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79-811: The Middle Circle was a Great Western Railway service in London that operated from 1872 to 1905. The route was from the District Railway station at Mansion House to Earl's Court, then via the West London Railway to Latimer Road on to the Hammersmith & City Railway and then via the Metropolitan Railway to the City of London . Although not a complete circuit, it was one of several 'circle' routes around London that opened at

158-475: 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

237-493: A company purchases less than 20% of the outstanding common stock , the purchasing company's influence over the acquired company is not significant. (APB 18 specifies conditions where ownership is less than 20% but there is significant influence.) The purchasing company uses the cost method to account for this type of investment. Under the cost method, the investment is recorded at cost at the time of purchase. The company does not need any entries to adjust this account balance unless

316-407: 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 British Rail was privatised and the old name

395-705: 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 12 mph (19 km/h). 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

474-471: 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

553-460: A single new one. Upon consolidation, the original organizations cease to exist and are supplanted by a new entity. There are three forms of business combinations: A parent company can acquire another company by purchasing its net assets or by purchasing a majority share of its common stock. Regardless of the method of acquisition, the costs (including direct costs, costs of issuing securities and indirect costs) are treated as follows: Treatment to

632-652: 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

711-558: 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

790-418: Is a decline in the value of the investment other than temporary. When the amount of stock purchased is between 20% and 50% of the common stock outstanding, the purchasing company's influence over the acquired company is often significant. The deciding factor, however, is significant influence. If other factors exist that reduce the influence or if significant influence is gained at an ownership of less than 20%,

869-418: Is not amortized or reduced until it is permanently impaired, or the underlying asset is sold. When the amount of stock purchased is more than 50% of the outstanding common stock, the purchasing company has control over the acquired company. Control in this context is defined as ability to direct policies and management. In this type of relationship the controlling company is the parent and the controlled company

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948-406: Is the subsidiary . The parent company needs to issue consolidated financial statements at the end of the year to reflect this relationship. Consolidated financial statements show the parent and the subsidiary as one single entity. During the year, the parent company can use the equity or the cost method to account for its investment in the subsidiary. Each company keeps separate books. However, at

1027-566: The 3 + 1 ⁄ 2 -mile (5.6 km) Clevedon branch line ; others were much longer such as the 23-mile (37 km) Minehead Branch . A few were promoted and built by the GWR to counter competition from other companies, such as the Reading to Basingstoke Line to keep the London and South Western Railway away from Newbury . However, many were built by local companies that then sold their railway to their larger neighbour; examples include

1106-566: The Cambrian Railways . 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

1185-596: The Channel Islands and France. The railway's headquarters were established at Paddington station. Its locomotives and rolling stock were built and maintained at Swindon Works but other workshops were acquired as it amalgamated with other railways, including the Shrewsbury companies' Stafford Road works at Wolverhampton, and the South Devon's workshops at Newton Abbot . Worcester Carriage Works

1264-518: The Circle , District and Hammersmith & City lines. Uxbridge Road station closed with the line in 1940 and Shepherd's Bush opened on the same site in 2008. The following stations were served by the Middle Circle: [REDACTED] London transport portal Great Western Railway The Great Western Railway ( GWR ) was a British railway company that linked London with

1343-688: The City of London beginning in April 1865. A station had been built on the chord linking the H&;CR and West London Railway , but this never opened due to GWR objections. Following an agreement between the Metropolitan Railway and GWR in August 1868, Uxbridge Road station, designed by the London & North Western Railway (L&NWR), opened on the West London Railway on 1 November 1869. The Middle Circle service started on 1 August 1872 when

1422-792: The Launceston and Brixham branches. Further variety came from the traffic carried: holidaymakers ( St Ives );. royalty ( Windsor ); or just goods traffic ( Carbis Wharf ). 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 other railways' territories) but some transatlantic passengers were landed at Plymouth and conveyed to London by special train. Great Western ships linked Great Britain with Ireland,

1501-602: 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. 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. This

1580-614: The Midland and South Western Junction Railway , a line previously working closely with the Midland Railway but which now gave the GWR a second station at Swindon, along with a line that carried through-traffic from the North via Cheltenham and Andover to Southampton . The 1930s brought hard times but the company remained in fair financial health despite the Depression . The Development (Loans, Guarantees and Grants) Act 1929 allowed

1659-577: The River Avon , then climbing back up through Chippenham 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 Gloucester then south-westwards on the far side of the River Severn to reach Cardiff , Swansea and west Wales. This route was later shortened by

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1738-623: The " grouping ", under which smaller companies were amalgamated into four main companies in 1922 and 1923. The GWR built a war memorial at Paddington station, unveiled in 1922, in memory of its employees who were killed in the war. The new Great Western Railway had more routes in Wales, including 295 miles (475 km) of former Cambrian Railways lines and 124 miles (200 km) from the Taff Vale Railway . A few independent lines in its English area of operations were also added, notably

1817-459: 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

1896-609: 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. In 1851, the GWR purchased the Kennet and Avon Canal , which was a competing carrier between London, Reading, Bath and Bristol. The GWR was closely involved with the C&;GWUR and the B&;ER and with several other broad-gauge railways. The South Devon Railway

1975-596: The 1908 'London Underground' map as a Metropolitan Railway service. Passenger services on the West London Railway were ended on 19 October 1940 following bomb damage to the line, and the link between Latimer Road and the WLR closed. The curve was demolished in the 1960s to make way for the construction of the West Cross Route motorway. With the exception of the Uxbridge Road, today the stations are served by

2054-512: The GWR by Brunel's Chepstow Bridge in 1852. It 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 delayed

2133-531: The GWR extended this service from Addison Road over the District Railway to Earl's Court and onto Mansion House . The GWR provided most of the locomotives and carriages for the service. When the Metropolitan extended the north side of its railway eastward from Moorgate, the Middle Circle followed suit and Bishopsgate (now Liverpool Street ) became the terminus on 12 July 1875 and then Aldgate took

2212-459: 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. Part of a mixed gauge point remains at Sutton Harbour, one of the few examples of broad gauge trackwork remaining in situ anywhere. Once the GWR was in control of

2291-451: 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 North Devon Railway , 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

2370-417: The GWR to obtain money in return for stimulating employment and this was used to improve stations including London Paddington , Bristol Temple Meads and Cardiff General ; to improve facilities at depots and 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 participated in air services . A legacy of

2449-401: The GWR to reach Crewe . 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 Newbury , and from Chippenham to Weymouth via Westbury . A network of cross-country routes linked these main lines, and there were also many and varied branch lines . Some were short, such as

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2528-493: 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,

2607-407: The acquiring company (if what was received from the transfer included common stock from the purchasing company). If the acquired company is liquidated then the company needs an additional entry to distribute the remaining assets to its shareholders. Treatment to the purchasing company: When the purchasing company acquires the subsidiary through the purchase of its common stock, it records in its books

2686-415: The acquiring company: When purchasing the net assets the acquiring company records in its books the receipt of the net assets and the disbursement of cash, the creation of a liability or the issuance of stock as a form of payment for the transfer. Treatment to the acquired company: The acquired company records in its books the elimination of its net assets and the receipt of cash, receivables or investment in

2765-481: The broad gauge was that trains for some routes could be built slightly wider 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. When the company celebrated its centenary during 1935, new "Centenary" carriages were built for the Cornish Riviera Express, which again made full use of

2844-461: 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

2923-445: The chief one for American trade. 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

3002-551: The company's previously circuitous routes. The principal new lines opened were: The generally conservative GWR made other improvements in the years before World War I such as restaurant cars, better conditions for third class passengers, steam heating of trains, and faster express services. These were largely at the initiative of T. I. Allen, the Superintendent of the Line and one of a group of talented senior managers who led

3081-760: 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

3160-421: The end of the year, a consolidation working paper is prepared to combine the separate balances and to eliminate the intercompany transactions, the subsidiary's stockholder equity and the parent's investment account. The result is one set of financial statements that reflect the financial results of the consolidated entity. There are three forms of combination: (1) horizontal integration: the combination of firms in

3239-402: The equity method may be appropriate (FASB interpretation 35 (FIN 35) underlines the circumstances where the investor is unable to exercise significant influence). To account for this type of investment, the purchasing company uses the equity method . Under the equity method, the purchaser records its investment at original cost. This balance increases with income and decreases for dividends from

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3318-413: 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. Consolidation (business) Consolidation is the practice, in business, of legally combining two or more organizations into

3397-465: The investment in the acquired company and the disbursement of the payment for the stock acquired. Treatment to the acquired company: The acquired company records in its books the receipt of the payment from the acquiring company and the issuance of stock. FASB 141 disclosure requirements: FASB 141 requires disclosures in the notes of the financial statements when business combinations occur. Such disclosures are: Treatment of goodwill impairments: When

3476-426: The investment is considered impaired or there are liquidating dividends, both of which reduce the investment account. Liquidating dividends : Liquidating dividends occur when there is an excess of dividends declared over earnings of the acquired company since the date of acquisition. Regular dividends are recorded as dividend income whenever they are declared. Impairment loss : An impairment loss occurs when there

3555-416: 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. 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

3634-411: 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

3713-546: The lines being constructed to the North West of England . 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. This

3792-654: The masterpieces of railway design". 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 of construction was the largest span achieved by a brick arch bridge. The line then continues through Sonning Cutting before reaching Reading after which it crosses the Thames twice more, on Gatehampton and Moulsford bridges. Between Chippenham and Bath

3871-419: 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,

3950-466: The network. 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 Truro and Penzance , the most westerly railway station in England. Brunel and Gooch placed the GWR's main locomotive workshops close to

4029-451: The north of England to the south coast (via the London and South Western Railway  – LSWR) without transshipment . 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,

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4108-492: The opening of a more direct east–west route through 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 Chester and (via a joint line with the LNWR ) onwards to Birkenhead and Warrington ; another route via Market Drayton enabled

4187-439: The outbreak of World War I in 1914, the GWR was taken into government control, as were most major railways in Britain. Many of its staff joined the armed forces and it was more difficult to build and maintain equipment than in peacetime. After the war, the government considered permanent nationalisation but decided instead on a compulsory amalgamation of the railways into four large groups. The GWR alone preserved its name through

4266-640: 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 existing branch lines. At

4345-468: The railway: one illustrated with lithographs by John Cooke Bourne ; the other, a critique of Brunel's methods and the broad gauge. 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

4424-486: The role from 4 December 1876. Trains ran once every 30 minutes. From 1 July 1900, the service was cut back to run from Earl's Court to Aldgate, and the Middle Circle service ended on 31 January 1905. From 1 February 1905 the service was temporarily replaced by a shuttle from Addison Road to Hammersmith & City stations, until 5 November 1906, when four electric trains an hour began running from Addison Road to Aldgate, one continuing to Whitechapel. This service appears on

4503-414: The route. 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 . Involvement in major earth-moving works seems to have fed Clark's interest in geology and archaeology and he, anonymously, authored two guidebooks on

4582-498: 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 between London and Penzance – non-stop to 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

4661-494: The same time, such as the 'inner circle' that is today's Circle line . Trains would run once every 30 minutes. In 1900 the service was cut back to run from Earl's Court to Aldgate, and ended in 1905. The Great Western Railway (GWR) opened the Hammersmith & City Railway (H&CR) on 13 June 1864, and from 1 July 1864 carriages from Kensington (Addison Road) (now Kensington [Olympia] ) were attached and detached from trains at Notting Hill; through services between Kensington and

4740-468: 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,

4819-409: The subsidiary that accrue to the purchaser. Treatment of Purchase Differentials : At the time of purchase, purchase differentials arise from the difference between the cost of the investment and the book value of the underlying assets. Purchase differentials have two components: Purchase differentials need to be amortized over their useful life; however, new accounting guidance states that goodwill

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4898-481: 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. The Great Western Railway originated from the desire of Bristol merchants to maintain their city as the second port of the country and

4977-472: 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 Wootton Bassett Junction to cross

5056-429: 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

5135-429: 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. 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

5214-503: The wider loading gauge on that route. With the outbreak of World War II in 1939, 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

5293-518: 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 Leger 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

5372-401: The work and prevented its opening until 1886. 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. Either gauge may be referred to as "Brunel's" gauge. In 1844,

5451-702: 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

5530-475: 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. 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 Railway Regulation Act 1844 made it

5609-533: 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

5688-653: Was completed in 1849, extending the broad gauge to Plymouth , whence the Cornwall Railway took it over the Royal Albert Bridge and into Cornwall in 1859 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. The South Wales Railway had opened between Chepstow and Swansea in 1850 and became connected to

5767-435: Was created by flattening land north of Worcester Shrub Hill Station , Reading Signal Works was established in buildings to the north of Reading railway station , and in later years a concrete manufacturing depot was established at Taunton where items ranging from track components to bridges were cast. More than 150 years after its creation, the original main line has been described by historian Steven Brindle as "one of

5846-560: 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, 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

5925-463: 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

6004-778: 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. This subsequently became First Great Western, as part of the FirstGroup , but in September 2015 changed its name to Great Western Railway in order to 'reinstate the ideals of our founder'. 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

6083-650: Was the fastest train in the world when it was scheduled to cover the 77.25 miles (124.3 km) between Swindon and London at an average of 71.3 miles per hour (114.7 km/h). 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,

6162-485: 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 and so allowed through goods traffic from

6241-552: 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

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