Great Western Railway. A company that existed from 1835 to 1948 in the UK. It was absorbed into British Railways ationalization scheme and became known as the BR Western Region.
Since then our railways were privatized again and one of the new companies called itself First Great Western. It has since dropped the "First" part of its name which was used because it belonged to a parent company under the name "First", which called itself the "First Group", to become Great Western. So in a way we have a reformed company working over part of the routes that the old Great Western Railway once ran.
The old Great Western Railway as a compny were very forward thinking. They actually sent their engineers to travel the world looking for ideas to use on their locomotives and their railway. They had a few world records. The first train to pass 100 mph in 1904 (The railway tried to play it down as they did not want to publicize it, as it was thought that if a train or by any other means, one travveled over 100 mph one would die, so if word got out they would loose passengers). It was pulled by a loco built in 1903 called "The City Or Truro" which was one of a class of 4-4-0 locos with external frames. External frames were needed for safety as locomotives were made of iron in those days, and they once had a drive wheel axle break causing a wheel to come off at speed which killed people, so the GWR built these locos and several others with external frames to prevent the wheels flying off if an axle broke. They also had the worlds first passenger service booked to run at speeds over 100mph in the timetable (Over part of the journey. Not the whole journey). It was called "The Cheltenham Flyer".
They also had the most powerful passenger express loco built in its day desite being a small size. (Actually two locos. The Castles came first and then came the King class which was basically an enlarged castle class with a larger boiler to give a tractive effort of 40,000 pounds. The USA was so impressed of the power output of the GWR locos that the first of the King class locos number 6000 "King George V" was shipped out to the USA to demonstrate its abilities and to share ideas etc. The USA fitted it with a bell. The only King class to have this bell. I saw it in 1987 as it came through here on a steam special .
The early days of the Great Western Railway had another unusual feature in that they used broad gauge. The broad gauge was 7ft wide but later was widened a quarter of an inch as express speeds increased above 60 mph (The GWR also were amongst the first to pass the 60 mph barrier). Tha advantage of broad gauge is that it was known to be very stable at high speed. Unfortunately most of the other railway companies chose the more popular 4ft 8 inch gauge which was later widened half an inch when speeds of trains increased. The slight widening of the gauge prevented issues when trains went round curves at speed. (They had heavy rail wear and widening the gauge prevented this as it gave the wheels a little slack which was jot an issue when they were running at low speeds, but 60 or more mph and it made a difference). Due to the incompatibility of using two different gauges, the GWR were eventually forced to drop their broad gauge and convert to standard gauge (4ft 8 1/2 inches). (Standard gauge was once called narrow gauge in the early years!)
The GWR had miles of track to convert and one stretch of line in the Cornwall area they converted 81 miles of broad gauge track to standard gauge in a single day! Not even today could this be done in such a short time!
Other famous firsts by the GWR was a tunnel under the sea which for many years was the longest tunnel in the world at 4 miles 836 yards long called the Severn Tunnel. (I did Severn tunnel training when I first worked on the railways as there were plans for my depot staff to work through to Bristol Temple Meads, but this never materialized).
The company was the first to adopt what was known as "Standardization" where their locomotives were made from standard parts. Due to this, one "Lost" class member when the steam era ended and all of a certain class were lost, a new loco was made from an entirely different class which shared the same parts, so the lost class of loco was brought back to life in recent years. I can't remember the class at the moment but it will come back to me. One of the 4-6-0's I believe as they used a 2-6-2T Prairie to make it... Ooh. I know which it was. The Grange class.
Locos absorbed into the GWR when "Grouping" took place in 1923 where all the little companies that formed the railway network became formed into just four big companies known as "The Big Four" which did not have standard parts were rebuilt in the GWR works at Swindon and became entirely new locos with new boilers. The term used was "Swindonized" amongst the enthusiasts!
30 Oct 2020, 3:08 pm
. I think I know which is which, but pictures help. 
