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 1854 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 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 to London under construction 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. A young
Isambard Kingdom Brunel was
appointed as engineer. This was by far his largest contract to date
and he made two controversial decisions. Firstly to use a
broad track gauge of seven feet – actually – to
allow the possibility of large wheels outside the bodies of the
rolling stock which would provide smoother running at high speeds.
And
secondly and to take a route which passed north of the Marlborough
Downs
, a route with no significant towns but one which
did offer potential connections to Oxford
and Gloucester
. He surveyed the entire length of the route
between London and Bristol himself.
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 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
illustrated with
lithographs by
John Cooke Bourne; the other a critique of
Brunel's methods and the broad gauge.
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 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 passengers 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
crossed the Thames twice but was ready to open for traffic on 1
June 1840.
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 section to
Bath
opened on 31 August 1840.
On 17 December 1840 the terminus of the London end of the line was
moved closer to Bristol, to a temporary terminus at west of Swindon
and from Paddington.
The next section of the line, from Wootton
Bassett Road to , was opened on 31 May 1841, along with Swindon
Junction station
, the connection with 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 was
opened on 14 June 1841.
At this time the GWR main line was still
incomplete due to construction of 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 1851 the GWR purchased the Kennet and
Avon Canal
, which was a competitive route between London,
Reading, Bath and 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 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 between and in 1850.
It was connected to
the GWR via Brunel's Chepstow Bridge
in 1852, and was completed to Neyland
in 1856, where a transatlantic port was established.
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 slowed the work down and
prevented its opening until 1886.
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 or
Swindon through Gloucester towards Birmingham
and the North. 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. 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 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 through in 1852, and Wolverhampton
in 1854. This 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 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 |
| 31 December |
Broad |
Mixed |
Standard |
| 1851 |
|
|
0 miles |
| 1856 |
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| 1861 |
|
|
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| 1866 |
|
|
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| 1871 |
|
|
|
| 1876 |
|
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| 1881 |
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| 1886 |
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| 1891 |
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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
London and South
Western Railway (LSWR) out of Great Western territory, but in
1857 the GWR and LSWR opened a shared line to 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 and its associated companies.
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, 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 to 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. 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.
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
With its
shares in demand from the
later 1890s it was possible for the company to raise substantial
sums of money from new share issues. The additional income funded
the building of further new lines and the upgrading of old ones to
shorten the company's previously circuitous routes.
The principal lines opened 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 started using
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 in Britain – 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 former
Cambrian
Railways lines and from 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 to Southampton
.
The 1930s brought hard times but the company remained in relatively
good financial health despite the
Depression.
The Development
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
, and Cardiff General
; to improve facilities at depots; and even to lay additional tracks
to reduce congestion. 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 peak 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.
World War II and after
With the outbreak of
World War II the
GWR returned to direct government control, and by the end of the
war 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.
The Great Western Railway Company continued to exist as a legal
entity for nearly two more years, being formally wound up on 23
December 1949. GWR designs of locomotives and rolling stock
continued to be built for a while, and the region maintained its
own distinctive character, even painting for a while its stations
and express trains in a form of chocolate and cream.
About 40 years after nationalisation 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. The operating
infrastructure, however, was transferred to
Railtrack and has since passed to
Network Rail. These companies have continued to
preserve appropriate parts of its stations and bridges so historic
GWR structures can still be recognised around the network.
Geography
The
original Great Western Main
Line linked London Paddington station with Temple Meads
station
in Bristol by way of ,
Didcot
, , and Bath. This line was extended westwards through
Exeter and Plymouth to reach , the most westerly railway station in England.
Brunel
and Gooch chose to locate the GWR's main locomotive
workshops close to the village of Swindon and the locomotives
of many trains were changed here in the early years. Up to
this point the route had climbed very gradually westwards from
London, but from here it changed into one with steeper gradients
which, with the primitive locomotives available to Brunel, was
better operated by types with smaller wheels better able to climb
the hills.
These gradients faced both directions, first
dropping down through to cross the River Avon, then climbing back up
through to the Box
Tunnel before descending once more to regain the River
Avon's valley which it followed to Bath and Bristol.
Swindon
was also the junction for a line that ran north-westwards to then
south-westwards on the far side of the River Severn to reach Cardiff, and west Wales
.
This route was later shortened by the opening of a more direct
east-west route through the
Severn
Tunnel.
Another route ran northwards from Didcot to
from where two different routes continued to Wolverhampton, one through Birmingham
and the other through Worcester
. Beyond Wolverhampton the line continued via
to , and Birkenhead
. Operating agreements with other companies
also allowed GWR trains to run to Manchester
. South of the London to Bristol main line
were routes from Didcot to Southampton via , and from Chippenham to via .
There was
a network of cross-country routes linking these main lines, with
many branch lines to places such as
Windsor
, , and . The
Railways Act 1921 added a number of
smaller companies that had been operating within the region,
notably the
Cambrian Railways
network in mid Wales and several railways in the Cardiff
area.
Brunel
envisaged the GWR continuing across the Atlantic Ocean
and built the SS Great
Western to carry the railway's passengers from Bristol to New York
. Most traffic for North America soon switched
to the larger port of Liverpool (in LNWR territory) but some
transatlantic passengers were landed at Plymouth and conveyed to London by special train.
Great
Western ships linked the United Kingdom
with Ireland
, the Channel Islands
and France
.
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 manufacturing depot was established at
where items ranging from track components to bridges were
cast.
Engineering features
A number of notable structures can be found along the
Great Western Main Line as it was
designed to be much more straight and level than was usual for
railways constructed at the time.
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. The line then runs through Sonning
Cutting before reaching Reading, after which it crosses the
Thames twice more, on Gatehampton
and Moulsford
bridges. Between Chippenham and Bath is 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.
Some other notable structures were added when smaller companies
were amalgamated into the GWR.
These include the South Devon
Railway sea wall
, the Cornwall
Railway's Royal Albert
Bridge, and Barmouth
Bridge
on the Cambrian
Railways.
Operations
In the early years the GWR was managed by two committees, one in
Bristol and one in London.
They soon 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 Locomotive Superintendent was
Daniel Gooch, although from 1915 the title was
changed to
Chief Mechanical
Engineer. The first Goods Manager was appointed in 1850 and
from 1857 this position was filled by
James Grierson until 1863
when he became the first General Manager. 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 |
£630,515 |
| 1875 |
36,024,592 |
9,435,876 |
£2,528,305 |
| 1900 |
80,944,483 |
23,279,499 |
£5,207,513 |
| 1924 |
140,241,113 |
37,997,377 |
£13,917,942 |
| 1934 |
110,813,041 |
40,685,597 |
£10,569,140 |
| Passenger numbers exclude season ticket
journeys. |
Early trains offered passengers a choice of
first- or second-class
carriages. In 1840 this choice was
extended: passengers could be conveyed by the slow
goods trains in what became third-class. The
1844 Railway Regulation
Act made it a legal requirement that the GWR, along with all
other British railways, had to serve each station with trains which
included third-class accommodation at a
fare of
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 principal 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 included special coaches that could be
detached as they passed through stations without stopping, a
guard riding in the coach
to uncouple it from the main train and bring it to a stop at the
correct position.
The first such 'slip
coach' was 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 and ;
within five years 100 had been constructed. These trains had
special retractable steps that could be used at stations with lower
platforms than was usual in England. 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 railcars 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 |
£202,978 |
| 1875 |
16,388,198 |
11,206,462 |
£3,140,093 |
| 1900 |
37,500,510 |
23,135,685 |
£5,736,921 |
| 1924 |
81,723,133 |
25,372,106 |
£17,571,537 |
| 1934 |
64,619,892 |
22,707,235 |
£14,500,385 |
| 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-mining 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 at least
£40,000 each year to the railway. 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. 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.
The GWR provided special wagons, handling equipment and storage
facilities for its largest traffic flows. For example the coal
mines in Wales sent much of their coal to the docks along the
coast, many of which were owned and equipped by the railway, as
were some in Cornwall that exported most of the
china clay production of that county. The wagons
provided for both these traffic flows (both those owned by the GWR
and the mining companies) were fitted with end doors that allowed
their loads to be tipped straight into the ships' holds using
wagon-tipping equipment on the dockside. Indeed, special wagons
were produced for many different commodities such as
gunpowder,
china clay,
aeroplanes, milk, fruit and fish.
Heavy traffic was carried from the agricultural and fishing areas
in the south west of England, often in fast 'perishables' trains,
for instance more than 3,500 cattle were sent from in the 12 months
to June 1869, and in 1876 nearly than 17,000
tons of fish was carried from west Cornwall to
London. The perishables trains running in the nineteenth century
used wagons built to the same standards as passenger coaches, with
vacuum brakes and large wheels to allow
fast running. Ordinary goods trains on the GWR, as on all other
British railways at the time, had wheels close together (around
apart), smaller wheels and only hand brakes. In 1905 the GWR ran
its first vacuum-braked general goods train between London and
Bristol using newly built goods wagons with small wheels but vacuum
brakes. This was followed by other services to create a network of
fast trains between the major centres of production and population
that were scheduled to run at speeds in excess of . Other railway
companies also followed the GWR's lead by providing their own
vacuum-braked (or 'fitted') services.
Ancillary operations
A number
of canals, such as the Kennet and Avon Canal and the Stratford-upon-Avon Canal
, 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 although they
were only a small part of the railway company's business: in 1929
the canals took £16,278 of receipts while freight trains earned
over £17 million.
Powers were granted by Parliament for the GWR to operate ships in
1871.
The
following year the company took over the ships operated by Ford and
Jackson on the route between Neyland in Wales and
Waterford
in Ireland. The Welsh terminal was relocated to when
the railway was opened to there in 1906. Services were also
operated between and the
Channel
Islands from 1889 on the former Weymouth and Channel Islands
Steam Packet Company routes.
Smaller GWR 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
Railways Act 1921 brought most of
the large coal-exporting docks in South Wales
into the GWR's ownership, such as those at Cardiff
, Barry
, and Swansea
. They were added to a small number of docks
along the south coast of England which the company already owned,
to make it the largest docks operator in the world.
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 the 1930s
when they were transferred to local bus companies (in most of which
the GWR held a
share).
The GWR
inaugurated the first railway air service between Cardiff, Torquay
and Plymouth
in association with Imperial Airways. This grew to
become part of the
Railway Air
Services.
Traction and rolling stock
Locomotives
The GWR's first locomotives were specified by
Isambard Kingdom Brunel but proved
unsatisfactory.
Daniel Gooch, who was
just 20 years old, was soon appointed as the railway's Locomotive
Superintendent and set about establishing a reliable fleet.
He bought
two locomotives from Robert Stephenson and Company
which proved more successful than Brunel's, and then designed a
series of standardised locomotives which, from 1846, could be built
at the company's newly established railway workshops at Swindon. He designed several different
broad gauge types for the growing railway, such
as the
Firefly and later
Iron Duke Class 4-2-2s. In 1864 Gooch was succeeded by
Joseph Armstrong who brought his
standard gauge experience to the
railway. To replace some of the earlier locomotives, Armstrong put
wheels set at the broad gauge on his otherwise standard gauge
locomotive designs. Some of these were built new as broad gauge
locomotives, while others were recently built standard gauge
locomotives that he modified; those needing tenders were given old
ones from withdrawn broad gauge locomotives. Brunel and Gooch both
gave their
broad
gauge locomotives names in order to identify them, but the
standard gauge companies that became a part of the GWR used numbers
instead. From the time of Armstrong's arrival all new locomotives –
both broad and standard – were given numbers, including broad gauge
ones that had previously carried names before they were acquired
from other railways.
Joseph Armstrong's early death in 1877 meant that the next phase of
motive power design was the responsibility of
William Dean who developed express
4-4-0 types rather than the single-driver
2-2-2s and
4-2-2s that had hauled
express trains up to that time. He also reintroduced a naming
policy for passenger
tender
locomotives from 1895 with each batch being given a distinctive
theme; since Armstrong's time only a very few locomotives had been
given names. The familiar
4-6-0s of later
years were first introduced by the next engineer,
George Jackson Churchward, who was
also responsible for the introduction of self-propelled
steam rail motors for suburban and
light branch line passenger trains. It was during Churchward's
tenure that the term 'Locomotive Superintendent' was changed to
'
Chief Mechanical
Engineer' (CME).
Charles Collett
succeeded Churchward in 1921. He was soon responsible for the much
larger fleet that the GWR operated following the
Railways Act 1921 mergers. He set about
replacing the older and less numerous classes, and rebuilding the
remainder using as many standardised GWR components as possible. He
also produced many new designs using standard parts, such as the
Castle and
King classes, and then introduced diesel
power in the form of
streamline railcars in 1934. The final CME was
Frederick Hawksworth who took control
in 1941 and produced GWR-design locomotives until after
nationalisation in 1948.
The GWR painted its locomotives a middle chrome or
"Brunswick" Green for most of the period of
its existence. 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
A coach in the familiar "chocolate and
cream" livery used from 1922
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 independent companies, but in
1844 the railway started to build carriages at Swindon
railway works, which eventually provided most of the railway’s
rolling stock. Special vehicles
included
sleeping cars,
restaurant cars and
slip coaches. Passengers were also carried in
railmotors,
autotrains, and
diesel
railcars. Passenger-rated vans carried parcels, horses, and
milk 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
- , see also Freight
services
A GWR goods van in the grey livery
used from about 1904.
This one has end doors to allow motor cars to be loaded.
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
introduced about 1904.
Most early wagons were four-wheeled open vehicles, although a few
six-wheeled vehicles were provided for special loads. Covered vans
followed, initially for carrying cattle but later for both general
and vulnerable goods too. The first
bogie
wagons appeared in 1873 for heavy loads, but bogie coal wagons were
built in 1904 following on from the large four-wheel 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 vans for motor cars in 1933.
When the GWR was opened no trains in the United Kingdom were fitted
with
vacuum brakes, instead handbrakes
were fitted to individual wagons and trains also conveyed
brake vans where a guard had control of a
screw-operated brake. The first goods wagons to be fitted with
vacuum brakes were those that ran in passenger trains carrying
perishable goods such as fish. Some ballast hoppers were given
vacuum brakes in December 1903, and general goods wagons were
constructed with them from 1904 onwards, although unfitted wagons
(those without vacuum brakes) still formed the majority of the
fleet in 1948 when the railway was
nationalised to become a part of
British Railways.
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).
Track
Baulk road track
For the
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 because of
the higher ratio of timber to length of line. More conventional
track forms were later used, although baulk road could still be
seen in sidings in the first half of the twentieth century.
Signalling
Disc and crossbar signal
Brunel developed a system of 'disc and crossbar'
signals to control train movements, but the
people operating them could only assume that each train reached the
next signal without stopping unexpectedly.
The world's first
commercial telegraph line was
installed along the from Paddington to West
Drayton
and came into operation on 9 April 1839.
This later spread throughout the system and allowed stations to use
telegraphic messages to tell the people operating the signals when
each train arrived safely. A long list of
code words were
developed to help make messages both quick to send and clear in
meaning.
More conventional
semaphore signals
replaced the discs and crossbars over time. The GWR persisted with
the lower quadrant form, where a 'proceed' aspect is indicated by
lowering the signal arm, despite other British railways changing to
an upper quadrant form. Electric light signals of the 'searchlight'
pattern were later introduced at busy stations; these could show
the same red/green or yellow/green aspects that semaphore signals
showed at night. An '
automatic train control'
system was introduced from 1906 which was a safety system that
applied a train's brakes if it passed a danger signal.
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 later added the Fishguard Bay Hotel in
Wales and the Manor House at Moretonhampstead
, Devon
, to which
it added a golf course in
1930.
It promoted itself from 1908 as 'The Holiday Line' through a series
of posters,
postcards,
jigsaws, and books. These included
Holiday
Haunts, which described the attraction of all the different
parts of the GWR system, and regional titles such as
SPB Mais's
Cornish Riviera and A.M.
Bradley’s
South Wales: The Country of Castles. Guidebooks
described the scenery seen
Through the Window of their
trains. Other GWR books were designed to encourage an interest in
the GWR itself. Published as 'Books for Boys of All Ages
, these
included The 10:30 Limited
and Loco’s of the Royal
Road
Cheap tickets were offered and excursion trains operated to popular
destinations and special events such as the
Great Exhibition in 1851. Later,
GWR road motors operated tours to
popular destinations not served directly by train, and its ships
offered cruises from places such as Plymouth. Redundant carriages
were converted to
camp coaches then
placed at country or seaside stations such as and 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), (1878), (1879), (1897), and (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 (1841), (1848), (1850, with
the last surviving Brunel-style
train
shed), (1857), and (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.
Great Western locomotives
Several locomotives were honoured with the name
Great
Western.
The first was an Iron Duke class broad gauge locomotive
built in 1846, the first locomotive entirely constructed at the
company’s Swindon
locomotive works. This was withdrawn in 1870, but in 1888 one
of the modernised version of the same class was built and given the
same name; this was withdrawn just four years later when the broad
gauge was taken out of use. A standard gauge
3031 class locomotive, number 3012, was then
given the
Great Western name. The final GWR locomotive to
carry the name was
Castle class
number 7007, which continued to carry it in
British Railways days.
The name later reappeared on some
BR
diesels. The first was 47500 which
carried the name from 1979 until 1991. Another
Class 47, this time 47815, had the
name bestowed on it in 2005; it is currently (2009) in operation
with
Riviera Trains. A
High Speed Train power car,
number 43185, also carries the same name; it is currently, and
appropriately, a part of the
First
Great Western fleet.
Notable people
- 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.
- 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
References
- Reprinted 1982, Ian Allan, ISBN 0-711004-12-9
- God's Wonderful Railway on track to be world
heritage site, Steven Morris, The Guardian, 2006-07-07.
- ,
Further reading
- Adams, William (ed) (1993) Encyclopaedia of the Great
Western Railway, Patrick Stephens, ISBN 1-85260-329-1
- Bryan, T. (2004) 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 0
- L. 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,
Tourret
Publishing, 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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Meads
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