWR to subscribe a further £20,000 to the undertaking. Daniel Gooch of the GWR became the company chairman and board meetings were held at Paddington instead of at Newnham. Still the line lay moribund for some two years until the GWR took over completely. An act of Parliament of 6 August 1880 authorised the GWR to absorb the undertaking and to complete the line, which it did at a further cost of £21,626, making a total cost to the GWR of £60,626. Still with the line completed, the GWR made no attempt to open it to traffic: economic depression dominated the Forest economy; moreover the completion of the S&WR Lydbrook extension provided a much more direct outlet for traffic from the northern part of the Forest to South Wales.
By now the GWR was well established in the southern and eastern part of the Forest, and a northern outlet was less important. Workings in the southern part of the originally planned route could conveniently be given a southerly connection, and about a mile at that end was opened for mineral traffic in July 1885, from Speedwell Siding down to Whimsey.
Passenger trains at the southern end In 1906 the Great Western Railway had achieved much success in introducing rail-motors, sometimes known as auto-trains, on existing lines. The system was to provide low-cost stopping places at hitherto unserved points on existing lines. The railmotors were either a combined passenger carriage and small integrated steam engine power unit, or later, a small separate locomotive. In either case control of the engine from the remote end of the vehicle was possible, avoiding the necessity of running round the train at terminals.
The population of the more remote areas around Drybrook, families of miners mostly, agitated for such a service on their mineral line: