The Shrewsbury and Hereford Railway was an English railway company that built a standard gauge line between those places. It opened its main line in 1853.
Its natural ally seemed to be the Great Western Railway. With other lines it formed a route between the mineral resources of South Wales and the industries of the north-west of England, and this attracted the interest of the London and North Western Railway, which sought access to South Wales. The GWR and the LNWR jointly leased the S&HR line in 1862, later jointly acquiring ownership of it, in 1871. LNWR mineral traffic developed, and after the opening of the Severn Tunnel in 1886, the line became an important main line for traffic from the south-west of England to the north-west.
With the decline in local passenger and goods traffic in the 1950s many intermediate stations closed, but the main line continues in important use at the present day.