The Gloucester and Cheltenham Tramroad, also known as the Gloucester and Cheltenham Railway, connected Gloucester and Cheltenham with horse-drawn trams. Its primary economic purpose was the transport of coal from Gloucester's docks to the rapidly developing spa town of Cheltenham and the transport of building stone from quarries on nearby Leckhampton Hill.

The Birmingham and Gloucester Railway (B&GR) was the first name of the railway linking the cities in its name and of the company which pioneered and developed it; the line opened in stages in 1840, using a terminus at Camp Hill in Birmingham. It linked with the Bristol and Gloucester Railway in Gloucester, but at first that company's line was broad gauge, and Gloucester was a point of the necessary but inconvenient transhipment of goods and passengers onto 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in gauge that became the national standard. Nearly all of the original main line remains active as a "trunk" route, also known as an arterial route or line.