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Great Western Railway
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The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the south west and west of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament in 1835, and ran its first trains three years later. It was engineered by Isambard Kingdom Brunel who chose a broad gauge of , but from 1862 a series of amalgamations saw it also operate standard gauge trains; the last broad gauge services were operated in 1892.
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Encyclopedia
The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the south west and west of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament in 1835, and ran its first trains three years later. It was engineered by Isambard Kingdom Brunel who chose a broad gauge of , but from 1862 a series of amalgamations saw it also operate standard gauge trains; the last broad gauge services were operated in 1892. The GWR was the only company to keep its identity through the Railways Act 1921 which amalgamated it with the remaining independent railways within its territory, and it was finally wound up at the end of 1947 when it was nationalised and became the Western Region of British Railways.
The GWR was known admiringly to some as "God's Wonderful Railway" and jocularly to others as the "Great Way Round", but it gained great fame as the "Holiday Line", taking huge numbers of people to resorts in South West England. In 1999, in recognition of the railway's historical importance, parts of the original Great Western Main Line were added to UNESCO's tentative World Heritage Sites list.
The company's locomotives, many of which were built in the company’s workshops at Swindon, were painted a Brunswick green colour, while for most of its existence it used a two-tone "chocolate and cream" livery for its carriages. Wagons were painted red but this was later changed to mid-grey.
The Great Western's trains included long-distance express services such as the Flying Dutchman, the Cornish Riviera Express and the Cheltenham Spa Express, but it also ran suburban and rural services including many operated by steam railmotors or autotrains. The company championed the use of larger, more economic goods wagons than were usual in the United Kingdom. It also operated a network of road motor (bus) routes, was a part of the Railway Air Services, and owned ships, docks and hotels.
History
Early history
The Great Western Railway originated from the desire of Bristol merchants to maintain the position of their city 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 out-perform 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. This was by far his largest contract to date, and he made two controversial decisions: to use a broad gauge of seven feet – actually for the track – potentially to allow large wheels outside the bodies of the rolling stock thus providing smoother running at high speeds; and to take a route which passed north of the Marlborough Downs, a route with no significant towns but which did offer potential connections to Oxford and Gloucester. He surveyed the entire length of the route between London and Bristol himself.
G. T. Clark played an important role as an engineer on the project, reputedly taking the management of two divisions of the route including bridges over the River Thames at Upper Basildon and Moulsford, and Paddington Station. Involvement in major earth-moving works seems to have fed Clark's interest in geology and archaeology and he, anonymously, authored two guidebooks on the railway, one was illustrated with lithographs by John Cooke Bourne, the other was a critique of Brunel's methods and the broad gauge.
The initial group of locomotives ordered by Brunel to his own specifications proved unsatisfactory. 20-year-old Daniel Gooch was appointed as Locomotive Superintendent and set about establishing a reliable fleet. He bought two locomotives from Robert Stephenson and Company which proved more successful, and then designed a series of standardised locomotives which, from 1846, could be built at the company's newly established railway workshops. Brunel and Gooch had chosen to locate these close to the village of Swindon, at the point where the gradual ascent eastwards from London turned into the steeper route towards the River Avon. The GWR also championed other technological advances, for instance commissioning the world's first commercial telegraph line. This ran for from Paddington to West Drayton and came into operation on 9 April 1839.
The first stretch of line, from London Paddington to Maidenhead Bridge station, had opened on 4 June 1838. Once the Maidenhead Railway Bridge was ready, the line was extended to Twyford on 1 July 1839, and then through the deep Sonning Cutting into Reading on 30 March 1840. The cutting was the scene of a railway disaster just two years later when a goods train ran into a landslip, ten masons who were travelling in open trucks were killed. This accident prompted Parliament to pass the 1844 Railway Regulation Act to force railway companies to provide better carriages for passengers. The next section, from Reading to Steventon crossed the Thames twice but was ready to open for traffic on 1 June 1840 although a further extension moved the end of the line to Faringdon Road from 20 July 1840.
Meanwhile work had also started at the Bristol end of the line, where the opened to Bath on 31 August 1840. On 17 December 1840 the London section of the line was extended to a temporary terminus at Hay Lane, west of Swindon and from Paddington. 31 May 1841 saw the main line extended from there to Chippenham, and also the opening of Swindon Junction and the Cheltenham and Great Western Union Railway (C&GWUR) to Cirencester. This was an independent line worked by the GWR, as was the Bristol and Exeter Railway (B&ER), the first section of which from Temple Meads to Bridgwater was opened on 14 June 1841. At this time the GWR main line was still incomplete due to the lengthy Box Tunnel, which was finally ready to receive trains on 30 June 1841, from which time through trains ran the from Paddington to Bridgwater. In 1846 the GWR took over the operation of the Kennet and Avon Canal, which was a competitive route from London via Reading and Bath to Bristol.
The GWR was closely involved with both the C&GWUR and the B&ER, as it was with several other broad gauge railways. The South Devon Railway (which for a time was operated by the 'atmospheric' system of propulsion rather than locomotives) was completed in 1849, extending the broad gauge to Plymouth, from where the Cornwall Railway took it over the Royal Albert Bridge and into Cornwall in 1859, reaching Penzance over the West Cornwall Railway by 1867. This last stretch of line had been built originally using the standard gauge, or 'narrow gauge' as it was known at the time. The South Wales Railway had opened in 1850 and was connected to the GWR via Brunel's Chepstow Bridge in 1852, and was completed to Neyland in 1856.
The "gauge war"
In 1844 the broad gauge Bristol and Gloucester Railway had opened, but Gloucester was already served by the standard gauge lines of the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway. This resulted in a break of gauge, and the need for all passengers and goods to change trains if travelling from Bristol, Swindon or South Wales through Gloucester towards Birmingham. This was the beginning of the "gauge war" and resulted in the appointment by Parliament of a Gauge Commission, which duly reported in 1846 in favour of standard gauge, although the GWR persisted in calling it "narrow gauge" until 1892. Also in 1846 the Bristol and Gloucester had been bought by the Midland Railway and was converted to standard gauge in 1854, which brought mixed gauge track to Temple Meads station – this had three rails to allow trains to run on either broad or narrower standard gauge.
Undaunted, the GWR was pressing ahead into the West Midlands in competition with the Midland and the London and North Western Railway. Birmingham was reached in 1852 and Wolverhampton in 1854, which was the furthest north that the broad-gauge reached. In the same year the Shrewsbury and Birmingham Railway and the Shrewsbury and Chester Railway both amalgamated with the GWR, but these lines were standard gauge, and the GWR's own line north of Oxford had been built with mixed gauge. This mixed gauge was extended southwards from Oxford to Basingstoke at the end of 1856 which allowed through goods traffic from the North to the South Coast without transshipment.
| Broad and standard mileage operated by GWR | | | Broad | Mixed | Standard |
|---|
| 31 December 1851 | | | 0 miles | | 31 December 1856 | | | | | 31 December 1861 | | | | | 31 December 1866 | | | | | 31 December 1871 | | | | | 31 December 1876 | | | | | 31 December 1881 | | | | | 31 December 1886 | | | | | 31 December 1891 | | | |
The line to Basingstoke originally had been built by the Berks and Hants Railway as a broad gauge route in an attempt to keep the standard gauge of the London and South Western Railway (LSWR) out of Great Western territory, but in 1857 the GWR and LSWR opened a shared line to Weymouth on the south coast, the GWR route being via Chippenham and a route initially started by the Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth Railway. Further west the LSWR took over the broad gauge Exeter and Crediton Railway and the connected North Devon Railway, also the standard gauge Bodmin and Wadebridge Railway, although it was several years before these remote lines were connected with the parent LSWR system and any through traffic to them was handled by the GWR.
By now the gauge war was lost and mixed gauge was brought to Paddington in 1861, thus allowing through passenger trains from London to Chester. The broad gauge South Wales Railway amalgamated with the GWR in 1862, as did the West Midland Railway which brought with it the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway, a line that had been conceived as another broad gauge route to the Midlands but which had been built as standard gauge after several battles. On 1 April 1869 the broad gauge was taken out of use between Oxford and Wolverhampton, and from Reading to Basingstoke. In August the line from Grange Court to Hereford was converted from broad to standard, and the whole of the line from Swindon through Gloucester to South Wales was similarly treated in May 1872. In 1874 the mixed gauge was extended along the main line to Chippenham and the line from there to Weymouth was narrowed. The following year saw mixed gauge laid through the Box Tunnel, with the broad gauge now retained only for through services beyond Bristol and on a few branch lines.
The Bristol and Exeter Railway amalgamated with the GWR on 1 January 1876. It had already made a start on mixing the gauge on its line, a task completed through to Exeter on 1 March 1876 by the GWR. The station here had been shared with the LSWR since 1862, and this rival company had continued to push westwards over its Exeter & Crediton line and arrived in Plymouth later in 1876, which spurred the South Devon Railway to also amalgamate with the Great Western. The Cornwall Railway remained a nominally independent line until 1889, although the GWR held a large number of shares in the company. One final new broad gauge route was opened on 1 June 1877, the St Ives branch, although there was also a small extension at Sutton Harbour in Plymouth in 1879.
Once the GWR was in control of the whole line from London to Penzance it set about converting the remaining broad gauge tracks. The last broad gauge service left Paddington station on Friday 20 May 1892; the following Monday trains from Penzance were operated by standard gauge locomotives.
Into the twentieth century
The route from Wales to London via Gloucester was a roundabout one, so work on the Severn Tunnel had begun in 1873, but unexpected underwater springs slowed the work down and prevented its opening until 1886. With its shares in demand from the later 1890s it was possible for the company to raise substantial sums from new issues to support the building of further new lines and upgrading of old ones to shorten its previously circuitous routes.
The principal lines were:
Freed from the burden of operating trains on two gauges in 1892, the years up to the Great War saw other improvements in the services of the generally conservative GWR – restaurant cars, much improved conditions for third class passengers, steam heating of trains, and accelerated express services. This was largely at the initiative of T. I. Allen, the Superintendent of the Line and one of a group of talented senior managers who led the railway into the Edwardian era: Viscount Emlyn (Earl Cawdor, chairman from 1895 to 1905); Sir Joseph Wilkinson (general manager from 1896 to 1903), his successor, the former chief engineer Sir James Inglis; and George Jackson Churchward (the chief mechanical engineer). It was during this period that the GWR introduced road motor services as an alternative to building new lines in rural areas, and also steam rail motors to bring cheaper operation to those already in existence.
One of the 'Big Four'
At the outbreak of World War I the GWR, along with most other major railways, was taken into government control. Many of its staff joined the armed forces and it was not possible to build and maintain equipment as easily as in peacetime due to the demands of the military campaigns. After the war the government considered permanent nationalisation but instead decided on a compulsory amalgamation of the railways into four large groups. The GWR alone preserved its identity through the 'grouping', which saw many smaller companies amalgamated during 1922 and 1923.
The new Great Western Railway now included many more routes in Wales, including the Cambrian Railways and the Taff Vale Railway. A few independent lines in its English area of operations were also added, notably the Midland and South Western Junction Railway. This line had previously worked closely with the Midland Railway but now brought the GWR a second station at Swindon along with a line that carried through traffic from the North via Cheltenham and Andover to Southampton.
To add to the docks already operated by the GWR on the south coast and in west Wales, the Welsh railway companies brought with them a large number of docks (such as Cardiff, Barry and Swansea) which had been constructed for handling the South Wales coal traffic. This made the GWR the largest private docks owner in the world, although 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.
The 1930s brought hard times but the company remained in relatively good financial health despite the Depression. The Development (Loans, Guarantees and Grants) Act 1929 allowed the GWR to obtain money in return for stimulating employment, and this was used to implement improvements at stations such as London Paddington, Bristol Temple Meads and Cardiff General, also to improve facilities at depots and even additional tracks to reduce congestion. An 'automatic train control' system was implemented, a safety system that applied a train's brakes if it passed a danger signal. The road motor services were transferred to local bus companies in which the GWR took a share, but instead it took to the skies with air services.
The legacy of the broad gauge had meant that trains on some of its routes could be built just a little bit larger than was normal in Britain, and these included the 1929-built 'Super Saloons' used on the boat train services that conveyed transatlantic passengers to London in luxury. The same year also saw the culmination of GWR locomotive development with the introduction of the King class locomotives on principal expresses from London to Wolverhampton, Bristol and Plymouth. When the company celebrated its centenary during 1935, new 'Centenary' carriages were built for the Cornish Riviera Express, which again made full use of the wider loading gauge on that route.
With the outbreak of World War II the GWR returned to direct government control, and by its end a Labour government was in power and again planning to nationalise the railways. After a couple of years trying to recover from the ravages of war, the GWR became the Western Region of British Railways on 1 January 1948. More than 40 years later the British railways were privatisated and the old name was revived by Great Western Trains, the train operating company providing passenger services on the old GWR routes to South Wales and the South West, which has now become 'First Great Western' as part of the First Group.
Geography
The original Great Western Main Line linked London Paddington station with Temple Meads station in Bristol by way of Reading, Didcot, Swindon, Chippenham and Bath. This line was extended westwards through Exeter and Plymouth to reach Penzance, the most westerly railway station in England.
A line from Swindon ran through Gloucester to Cardiff, Swansea and west Wales. This route was later shortened by the opening of the Severn Tunnel. Another route ran northwards from Didcot to Oxford from where two different routes continued to Wolverhampton, one through Birmingham and the other through Worcester. Beyond Wolverhampton the line continued via Shrewsbury to Crewe, Chester and Birkenhead. Operating agreements with other companies also allowed GWR trains to run to Manchester. South of the main line were routes from Didcot to Southampton via Newbury, and from Chippenham to Weymouth via Westbury.
There was a network of cross-country routes linking these lines and there were also many smaller branches to places such as Windsor, Basingstoke, Hereford and Salisbury. The Railways Act 1921 added many smaller companies within this area, notably the Cambrian Railways network in mid Wales and several railways in the Cardiff area.
Isambard Kingdom Brunel envisaged the GWR extending from London to New York and built the SS Great Western to carry the railway's passengers across the Atlantic ocean. Traffic soon switched to Liverpool but Great Western ships linked the United Kingdom with Ireland, the Channel Islands and France. The company owned a number of docks such as Fowey, Plymouth Millbay, Weymouth, and Cardiff.
Key locations
The railway's headquarters were established at Paddington station. Its locomotives and rolling stock were built and maintained at Swindon railway works but a number of other workshops were acquired as it amalgamated with other railways, notably Stafford Road works at Wolverhampton, but also at other locations such as Newton Abbot and Caerphilly. Workshops for signalling equipment were located adjacent to Reading railway station, and in later years a concrete works was established at Taunton where items ranging from track components to bridges were cast.
Engineering
The Great Western Main Line was designed to be much more straight and level than was usual at the time, and so a number of important structures feature along its length. Working westwards from Paddington, the line crosses the valley of the River Brent on Wharncliffe Viaduct and the River Thames on Maidenhead Railway Bridge, which at the time was the largest span for a brick arch bridge. It then runs through Sonning Cutting before reaching Reading. It also crosses the Thames two more times, on Gatehampton and Moulsford bridges. Between Chippenham and Bath it then passes through Box Tunnel, the longest railway tunnel driven by that time. Several years later the railway opened the even longer Severn Tunnel to carry a new line between England and Wales beneath the River Severn.
Amalgamated companies were responsible for some other significant engineering feats, such as the South Devon Railway sea wall, and the Cornwall Railway's Royal Albert Bridge.
Operations
In the early years the GWR was managed by two committees, one in Bristol and one in London. They combined as a single Board of Directors which met in offices at Paddington.
The Board was led by a chairman and supported by a secretary and other "officers". The first Goods Managers were appointed in 1850. From 1867 this position was filled by James Grierson until 1863 when he became the first General Manager. The first Locomotive Superintendent was Daniel Gooch, although from 1915 the title was changed to Chief Mechanical Engineer. In 1864 the post of Superintendent of the Line was created to oversee the running of the trains.
Passenger services
| Year | Passengers | Train mileage | Receipts |
|---|
| 1850 | 2,491,712 | 1,425,573 | Ł630,515 | | 1875 | 36,024,592 | 9,435,876 | Ł2,528,305 | | 1900 | 80,944,483 | 23,279,499 | Ł5,207,513 | | 1924 | 140,241,113 | 37,997,377 | Ł13,917,942 | | 1934 | 110,813,041 | 40,685,597 | Ł10,569,140 | | Passenger numbers exclude season ticket journeys. |
Early trains offered passengers a choice of first- or second-class carriages. In 1840 passengers were also able to be conveyed by the slow goods trains in what became third-class. The 1844 Railway Regulation Act forced the GWR to provide at least one train each day with third-class accommodation at not more than one penny per mile and a speed of at least . By 1882, third-class carriages were attached to all trains except for the fastest expresses. Another parliamentary order meant that trains began to include smoking carriages from 1868.
Special "excursion" cheap-day tickets were first issued in May 1849 and season tickets in 1851. Until 1869 most revenue came from second-class passengers but the volume of third-class passengers grew to the extent that second-class facilities were withdrawn in 1912. The Cheap Trains Act 1883 resulted in the provision of workmen's trains at special low fares at certain times of the day.
The prime express services were often given nicknames by railwaymen but these names later appeared officially in timetables, on headboards carried on the locomotive, and on roofboards above the windows of the carriages. For instance, the late-morning Flying Dutchman express between London and Exeter was named after the winning horse of the Derby and St Ledger races in 1849. Although withdrawn at the end of 1867, the name was revived in 1869 – following a request from the Bristol and Exeter Railway – and the train ran through to Plymouth. An afternoon express was instigated on the same route in June 1879 and became known as The Zulu. A third West Country express was introduced in 1890, running to and from Penzance as The Cornishman. A new service, the Cornish Riviera Express ran non-stop between London and Plymouth from 1 July 1904, although it ran only in the summer during 1904 and 1905 before becoming a permanent feature of the timetable in 1906.
The Cheltenham Spa Express received its name in 1923. It was the first train in the world to be scheduled at over when, in September 1932, it was speeded-up to cover the miles between London and in just 65 minutes. The train was nicknamed the "Cheltenham Flyer" and featured in one of the GWR's Books for boys of all ages. Other named trains included The Bristolian, running between London and Bristol from 1935, and the Torbay Express, which ran between London and Kingswear.
Many of these fast expresses detached slip coaches as they passed through stations and junctions without stopping, the first being detached from the Flying Dutchman at Bridgwater in 1869. The company's first sleeping cars were operated between Paddington and Plymouth in 1877. Then on 1 October 1892 its first corridor train ran from Paddington to Birkenhead, and the following year saw the first trains heated by steam that was passed through the train in a pipe from the locomotive. May 1896 saw the introduction of first-class restaurant cars and the service was extended to all classes in 1903. Sleeping cars for third-class passengers were available from 1928.
Self-propelled "steam railmotors" were first used on 12 October 1903 between Stonehouse and Chalford railway stations; within five years 100 had been constructed. They had special steps that could be used at small stations with lower platforms than was usual in England; these were referred to as 'halts' by the Great Western. The railmotors proved so successful on many routes that they had to be supplemented by trailer cars with driving controls, the first of which entered service at the end of 1904. From the following year a number of small locomotives were fitted so that they could work with these trailers, the combined sets becoming known as "autotrains" and eventually replacing the steam rail motors. Diesel railcars were introduced in 1934. Some of these cars were fully streamlined, some had buffet counters for long-distance services, and others were purely for parcels services.
Freight services
| Year | Tonnage | Train mileage | Receipts |
|---|
| 1850 | 350,000 | 330,817 | Ł202,978 | | 1875 | 16,388,198 | 11,206,462 | Ł3,140,093 | | 1900 | 37,500,510 | 23,135,685 | Ł5,736,921 | | 1924 | 81,723,133 | 25,372,106 | Ł17,571,537 | | 1934 | 64,619,892 | 22,707,235 | Ł14,500,385 | | Tonnage for 1850 is approximate. |
Passenger traffic was the main source of revenue for the GWR when it first opened but goods were also carried in separate trains. It was not until the coal and industrial districts of Wales and the Midlands were reached that goods traffic became significant; in 1856 the Ruabon Coal Company signed an agreement with the GWR to transport coal to London at special rates which nonetheless was worth to the railway at least Ł40,000 each year.
As locomotives increased in size so did the length of goods trains from 40 to as many as 100 four-wheeled wagons, although the gradient of the line often limited this. The vacuum brake, by then standard equipment on passenger trains, was fitted to a number of ordinary goods wagons by 1904 and a number of vacuum "fitted" trains were scheduled to run at speeds in excess of . While typical goods wagons could carry 8, 10 or (later) 12 tons, the load placed into a wagon could be as little as 1 ton. The many smaller consignments were sent to a local transhipment centre where they were re-sorted into larger loads for the main segment of their journey. There were more than 550 "station truck" workings running on timetabled goods trains carrying small consignments to and from specified stations, and 200 "pick up" trucks that collected small loads from groups of stations.
Ancillary operations
Powers were granted by Parliament for the GWR to operate ships in 1871. The following year the company took over the ships of Ford & Jackson on the route between Neyland in Wales and Waterford in Ireland. The Welsh terminal was relocated to Fishguard Harbour when a new line was opened to there in 1906. Services were also operated between Weymouth Quay and the Channel Islands from 1889, taking over the routes of the Weymouth & Channel Islands Steam Packet Company. Smaller vessels were also used as tenders at Plymouth Great Western Docks and, until the Severn Tunnel opened, on the River Severn crossing of the Bristol and South Wales Union Railway.
The railway owned the docks at Plymouth, which was used by Trans-Atlantic passenger ships, and also at Fowey in Cornwall where the main export was china clay. Following the Railways Act 1921 most of the large coal-exporting docks in South Wales came into the GWR's ownership, such as those at Cardiff, Barry, and Swansea. This made the company the largest docks operator in the world. A number of canals became the property of the railway when they were purchased to remove competition or objectors to proposed new lines. Most of these continued to be operated; in 1929 they took Ł16,278 of receipts (freight trains earned over Ł17 million). The canals included the Kennet and Avon Canal and the Stratford-upon-Avon Canal.
The GWR initially leased out the refreshment rooms and hotels that were built at many stations, however the Bristol and Exeter Railway was operating its own when it amalgamated in 1876 and the GWR extended this practice. It opened the Tregenna Castle, its first "country house" hotel at St Ives, Cornwall in 1877 and added to this the Fishguard Bay Hotel in 1910 and the Manor House at Moretonhampstead, Devon to which it added a golf course in 1930.
The first railway-operated bus services were started by the GWR between Helston railway station and The Lizard on 17 August 1903. Known by the company as "road motors", these chocolate-and-cream buses operated throughout the company's territory on railway feeder services and excursions until they were transferred to local bus companies (in most of which the GWR held a share) in the 1930s.
In association with Imperial Airways the GWR inaugurated the first railway air service between Cardiff, Torquay and Plymouth. This grew to be part of the Railway Air Services.
Traction and rolling stock
Locomotives
The GWR's first locomotives were specified by Isambard Kingdom Brunel but Daniel Gooch was soon appointed as the railway's Locomotive Superintendent. He designed several different broad gauge types for the growing railway, such as the Firefly and later Iron Duke Class 2-2-2s. In 1864 Gooch was succeeded by Joseph Armstrong who brought his standard gauge experience to the workshops at Swindon. To replace some of the earlier locomotives, he put broad gauge wheels on his standard gauge locomotives and from this time on all locomotives were given numbers, including the broad gauge ones that had previously carried just names.
Joseph Armstrong's early death in 1877 meant that the next phase of motive power design was the responsibility of William Dean, who went on to design some stylish express locomotives. He was succeeded by his assistant, William Dean, who developed express 4-4-0 types, but the familiar 4-6-0s of later years were initially introduced by the next engineer, George Jackson Churchward. He was also responsible for the introduction of self-propelled Steam Rail Motors for suburban and light branch line passenger trains. Next came Charles Collett in 1921; he standardised the many types of locomotives then in sevice, producing the iconic Castle and Kings. He also introduced diesel power in the form of streamlined rail cars in 1934. The final engineer was Frederick Hawksworth who took control in 1941 and produced GWR-desgin locomotives until after nationalisation in 1948.
The GWR expanded rapidly from 1854 by amalgamating with other railways. In 1876 most of the remaining broad gauge companies became a part of the GWR. The Railways Act 1921 finally brought most of the remaining independant companies in the area under its control. Many early locomotives were replaced by standard GWR designs, but many others were rebuilt using standardised components.
For most of the period of its existence, the GWR painted its locomotives a middle chrome or "Brunswick" Green. They initially had Indian red frames but this was later changed to black. Name and numberplates were generally of polished brass with a black background, and chimneys often had copper rims or "caps".
Carriages
The passenger coaches were many and varied, ranging from four and six-wheeled vehicles for the original broad gauge line of 1838, through to bogie coaches up to long which were in service through to 1947 and beyond. Vacuum brakes, bogies and through-corridors all came into use during the nineteenth century, and in 1900 the first electrically-lit coaches were put into service. The 1920s saw some vehicles fitted with automatic couplings and steel bodies.
Early vehicles were built by a number of independant companies, but in 1844 the railway started to build carriages at Swindon railway works, which eventually provided most of the railway’s stock. Special vechiles included sleeping carss, restaurant cars and slip coaches. Passengers were also carried in railmotors, autotrains, and diesel railcars. Passenger-rated vans carried parcels, horses, and milk and at express speeds.
Most coaches were painted in a chocolate brown and cream livery, although this did change over the years, however they were plain brown or red until 1864 and from 1908 to 1922. Parcels vans and similar vehicles were seldom painted in the two-colour livery, being plain brown or red instead, which caused them to be known as brown vehicles.
Wagons
In the early years of the GWR, its wagons were painted brown, but this changed to red before the end of the broad gauge. The familiar dark grey livery was only introduced about 1904.
Most early wagons were four-wheeled, although a few six-wheeled vehicles were provided for special loads. The first bogie wagons appeared in 1873, again for heavy loads, but bogie coal wagons were built in 1904 following on from the large coal wagons that had first appeared in 1898. Rated at 20 tons (20.3 tonnes) these were twice the size of typical wagons of the period, but it was not until 1923 that the company invested heavily in coal wagons of this size and the infrastructure necessary for their unloading at their docks; these were known as "Felix Pole" wagons after the GWR's General Manager who promoted their use. Container wagons appeared in 1931 and special motor car vans in 1933. Indeed, special wagons were produced for many different commodities such as gunpowder, china clay, aeroplanes, milk, fruit and fish.
All wagons for public traffic had a code name that was used in telegraphic messages. As this was usually painted onto the wagon it is common to see them referred to by these names, such as "mink" (a van), "mica" (refrigerated van), "crocodile" (boiler truck), and "toad" (brake van).
Permanent way
Brunel decided to use a light bridge rail continuously supported on thick timber baulks, known as "baulk road". Thinner timber transoms were used to keep the baulks the correct distance apart. This produced a smoother track and the whole assembly proved cheaper than using conventional sleepers for broad gauge track, although this advantage was lost with standard or mixed gauge lines. More conventional track forms were later used, although baulk road could still be seen in sidings in the first half of the twentieth century.
Cultural impact
The GWR was known admiringly to some as "God's Wonderful Railway", jocularly to others as the "Great Way Round" (some of its earliest routes were not the most direct). The railway, however, promoted itself from 1908 as "The Holiday Line" as it carried huge numbers of people to resorts in the southwest and Wales.
Tourism
The GWR had operated hotels at major stations and junctions since the early days, but in 1877 it opened its first "country house hotel", the Tregenna Castle in St Ives, Cornwall. It promoted itself from 1908 as "The Holiday Line" through a series of posters, postcards, jigsaws, and books such as SPB Mais's Cornish Riviera. GWR road motor services carried tourists to popular destinations, and its ships offered cruises from places such as Plymouth. Redundant carriages were converted to camp coaches then placed at country or seaside stations and hired to holiday makers who arrived by train.
Cultural references
The GWR attracted the attention of the artists from an early date. John Cooke Bourne's History and Description of the Great Western Railway was published in 1846 and contained a series of detailed lithographs of the railway that give us a glimpse of what the line looked like in the days before photography. J. M. W. Turner painted his Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway in 1844 after looking out of the window of his train on Maidenhead Railway Bridge, and in 1862 William Powell Frith painted The Railway Station, a large crowd scene on the platform at Paddington. The station itself was initially painted for Powell by W Scott Morton, an architect, and a train was specially provided for the painting, in front of which a variety of travellers and railway staff form an animated focal point.
The GWR has featured in many television programmes, such as the BBC children's drama series God's Wonderful Railway in 1980. It was also immortalised in Bob Godfrey's animated film Great, which won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film of 1975. It tells the story of Brunel's engineering accomplishments.
Heritage
The GWR's memory is kept alive by several museums such as STEAM – the museum of the GWR (in the old Swindon railway works), and the Didcot Railway Centre where there is a section of operating broad gauge track. Preserved GWR branch lines include the Totnes to Buckfastleigh, Paignton to Kingswear, Bishops Lydeard to Minehead, and Kidderminster to Bridgnorth lines. Many other heritage railways and museums also have GWR locomotives or rolling stock in use or on display.
Numerous stations still operated by Network Rail also continue to display much of their GWR heritage. This is not seen at only the large stations such as Paddington (built 1851, extended 1915)and Temple Meads (1840, 1875 & 1935) but other places such as Bath Spa (1840), Torquay (1878), Penzance (1879), Truro (1897), and Newton Abbot (1927). Many small stations are little changed from when they were opened as there has been no need to rebuild them to cope with heavier traffic; good examples can be found at Yatton (1841), Mortimer (1848), Bradford-on-Avon (1857), and St Germans (1859). Even where stations have been rebuilt, many fittings such as signs, manhole covers and seats can be found with 'GWR' cast into them.
UNESCO are considering a proposal to list the Great Western Main line as a World Heritage Site. The proposal, which is supported by English Heritage, comprises seven individual sites. These are Bristol Temple Meads railway station (including Brunel's Company Offices, Boardroom, train shed, and the Bristol and Exeter Railway Offices along with the route over the River Avon); Bath Spa railway station along with the line from Twerton Tunnel to the Sydney Gardens, Middlehill and Box Tunnels; the Swindon area including Swindon railway works and village; Maidenhead Railway Bridge; Wharncliffe Viaduct; and Paddington railway station.
Notable people
- Joseph Armstrong – he was appointed Locomotive Superintendent to the Shrewsbury and Chester Railway and the Shrewsbury and Birmingham Railways at Wolverhampton in 1853. When they amalgamated with the GWR the following year he was given the title of Northern Division Locomotive Superintendent (1854-1864), he then moved to Swindon as the chief Locomotive Superintendent (1864-1877).
- Daniel Gooch – the GWR's first Locomotive Superintendent (1837-1864) and its Chairman (1865-1889), he was responsible for the railway's early locomotive successes, such as the Iron Duke Class, and for establishing Swindon railway works.
- James Grierson – Goods Manager (1857-1863), he then became the General Manager (1863-1887) from which position he saw the railway through a period of expansion and the early gauge conversions.
- Henry Lambert – the General Manager (1887-1896) responsible for managing the final gauge conversion in 1892.
- James Milne – General Manager (1929-1947) who saw the GWR through World War II.
- Felix Pole – as General Manager (1921-1929) he oversaw the Grouping of the South Wales railways into the GWR following the Railways Act 1921, and promoted the use of 20 ton wagons to bring efficiencies to the railway's coal trade.
See also
Further reading
All in a Day's Work: Life on the GWR, Ian Allan, ISBN 0-7110-2964-4 Great Western Railway (1904) Rules and Regulations - For the Guidance of the Officers and Men, Reprinted 1993, Ian Allan, ISBN 0-7110-2259-3 Peter R Lewis and Alistair Nisbet, Wheels to Disaster!: The Oxford train wreck of Christmas Eve, 1874, Tempus (2008) ISBN 978 0 7524 4512 0L. T. C. Rolt, Red for Danger: the classic history of British railway disasters Sutton Publishing (1998) Nock, O.S. (1962) The Great Western Railway in the nineteenth century, Ian Allan Nock, O.S. (1964) The Great Western Railway in the twentieth century, Ian Allan Nock, O.S. (1967) History of the Great Western Railway. Volume Three: 1923-1947, Reprinted 1982, Ian Allan, ISBN 0-7110-0304-1 Tourret, R. (2003) GWR Engineering Work, 1928-1938, , ISBN 0-905878-08-6 Vaughan, Adrian (1990), Signalman's Reflections, Silver Link Publishing, ISBN 0-947971-54-8
External links
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