page_title: Plymouth Millbay railway station
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Plymouth Millbay railway station / History
caption_attribution_description: Work to convert the gauge from 7ft 0.25in to 4ft 8.5in at Plymouth Millbay railway station.
context_page_description: Plymouth Millbay railway station was the original railway terminus in Plymouth, Devon, England. It was used for passenger trains from 1849 to 1941. It was rebuilt in 1903.
context_section_description: The South Devon Railway originally planned to bring its 7 ft (2,134 mm) broad gauge railway from Exeter St Davids to the Eldad area of Plymouth, terminating on a hill above Stonehouse Pool. In the event, it was redesigned to end at a station situated between Union Street and Millbay itself.
  The railway reached a temporary station at Laira on the eastern outskirts of Plymouth on 5 May 1848 and was extended to Millbay on 2 April 1849.  At this time the station was just known as Plymouth as no other stations existed in the town.  The station became known as "Plymouth Millbay" after other stations were opened in the town in 1876-7 at Mutley and North Road.
  A separate ticket platform was erected just outside the station in 1851 and was used until 1896. This enabled all tickets to be checked while the train paused outside the station and the opportunity was often taken for the engine to be detached and sent to the engine shed at this time and the train was then propelled into the platforms by a pilot engine.
  The station was expanded ready for the opening of the Cornwall Railway on 4 May 1859 and the South Devon and Tavistock Railway on 22 June 1859. The railway encouraged the private venture of the Plymouth Hotel Company to open the Duke of Cornwall Hotel opposite the station in 1862.
  The South Devon Railway was amalgamated into the Great Western Railway (GWR) on 1 February 1876.  The lines were converted to 4 ft 8 ¹⁄₂ in (1,435 mm) standard gauge on 21 May 1892, although standard gauge goods trains were working to the docks from 1878 over mixed gauge tracks.  The station was extensively rebuilt in 1900-03 when the old wooden buildings were replaced by a new stone terminus.
  The station was closed to passengers on 23 April 1941 after bombs destroyed the nearby goods depot; the passenger station being used thereafter only for goods traffic and access to the carriage sheds. All traffic ceased from 14 December 1969 except for goods trains running through to the docks which continued until 30 June 1971.
  The site is now occupied by the Plymouth Pavilions leisure complex. Two granite gate posts (still showing traces of bomb or enemy aeroplane cannon damage from the Plymouth blitz) outside the Millbay Road entrance are all that is left of the station.  An old railway goods shed on the docks branch still stands in what used to be Washington Place.
caption: Converting the gauge, 21 May 1892
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