The railway, just 2.5 miles (4 km) long, ran along the valley of the river Cam. Cam station was situated at northern end of the village, close to the cloth mill of Hunt and Winterbotham, to which there was a siding.[2]
The station opened with the line in 1856 and consisted of a single platform with a brick building and a wooden goods shed. It was the only intermediate station on the line and all passenger trains called there. 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.[3] The trains that ran on the line were affectionately known as the "Dursley Donkey".[4]
Passenger traffic was vulnerable to competition from buses and services ceased on 10 September 1962. Goods services at Cam also finished then, but the line remained open to goods traffic from Dursley under British Rail regularly to 1966 and irregularly to 1968, and even after that the line was retained as a private siding, finally closing in 1970. Cam station was demolished and no trace now remains.
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.
