Great Western Railway

Logo of the Great Western Railway, incorporating the shields, crests and mottoes of the cities of London (left) and Bristol (right)
Map of the railway pre-grouping (1920)
Map of the railway post-grouping (1926)
History
1835	Act of incorporation
1838	First train ran
1869–92	7 ft 1⁄4 in (2,140 mm) Brunel gauge changed to 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge
1903	Start of road motor services
1923	Keeps identity though the Grouping
1935	Centenary
1948	Nationalised
Successor organisation
1948	British Rail, Western Region
Constituent companies See full list of constituents of the GWR 1854 Shrewsbury and Birmingham Railway Shrewsbury and Chester Railway 1862 South Wales Railway 1863 West Midland Railway 1876 Bristol and Exeter Railway South Devon Railway 1889 Cornwall Railway 1922 Rhymney Railway Taff Vale Railway Cambrian Railways 1923 Midland & S W Junction Railway
Key locations
Headquarters	Paddington station, London
Locale	England; Wales
Workshops	Swindon Wolverhampton
Major stations	Birmingham Snow Hill Bristol Temple Meads Cardiff General London Paddington Reading General
Route mileage Mileage shown as at end of year stated[1][2][3][4][5] 1841 171 miles (275 km) 1863 1,106 miles (1,780 km) 1876 2,023 miles (3,256 km) 1899 2,504 miles (4,030 km) 1919 2,996 miles 68 chains (4,823.0 km) 1921 3,005 miles (4,836 km) 1924 3,797 miles (6,111 km) 1925 3,819 miles 69 chains (6,147.5 km)
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The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran its first trains in 1838 with the initial route completed between London and Bristol in 1841. It was engineered by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who chose a broad gauge of 7 ft (2,134 mm)—later slightly widened to 7 ft 1⁄4 in (2,140 mm)—but, from 1854, a series of amalgamations saw it also operate 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) 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 merged at the end of 1947 when it was nationalised and became the Western Region of British Railways.

The GWR was called by some "God's Wonderful Railway" and by others the "Great Way Round" but it was famed as the "Holiday Line", taking many people to English and Bristol Channel resorts in the West Country as well as the far southwest of England such as Torquay in Devon, Minehead in Somerset, and Newquay and St Ives in Cornwall. The company's locomotives, many of which were built in the company's workshops at Swindon, were painted a middle chrome green colour while, for most of its existence, it used a two-tone "chocolate and cream" livery for its passenger coaches. Goods wagons were painted red but this was later changed to mid-grey.

Great Western trains included long-distance express services such as the Flying Dutchman, the Cornish Riviera Express and the Cheltenham Spa Express. It also operated many suburban and rural services, some operated by steam rail motors or autotrains. The company pioneered the use of larger, more economic goods wagons than were usual in Britain. It ran ferry services to Ireland and the Channel Islands, operated a network of road motor (bus) routes, was a part of the Railway Air Services, and owned ships, canals, docks and hotels.

History

Formation

The Great Western Railway originated from the desire of Bristol merchants to maintain their city as the second port of the country and the chief one for American trade.^[6] The increase in the size of ships and the gradual silting of the River Avon had made Liverpool an increasingly attractive port, and with a Liverpool to London rail line under construction in the 1830s Bristol's status was threatened. 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 lines being constructed to the North West of England.^[7]

Great Western Railway Act 1835
Act of Parliament
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Long title	An Act for making a Railway from Bristol to join the London and Birmingham Railway near London, to be called "The Great Western Railway," with Branches therefrom to the Towns of Bradford and Trowbridge in the County of Wilts.
Citation	5 & 6 Will. 4. c. cvii
Dates
Royal assent	31 August 1835

The company was founded at a meeting in Bristol on 21 January 1833. Isambard Kingdom Brunel, then aged 27, was appointed engineer on 7 March 1833. The name Great Western Railway was adopted on 19 August 1833, and the company and was incorporated by the Great Western Railway Act 1835 (5 & 6 Will. 4. c. cvii) on 31 August 1835.^[8]

Route of the line

This was by far Brunel's largest contract to date. He made two controversial decisions. Firstly, he chose to use a broad gauge of 7 ft (2,134 mm) to allow for the possibility of large wheels outside the bodies of the rolling stock which could give smoother running at high speeds. Secondly, he selected a route, north of the Marlborough Downs, which had no significant towns but which offered potential connections to Oxford and Gloucester. This meant the line was not direct from London to Bristol. From Reading heading west, the line would curve in a northerly sweep back to Bath.

Brunel surveyed the entire length of the route between London and Bristol himself, with the help of many, including his solicitor, Jeremiah Osborne of the Bristol law firm Osborne Clarke, who on one occasion rowed Brunel down the River Avon to survey the bank of the river for the route.^[9][10]

George Thomas 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 Lower Basildon and Moulsford and of Paddington Station.^[11] 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 illustrated with lithographs by John Cooke Bourne;^[12] the other, a critique of Brunel's methods and the broad gauge.^[13]

The first 22+1⁄2 miles (36 km) of line, from Paddington station in London to Maidenhead Bridge station, opened on 4 June 1838. When Maidenhead Railway Bridge was ready the line was extended to Twyford on 1 July 1839 and then through the deep Sonning Cutting to Reading on 30 March 1840. The cutting was the scene of a railway disaster two years later when a goods train ran into a landslip; ten passengers who were travelling in open trucks were killed.

This accident prompted Parliament to pass the Railway Regulation Act 1844, requiring railway companies to provide better carriages for passengers. The next section, from Reading to Steventon crossed the Thames twice and opened for traffic on 1 June 1840. A 7+1⁄4-mile (12 km) extension took the line to Faringdon Road on 20 July 1840. Meanwhile, work had started at the Bristol end of the line, where the 11+1⁄2-mile (19 km) section to Bath opened on 31 August 1840.^[14]

On 17 December 1840, the line from London reached a temporary terminus at Wootton Bassett Road west of Swindon and 80.25 miles (129 km) from Paddington. The section from Wootton Bassett Road to Chippenham was opened on 31 May 1841, as was Swindon Junction station where the Cheltenham and Great Western Union Railway (C&GWUR) to Cirencester connected. That was an independent line worked by the GWR, as was the Bristol and Exeter Railway (B&ER), the first section of which from Bristol to Bridgwater was opened on 14 June 1841. The GWR main line remained incomplete during the construction of the 1-mile-1,452-yard (2.94 km) Box Tunnel, which was ready for trains on 30 June 1841, after which trains ran the 152 miles (245 km) from Paddington through to Bridgwater.^[15] In 1851, the GWR purchased the Kennet and Avon Canal, which was a competing carrier between London, Reading, Bath and Bristol.^[16]

The GWR was closely involved with the C&GWUR and the B&ER and with several other broad-gauge railways. The South Devon Railway was completed in 1849, extending the broad gauge to Plymouth,^[17] whence the Cornwall Railway took it over the Royal Albert Bridge and into Cornwall in 1859^[18] and, in 1867, it reached Penzance over the West Cornwall Railway which originally had been laid in 1852 with the 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge or "narrow gauge" as it was known at the time.^[19] The South Wales Railway had opened between Chepstow and Swansea in 1850 and became connected to the GWR by Brunel's Chepstow Bridge in 1852. It was completed to Neyland in 1856, where a transatlantic port was established.^[20]

There was initially no direct line from London to Wales as the tidal River Severn was too wide to cross. Trains instead had to follow a lengthy route via Gloucester, where the river was narrow enough to be crossed by a bridge. Work on the Severn Tunnel had begun in 1873, but unexpected underwater springs delayed the work and prevented its opening until 1886.^[21]

Brunel's 7-foot gauge and the "gauge war"

Track gauge

By transport mode
Tram Rapid transit Miniature Scale model
By size (list)
Minimum   Minimum   Fifteen inch 381 mm (15 in) Narrow   600 mm Two foot Two foot three inch 600 mm 610 mm 686 mm (1 ft 11+5⁄8 in) (2 ft) (2 ft 3 in)   750 mm Bosnian gauge Two foot six inch 750 mm 760 mm 762 mm (2 ft 5+1⁄2 in) (2 ft 5+15⁄16 in) (2 ft 6 in)   Swedish three foot 900 mm Three foot Italian metre 891 mm 900 mm 914 mm 950 mm (2 ft 11+3⁄32 in) (2 ft 11+7⁄16 in) (3 ft) (3 ft1+13⁄32 in)   Metre 1,000 mm (3 ft 3+3⁄8 in)   Three foot six inch 1,067 mm (3 ft 6 in)   Four foot 1,219 mm (4 ft)   Four foot six inch 1,372 mm (4 ft 6 in)   1432 mm 1,432 mm (4 ft 8+3⁄8 in)   Standard 1,435 mm (4 ft 8+1⁄2 in) Broad   Italian broad gauge Dresden gauge 1,445 mm 1,450 mm (4 ft 8+7⁄8 in) (4 ft 9+3⁄32 in)   Leipzig gauge 1,458 mm (4 ft 9+13⁄32 in)   Toronto gauge 1,495 mm (4 ft 10+7⁄8 in)   1520 mm Five foot 1,520 mm 1,524 mm (4 ft 11+27⁄32 in) (5 ft)   Pennsylvania gauge Pennsylvania gauge Five foot three inch 1,581 mm 1,588 mm 1,600 mm (5 ft 2+1⁄4 in) (5 ft 2+1⁄2 in) (5 ft 3 in)   Baltimore gauge 1,638 mm (5 ft 4+1⁄2 in)   Iberian gauge Five foot six inch 1,668 mm 1,676 mm (5 ft 5+21⁄32 in) (5 ft 6 in)   Six foot 1,829 mm (6 ft)   Brunel 2,140 mm (7 ft 1⁄4 in)   Breitspurbahn 3,000 mm (9 ft 101⁄8 in)
Change of gauge
Break-of-gauge Dual gauge Conversion list Bogie exchange Variable gauge
By location
North America South America Europe Australia

Brunel had devised a 7 ft (2,134 mm) track gauge for his railways in 1835. He later added 1⁄4 inch (6.4 mm), probably to reduce friction of the wheel sets in curves. This became the 7 ft 1⁄4 in (2,140 mm) broad gauge.^[a] Either gauge may be referred to as "Brunel's" gauge.

In 1844, the broad-gauge Bristol and Gloucester Railway had opened, but Gloucester was already served by the 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge lines of the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway. This resulted in a break-of-gauge that forced all passengers and goods to change trains if travelling between the south-west and the North. This was the beginning of the "gauge war" and led to the appointment by Parliament of a Gauge Commission, which reported in 1846 in favour of standard gauge so the 7-foot gauge was proscribed by law (Railway Regulation (Gauge) Act 1846) except for the southwest of England and Wales where connected to the GWR network.

Other railways in Britain were to use standard gauge. In 1846, the Bristol and Gloucester was bought by the Midland Railway and it 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 standard gauge.^[23]

The GWR extended into the West Midlands in competition with the Midland and the London and North Western Railway. Birmingham was reached through Oxford in 1852 and Wolverhampton in 1854.^[24] This was the furthest north that the broad gauge reached.^[25] 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,^[16] 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 and so allowed through goods traffic from the north of England to the south coast (via the London and South Western Railway – LSWR) without transshipment.^[24]

The line to Basingstoke had originally been built by the Berks and Hants Railway as a broad-gauge route in an attempt to keep the standard gauge of the 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.^[24] Further west, the LSWR took over the broad-gauge Exeter and Crediton Railway and North Devon Railway,^[26] also the standard-gauge Bodmin and Wadebridge Railway.

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 and its associated companies.^[27]

By now the gauge war was lost and mixed gauge was brought to Paddington in 1861, 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, both political and physical.

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.^[28]

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. This rival company had continued to push westwards over its Exeter and 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 in west Cornwall, although there was also a small extension at Sutton Harbour in Plymouth in 1879.^[19] Part of a mixed gauge point remains at Sutton Harbour, one of the few examples of broad gauge trackwork remaining in situ anywhere.^[29]

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.^[30]

Into the 20th century

After 1892, with the burden of operating trains on two gauges removed, the company turned its attention to constructing new lines and upgrading old ones to shorten the company's previously circuitous routes. The principal new lines opened were:^[31]

• 1900: Stert and Westbury linking the Berks and Hants line with Westbury to create a shorter route to Weymouth for the Channel Islands traffic.
• 1903: the South Wales and Bristol Direct Railway from Wootton Bassett Junction to link up with the Severn Tunnel.
• 1904: a diversion of the Cornish Main Line between Saltash and St Germans, eliminating the last wooden viaducts on the main line.
• 1906: the Langport and Castle Cary Railway to shorten the journey from London to Penzance between Reading and Taunton.
• 1908: the Birmingham and North Warwickshire which, combined with the Cheltenham and Honeybourne of 1906, offered a new route from Birmingham via Stratford-upon-Avon to south Wales.
• 1910: the Birmingham Direct Line built jointly with the Great Central Railway to give a shorter route from London to Aynho and the North.
• 1913: the Swansea District Lines which allowed trains to Fishguard Harbour to avoid Swansea. Fishguard had been opened in an attempt to attract transatlantic liner traffic and provided a better facility for the Anglo-Irish ferries than that at Neyland.

Zdroj:https://en.wikipedia.org?pojem=Great_Western_Railways
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