Encyclopedia
The
Great Western Railway was a
British railway company and a marvel of
civil engineering, linking
South West England, the West Country and South
Wales with
London. It was founded in 1833, kept its identity through the 1923 grouping, and became part of
British Railways at nationalisation in 1948. Known admiringly to some as "God's Wonderful Railway", jocularly to others as the "Great Way Round" , and by some as the "Goes When Ready" due to the casual way in which some of its branch lines were run, it gained great fame as the "Holiday Railway", taking huge numbers of people to resorts in the southwest. The company's best-known livery was Middle Chrome Green for the locomotives and two-tone "chocolate and cream" for the carriages. In 1999, in recognition of the railway's historical importance, the
Department for Culture, Media and Sport added parts of the GWR to
UNESCO's tentative
World Heritage Sites list. As of 2006, following the Brunel 200 celebrations, the nomination is being supported by
English Heritage, and is due to be considered by UNESCO in 2007.
Early history
The Great Western Railway originated from the desire of
Bristol merchants to maintain the position of their port as the second port in the country and the chief one for American trade. The increase in the size of ships and the gradual silting of the
River Avon made
Liverpool an increasingly attractive port, and with its rail connection with London developing in the 1830s it threatened Bristol's status. The answer for Bristol was, with the co-operation of London interests, to build a line of their own, a railway built to unprecedented standards of excellence to outperform the other lines being constructed to the north-west.
The Company was founded at a public meeting in
Bristol in 1833, and was incorporated by Act of Parliament in 1835.
Isambard Kingdom Brunel was appointed as engineer at the age of 27, and made two controversial decisions: to use a
broad gauge of seven feet for the track, to allow large wheels, providing smoother running at high speeds; and to take a route which passed north of the Marlborough Downs, an area with no significant towns, though it did offer potential connections to
Oxford and
Gloucester and then to follow the
Thames Valley into London. He surveyed the entire length of the route between London and Bristol himself.
The initial group of locomotives ordered by Brunel to his own specifications proved unsatisfactory, apart from the North Star locomotive, and 20-year-old
Daniel Gooch was appointed as Superintendent of
Locomotives. Brunel and Gooch chose to locate their
locomotive works at the village of
Swindon, at the point where the gradual ascent from London turned into the steeper descent to the
Avon valley at
Bath.
Openings
The first stretch of line, from
London Paddington to Taplow near
Maidenhead, opened in 1838. The full line to
Bristol Temple Meads opened on completion of Box Tunnel in 1841.
From then onwards, by amalgamations and new construction, the railway took shape, as can be seen from the following list :
- Cheltenham & Great Western Union Railway: 1836-41/1843
- Oxford Railway 1843/1844
- Bristol and Exeter Railway 1844
- South Devon Railway 1844
- Berkshire and Hampshire Railway 1845/1846
- Cornwall Railway 1846-49 finally absorbed 1889
- Oxford & Rugby Railway 1845/1846
- Birmingham & Oxford Junction Railway 1846/1848
- Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Dudley Railway 1846/1848
- Wiltshire, Somerset & Weymouth Railway 1845-48/1850
- West Cornwall Railway 1852
- Shrewsbury & Birmingham Railway 1846-49/1854
- Shrewsbury & Chester Railway 1846/1854
- Wolverhampton Junction Railway 1852/1854
See also List of early British railway companies
The
Bristol and Exeter Railway reached
Exeter by 1844, and the Bristol and Gloucester Railway brought the broad gauge to Gloucester in the same year. Gloucester was already served by the standard-gauge Birmingham and Gloucester Railway , resulting in a
break of gauge, and the need for all passengers and goods travelling through Gloucester to change trains.
The GWR commissioned the world's first commercial
telegraph line. This ran for 13 miles from Paddington station to West Drayton and came into operation on 9 April 1839.
In 1846, the Great Western Railway took over the running of the
Kennet and Avon Canal.
The "gauge war"
This was the beginning of the "gauge war", and resulted in the appointment by
Parliament of a Gauge Commission, which duly recommended in favour of standard gauge.
The undaunted GWR pressed ahead into the
West Midlands, in hard-fought competition with the London and North Western Railway.
Birmingham was reached in 1852, at
Snow Hill ,
Wolverhampton Low Level and Birkenhead in 1854. The Bristol and Gloucester had been bought by the
Midland Railway in 1846 and converted to standard gauge in 1854, bringing
mixed gauge track to Bristol. By the 1860s the gauge war was lost; with the merger of the standard-gauge West Midlands Railway into the GWR in 1861 mixed gauge came to
Paddington, and by 1869 there was no broad-gauge track north of Oxford.
Meanwhile, further developments were made in the GWR's heartland: the South Devon Railway was opened in 1849, extending the broad gauge to
Plymouth, and the
Cornwall Railway took it over the
Royal Albert Bridge and into
Cornwall, reaching
Penzance by 1867. The South Wales Railway, terminating at Neyland, opened in 1850 and was connected to the GWR via Brunel's ungainly Wye bridge in 1852. The route from Wales to London via Gloucester was a roundabout one, so work on the
Severn Tunnel began in 1873, but unexpected underwater springs slowed the work down and prevented its opening until 1886.
Through this period the conversion to standard gauge continued, with mixed-gauge track reaching
Exeter in 1876. By this time most conversions were bypassing mixed gauge and going directly from broad to standard. The final stretch of broad gauge was converted to standard in a single weekend in May 1892.
The
1890s also saw improvements in service of the generally conservative GWR - restaurant cars, much improved conditions for third class passengers, and steam heating of trains. The company also built new track to shorten its previously circuitous routes.
New locomotives
After 1902 G. J. Churchward developed nine standard locomotive types, with flat-topped
Belpaire fireboxes, tapered boilers, long smokeboxes, boiler top feeds, long lap, long travel valve gear and many standard parts between locomotive types. Most of these were developed from five experimental locomotives, No's 40, 97, 98, 99 and 115. From these were developed the famous
Star class locomotives, the Saint class locomotives and the
2800 class locomotives. Such was the success of these locomotives that they influenced locomotive design in the
United Kingdom until the demise of steam traction. Two notable locomotives were 111 The Great Bear, the first 4-6-2 locomotive in the United Kingdom and 3440
City of Truro, the first locomotive to be recorded at a speed of 100 mph in 1904 .
Churchward also remodelled Swindon works, building the one-and-a-half-acre boiler-erecting shops and the first static locomotive-testing plant in the United Kingdom.
1923 Grouping
At the outbreak of
World War I the GWR, along with the other major railways, was taken into government control. After the war the government considered permanent nationalisation, but preferred a compulsory amalgamation of the railways into four large groups. The GWR alone preserved its identity through the grouping, which took effect on January 1, 1923.
Constituent companies
The new Great Western Railway comprised the following constituent companies:
- Great Western Railway, route mileage 3005 miles
- Barry Railway 68 miles
- Cambrian Railways 295.25 miles
- Cardiff Railway 11.75 miles
- Rhymney Railway 51 miles
- Taff Vale Railway 124.5 miles
- Alexandra Docks and Railway 10.5 miles
Total route mileage of the GWR was 3800 miles
The details of all railways within the new Great Western Railway are given in the List of constituents of the Great Western Railway.
One final company was absorbed, in 1930 - the
narrow gauge Corris Railway.
Other statistics
- Locomotives: tender 1550, tank 2500; coaching vehicles 10,100; freight vehicles 90,000; electric vehicles 60; rail motor cars 70
- 213 miles of canals
- 16 turbine and twin-screw steamers, plus several smaller vessels
- docks, harbours etc at Barry, Cardiff, Fishguard, Newport, Penarth, Plymouth, Port Talbot and other places
- ten hotels
Much of the infrastructure had come into being for handling the South Wales
coal traffic. Though this appeared to be a great coup for the GWR, the coal traffic declined significantly as the use of coal as a naval fuel declined, and within a decade the GWR was itself the largest single user of Welsh coal.
New locomotives
The
1920s also saw the introduction of the GWR's most famous locomotives - the
Castle and
King classes developed by Churchward's successor, C. B. Collett. The
1930s brought hard times, and the records set by the Castles and Kings were surpassed by other companies, but the company remained in relatively good financial health despite the
Depression.
Post WWII
World War II brought a further period of direct government control, and by its end a Labour government was in power and planning to nationalise the railways. The war damaged GWR became part of
British Railways on January 1, 1948. On privatisation the "Great Western" name was revived for the train operating company providing passenger services to the West.
The
Steam Railway Museum, in
Swindon, is dedicated to the history and life of the GWR.
The traditions of the GWR are kept alive by many
heritage railways including at
Didcot Railway Centre, the South Devon Railway, the
Severn Valley Railway, the
Paignton and Dartmouth Steam Railway, the
Gloucestershire and Warwickshire Railway and at Tyseley Locomotive Works.
References
- GWR Engineering Work, 1928-1938, R. Tourret, 2003, , ISBN 0-905878-08-6.
- History of the Great Western Railway Volume One 1833-1863, E.T. MacDermot, Ian Allan Ltd, ISBN 0711004110.
- History of the Great Western Railway Volume Two 1863-1921, E.T. MacDermot, Ian Allan Ltd, ISBN 0711004129.
- History of the Great Western Railway Volume Three 1923-48, O.S. Nock, Ian Allan Ltd, ISBN 0711003041.
See also
- Swindon railway works
- Liveries of the Great Western Railway
- List of constituents of the Great Western Railway
- List of early British railway companies
- Locomotives of the Great Western Railway
- List of British companies
- Great Western Main Line
- Sonning Cutting
External links
