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Great Western Railway
The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran its first trains in 1838 with the initial route completed between London and Bristol in 1841. It was engineered by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who chose a broad gauge of —later slightly widened to —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 merged at the end of 1947 when it was nationalised and became the Western Region of British Railways. The GWR was called by some "God's Wonderful Railway" and by others the "Great Way Round" but it was famed as the "Ho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
History Of Rail Transport In Great Britain
:''This article is part of the history of rail transport by country series.'' The railway system of Great Britain started with the building of local isolated wooden wagonways starting in the 1560s. A patchwork of local rail links operated by small private railway companies developed in the late 18th century. These isolated links expanded during the railway boom of the 1840s into a national network, although still run by dozens of competing companies. Over the course of the 19th and early 20th centuries, these amalgamated or were bought by competitors until only a handful of larger companies remained (see railway mania). The entire network was brought under government control during the First World War and a number of advantages of amalgamation and planning were demonstrated. However, the government resisted calls for the nationalisation of the network. In 1923, almost all the remaining companies were grouped into the "Big Four": the Great Western Railway, the London and North ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Minehead
Minehead is a coastal town and civil parish in Somerset, England. It lies on the south bank of the Bristol Channel, north-west of the county town of Taunton, from the boundary with the county of Devon and in proximity of the Exmoor National Park. The parish of Minehead has a population of approximately 11,981, making it the most populous town in the western part of the Somerset West and Taunton local government district, which in turn, is the worst area in the country for social mobility. This figure includes Alcombe and Woodcombe, suburban villages which have been subsumed into Minehead. There is evidence of human occupation in the area since the Bronze and Iron Ages. Before the Norman conquest, it was held by Ælfgar, Earl of Mercia and after it by William de Moyon and his descendants, who administered the area from Dunster Castle, which was later sold to Sir George Luttrell and his family. There was a small port at Minehead by 1380, which grew into a major trading centre d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland), North Channel, the Irish Sea, and St George's Channel. Ireland is the List of islands of the British Isles, second-largest island of the British Isles, the List of European islands by area, third-largest in Europe, and the List of islands by area, twentieth-largest on Earth. Geopolitically, Ireland is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Ireland), which covers five-sixths of the island, and Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom. As of 2022, the Irish population analysis, population of the entire island is just over 7 million, with 5.1 million living in the Republic of Ireland and 1.9 million in Northern Ireland, ranking it the List of European islan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
GWR Autotrain
The GWR Autocoach (or auto-trailer) is a type of coach that was used by the Great Western Railway for push-pull trains powered by a steam locomotive. The distinguishing design feature of an autocoach is the driving cab at one end, allowing the driver to control the train without needing to be located in the cab of the steam locomotive. This eliminates the need to run the engine round to the other end of the coach at the end of each journey. When one or more autocoaches are connected to a suitably equipped steam locomotive, the combination is known as an auto-train, or, historically, a railmotor train. A steam locomotive provided with the equipment to be used as an autotrain is said to be auto-fitted. The autocoach is the forerunner of the driving trailer used with push–pull trains. Design features A locomotive fitted with additional control equipment is used to power the autotrain. When running 'autocoach first', the regulator is operated by a linkage to a rotating shaf ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
GWR Steam Rail Motors
The steam rail motors (SRM) were self-propelled carriages operated by the Great Western Railway in England and Wales from 1903 to 1935. They incorporated a steam locomotive within the body of the carriage. History In the first years of the twentieth century, railway managements turned their attention to the need to provide better local passenger services and to reduce costs, in the face of increasing demand for convenient travel and the competitive threat posed by urban tramways. The original strengths of railways—a fixed track, multiple vehicle passenger trains, highly structured and staffed stations—had limitations in responding to changing needs. The London and South Western Railway had successfully operated a railmotor, consisting of a self-contained passenger vehicle with its own steam power unit, on its Southsea Railway, and the Great Western Railway arranged to borrow one unit for trials on its Golden Valley Line in Gloucestershire. On this rural route with a sca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cheltenham Spa Express
The ''Cheltenham Spa Express'' is a British List of named passenger trains, named passenger train service from London Paddington station, Paddington station, in London, to Cheltenham Spa railway station, Cheltenham Spa, in Gloucestershire, via Reading railway station, Reading, Kemble railway station, Kemble, Stroud railway station, Stroud, Stonehouse railway station, Stonehouse and Gloucester railway station, Gloucester. During the 1930s, when operated by the Great Western Railway, the service was more popularly known as the Cheltenham Flyer. Even prior to the First World War the Great Western Railway ran a high-speed service between Cheltenham and London, covering the from Kemble Junction to Paddington in 103 minutes. After the war an additional stop was made at Swindon railway station, Swindon and the time for the to Paddington was scheduled at 85 minutes. However, in 1923 the first batch of Charles Collett's GWR 4073 Class (also called Castle Class) 4-6-0 expres ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cornish Riviera Express
The ''Cornish Riviera Express'' is a British express passenger train that has run between London Paddington and Penzance in Cornwall since 1904. Introduced by the Great Western Railway, the name ''Cornish Riviera Express'' has been applied to the late morning express train from London to Penzance continuously through nationalisation under British Rail and privatisation under First Great Western, only ceasing briefly during the two World Wars. The name is also applied to the late morning express train running in the opposite direction from Penzance to London. Through performance and publicity the ''Cornish Riviera Express'' has become one of the most famous named trains in the United Kingdom and is particularly renowned for the publicity employed by the Great Western Railway in the 1930s which elevated it to iconic status. Today it is operated by the Great Western Railway train operating company. History Through trains from London Paddington to Penzance began running on 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flying Dutchman (train)
The ''Flying Dutchman'' was a named passenger train service from London Paddington to . It ran from 1849 until 1892, originally over the Great Western Railway (GWR) and then the Bristol and Exeter Railway. As the GWR expanded, the destination of the train changed to and briefly to . Early history The name ''Flying Dutchman'' has a convoluted history. In common with many steam and diesel locomotives such as a London and North Eastern Railway A1s and British Rail class 55 'Deltic', the ''Flying Dutchman'' was named after The Flying Dutchman, a famous racehorse, which had won both the Derby and St. Leger in 1849. The racehorse was in turn named after the famous Dutch Admiral Tromp. In 1845 the 09:30 morning express train between London Paddington and was taking 5 hours with stops at , Bath, Bristol and , this being reduced to 4½ hours during that year. In 1848 the train, now the 09:50 from London Paddington, covered the 53.1 miles to Didcot in 55 minutes, setting a world rec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Western Railway Wagons
The fleet of Great Western Railway wagons was both large and varied as it carried the wide variety of goods traffic on the Great Western Railway (GWR) in the United Kingdom. This was the railway company that operated for the longest period of time in the country (from 1838 to 1947) and covered a large geographical area that included big cities such as London, industrialised areas including the West Midlands, areas of coal and mineral mining such as South Wales, and Somerset and other important agricultural districts. In 1902 the company owned 59,036 wagons, and by 1926 this had risen to 88,580. The first wagons were just open boxes but covered vans were added from the 1860s and a wide range of special wagons were eventually built to handle many specialised traffics. Towards the end of its existence these were all painted in a grey livery, but before that both black and red had been used at different times. Design development Most early vehicles were open wagons with four whee ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brunswick Green
Spring green is a color that was traditionally considered to be on the yellow side of green, but in modern computer systems based on the RGB color model is halfway between cyan and green on the color wheel. The modern spring green, when plotted on the CIE chromaticity diagram, corresponds to a visual stimulus of about 505 nanometers on the visible spectrum. In HSV color space, the expression of which is known as the RGB color wheel, ''spring green'' has a hue of 150°. Spring green is one of the tertiary colors on the RGB color wheel, where it is the complementary color of rose. The first recorded use of ''spring green'' as a color name in English was in 1766, referring to roughly the color we now call ''spring bud''. Spring green (computer) Spring green (HTML) ''Spring green'' is a web color, common to X11 and HTML. Medium spring green Displayed at right is the color medium spring green. ''Medium spring green'' is a web color. It is close to but not right on th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Swindon Works
Swindon railway works was opened by the Great Western Railway in 1843 in Swindon, Wiltshire, England. It served as the principal west England maintenance centre until closed in 1986. History In 1835 Parliament approved the construction of the Great Western Main Line between Paddington railway station, London and Bristol Temple Meads railway station, Bristol by the Great Western Railway (GWR). Its Chief Engineer was Isambard Kingdom Brunel. From 1836, Brunel had been buying locomotives from various makers for the new railway. Brunel's general specifications gave the locomotive makers a free hand in design, although subject to certain constraints such as piston speed and axle load, resulting in a diverse range of locomotives of mixed quality. In 1837, Brunel recruited Daniel Gooch and gave him the job of rectifying the heavy repair burden of the GWR's mixed bag of purchased locomotives. It became clear that the GWR needed a central repair works so, in 1840 Gooch identified a sit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cornwall
Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic Ocean, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, with the River Tamar forming the border between them. Cornwall forms the westernmost part of the South West Peninsula of the island of Great Britain. The southwesternmost point is Land's End and the southernmost Lizard Point. Cornwall has a population of and an area of . The county has been administered since 2009 by the unitary authority, Cornwall Council. The ceremonial county of Cornwall also includes the Isles of Scilly, which are administered separately. The administrative centre of Cornwall is Truro, its only city. Cornwall was formerly a Brythonic kingdom and subsequently a royal duchy. It is the cultural and ethnic origin of the Cornish dias ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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