The railway, just 2.5 miles (4.0 km) long, ran along the valley of the river Cam. Dursley station was situated at the bottom of the town, in a marshy area that was later developed by the engineering group R A Lister and Company. Though Listers and other factories provided considerable freight traffic for the railway, the distance from the town limited passenger numbers.[1]
The station opened with the line in 1856 and consisted of a single platform with a small brick building. The basic arrangements for passengers stayed much the same throughout the station's life, with some expansion of the station building. But Dursley developed considerably for goods traffic with increased sidings and a goods shed, and further facilities inside the Lister works which came to surround the station.
Journeys between Coaley Junction railway station and Dursley took only 10 minutes and around half a dozen trains were provided each day, with excursion traffic in the summer.[2] The trains that ran on the line were affectionately known as the "Dursley Donkey".[3]
Passenger traffic was vulnerable to competition from buses which served the town centre, and they ceased on 10 September 1962. Goods services continued under British Rail regularly to 1966 and irregularly to 1968, and even after that the line was retained as a private siding to Listers, closing only in 1970 after a road accident severed the line. The station was subsumed within the Lister factory and no trace now remains.[4]
Coaley Junction, where the Dursley line joined the main line, remained open for passenger traffic until 1965 when it was closed with the withdrawal of stopping train services between Bristol and Gloucester. However, local pressure for a station resulted in the opening of a new station close to Coaley in 1994, and this is known as Cam and Dursley.
