X-Nico

19 unusual facts about Great Western Railway


Archie Bown

Having not proved himself adequately he returned to his old team and his job as a turner and fitter in the Great Western Railway's Workshop.

Ashendon Junction

Ashendon Junction in Buckinghamshire, England, was a major mainline railway junction where, from July 1910, the Great Western Railway's (GWR) London-Birmingham direct route diverged from the Great Central Railway's (GCR) main London-Sheffield route.

Copetown, Ontario

Local laborer and railway worker Donald Duncan was killed after coming into contact with the bridge while on top of a Great Western Railway caboose.

Dacentrurus

Part of the British Museum of Natural History collection was specimen BMNH 46321, a pair of spike bases found in the Kimmeridge Clay by William Cunnington near the Great Western Railway cutting near Wootton Bassett.

Ellesmere Port to Warrington Line

The route follows the Birkenhead Joint (LNWR & GWR) Ellesmere Port branch with stations at Stanlow and Thornton and Ince and Elton to the village and junction station at Helsby where it joins the Chester to Manchester Line through to Warrington Bank Quay railway station.

Great Western Hotel

There are Great Western Hotels in several places, deriving their name from the Great Western Railway.

Great Western Railway, Queensland

The idea of linking the western extremities of the QR lines was fulfilled when the Australian government contracted Qantas to provide air mail services linking Charleville, Blackall, Longreach, Winton and Cloncurry in 1922.

LSWR suburban lines

The Great Western Railway (GWR) were also anxious to get access to Windsor, for the considerable prestige of serving Queen Victoria, and they had secured friendlier treatment from the Commissioners over getting a line approved.

Marsh Farm Junction

Marsh Farm Junction was a railway junction in Shropshire where the GWR's line from Buildwas via Much Wenlock joined the LNWR/GWR joint line between Shrewsbury and Hereford.

Matthew Digby Wyatt

He assisted Isambard Kingdom Brunel on the London terminus of the Great Western Railway at Paddington Station (1854) and later designed a considerable expansion to the Temple Meads station (1871–8) in Bristol.

Railway Air Services

The railways were the "big four": London Midland & Scottish, London & North Eastern, Great Western Railway and Southern Railway.

River Taf

Water drains from high ground above the village of Crymych in Pembrokeshire, and at one time flowed at ground level across the main CardiganTenby road (A478) before falling to the level of the defunct Whitland and Cardigan Branch Line railway station "Crymmych Arms" (Great Western Railway) where, on the UK Ordnance Survey map of 1866 it is shown as the source of the Taf.

Seymour Clark

Clark, a local club cricketer in Weston and a locomotive driver with the Great Western Railway, was called into the Somerset side for five matches when regular wicketkeeper Wally Luckes was ill.

Slough Borough Council

It was part of the original parish of Upton-cum-Chalvey, although the hamlet of Slough (a few scattered houses and coaching inns along the Great West Road and Windsor Road) was smaller than the villages of Upton and Chalvey until the Great Western Railway arrived in the 1840s.

Snow Hill Lines

Historically, the lines running through Snow Hill station were built by the Great Western Railway, and so they are largely separate from the lines running into New Street station, which were built by the London and North Western Railway and Midland Railway.

Southall East Junction

Southall East Junction is a railway junction in the vicinity of Southall on the outskirts of London, England on the former GWR main line.

Standish Hospital

In 1853, James Dutton, 3rd Baron Sherborne leased it to Gloucester-based businessman Richard Potter, son of Radical MP Richard Potter, then a director of timber merchants Price & Co., later the Managing Director of the Great Western Railway.

The Great Western

The title apparently refers to the Great Western Railway, which appears to be reflected in the album's artwork.

Wolverhampton Steel Terminal

The depot is built adjacent to the trackbed of the Birmingham Snow Hill-Wolverhampton Low Level Line, which closed in 1972, and on the site of the former Walsall Street goods depot of the Great Western Railway.


Alfred John Agg

He was educated at the Worcester grammar school, and entered the service of the Great Western Railway Company as a clerk at Reading in 1846, where he remained until 1850, when he emigrated to Australia.

Bakerloo line

By 1913, the line had been extended from its original northern terminus at Baker Street to the west with interchange stations with the Great Central Railway at Marylebone and the Great Western Railway at Paddington, and a new station at Edgware Road.

Black Dog Halt railway station

Black Dog Halt was opened on 3 November 1863 by the Great Western Railway for Lord Lansdowne of Bowood House.

Bordesley railway station

The station still carries the painted lettering "BR(W) Bordesley Cattle Station", and "Bordesley Cattle Station GWR" from the time when, as part of the Great Western Railway and later British Rail's (Western) region, it was used to bring cattle from the countryside to the Bull Ring markets.

Brocklebank baronets

His grandson, the third Baronet, was a Director of the Cunard Steamship Company, of the Suez Canal Company and of the Great Western Railway.

Claud Morris

Leaving Collurian he workded as a porter at Penzance railway station for the Great Western Railway and with the free pass, that was part of his entitlement, he travelled to London to search for a post as a journalist.

Clee Hill Junction

Clee Hill Junction was a railway junction in Shropshire, England, where the goods only line from Titterstone Clee Hill joined the Shrewsbury and Hereford Railway, a LNWR/GWR joint line.

Coelbren Junction railway station

The Midland wanted a route to Swansea that was independent of its two main competitors, the Great Western and London and North Western Railway.

It was a key junction in the networks operated by the Midland, Neath and Brecon, and Great Western railway companies.

Craven Arms railway station

The LNWR and Great Western Railway jointly leased the main line in 1862, whilst the modest Knighton branch would eventually be extended right though to Swansea by the LNWR over the course of the next decade.

Cyril Power

Power also designed and executed a War Memorial for the Great Western Railway at Paddington, London around this time.

Derwenthaugh Coke Works

It was of the Stephenson Long Boiler design, and unlike the ubiquitous 0-4-0 and 0-6-0 side tanks and saddle tanks which served most of the industrial railways of the north-east, it was a pannier tank, (a layout common on the Great Western Railway, but rarely seen elsewhere).

Devon Railway Centre

The Devon Railway Centre is in the village of Bickleigh in Mid Devon, England, at the former Cadeleigh railway station on the closed Great Western Railway branch from Exeter to Dulverton, also known as the Exe Valley Railway.

Fishguard and Goodwick railway station

Complications meant that, despite work having begun at Rosebush in 1878, the line was not completed by 1898 when the company (now called the North Pembrokeshire and Fishguard Railway) was purchased by the Great Western Railway Company.

Garndiffaith Viaduct

The viaduct was built by the engineer John Gardiner between 1871 and 1874 to extend the LNWR line that principally carried coal from Brynmawr and Blaenavon to meet the Great Western Railway at Abersychan and Talywain.

Kensington Canal

In the mid-1830s railways were being projected, in particular the London and Birmingham Railway and the Great Western Railway; both of these lines were to pass a little to the north of Kensington (at Willesden) and their London terminals were to be on the north-west fringe of London.

Portishead power station

The BEA started building the Portishead "B" power station in 1949 on part of the site of the Great Western Railway's original Portishead railway station; which was closed on 4 January 1954 and demolished.

Preserved GWR Modified Hall Class locomotives

The locomotive was built by British Railways to GWR specifications at Swindon in January 1949, and named after the Yorkshire stately home.

Railway Lands

Rivals Grand Trunk Railway and Great Western Railway arrived in Toronto to compete with OS&H.

River Itchen, Warwickshire

The infant river is fed by several small brooks and skirts the village of Bishop's Itchington (to which it gives its name) before passing below the former Great Western Railway London to Birmingham railway (now operated by Chiltern Trains).

Rubery railway station

Rubery railway station was a railway station in the district of Rubery, South Birmingham, England, on the Great Western Railway & Midland Railway's Joint Halesowen Railway line from Old Hill to Longbridge.

Soho and Winson Green railway station

Soho & Winson Green was an intermediate station on the Great Western Railway's London (Paddington) to Birkenhead via Birmingham (Snow Hill) line, serving the Soho and Winson Green areas.

Stourbridge Town Branch Line

The Great Western Railway used both autotrains and one of the early railcars on this route, and in December 2005 the route began being used to test the Parry People Mover, a highly energy-efficient railcar, to provide the Sunday service.

Timsbury, Somerset

The canal was later replaced by a railway line in the early 1900s, the Great Western Railway Radford and Timsbury Halt served the needs of passengers from the village.

Vacuum brake

In the UK the pre-nationalisation railway companies standardised around systems operating on a vacuum of 21 inches of mercury (533.4 Torr), with the exception of the Great Western Railway, which used 25 inches of mercury (635 Torr).

Wantage Tramway

Several other steam locomotives were used for short periods, including GWR no. 1329 Raven (Avonside Engine Company 0-4-0ST 1052/1874), GWR no. 1359 Wye (Fletcher, Jennings & Co. 0-4-0T 153/1876) and ex-Royal Arsenal Railway Driver (Manning Wardle 0-4-0ST 515/1875).

Western Region of British Railways

The Region consisted principally of ex-Great Western Railway lines, minus certain lines west of Birmingham, which were transferred to the London Midland Region in 1963 and with the addition of all former Southern Railway routes west of Exeter, which were subsequently rationalised.

Wrexham Lager Beer

However Graesser reformed the brewery as, and found a non-local market in export sales, primarily through railways such as the Great Western Railway (who were also the primary method of shipping the beer out of Wrexham), shipping lines such as Cunard, and the British Army; there was documentary evidence of the lager appearing in many places, such as Khartoum as early as 1898.