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Wilts, Somerset And Weymouth Railway
The Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth Railway (WS&WR) was an early railway company in south-western England. It obtained Parliamentary powers in 1845 to build a railway from near Chippenham in Wiltshire, southward to Salisbury and Weymouth in Dorset. It opened the first part of the network but found it impossible to raise further money and sold its line to the Great Western Railway (GWR) in 1850. The GWR took over the construction and undertook to build an adjacent connecting line; the network was complete in 1857. In the early years of the 20th century the GWR wanted to shorten its route from London to the West of England and built "cut-off" lines in succession to link part of the WS&WR network, so that by 1906 the express trains ran over the Westbury to Castle Cary section. In 1933 further improvements were made, and that part of the line was established as part of the "holiday line" to Devon and Cornwall. The network was already a major trunk route for coal from South Wales coa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chippenham
Chippenham is a market town A market town is a settlement most common in Europe that obtained by custom or royal charter, in the Middle Ages, a market right, which allowed it to host a regular market; this distinguished it from a village or city. In Britain, small rural ... in northwest Wiltshire, England. It lies northeast of Bath, Somerset, Bath, west of London, and is near the Cotswolds Area of Natural Beauty. The town was established on a crossing of the River Avon, Bristol, River Avon and some form of settlement is believed to have existed there since before Roman Britain, Roman times. It was a royal vill, and probably a royal hunting lodge, under Alfred the Great. The town continued to grow when the Great Western Railway arrived in 1841. The town had a population of 36,548 in 2021. Geography Location Chippenham is in western Wiltshire, at a prominent crossing of the River Avon (Bristol), River Avon, between the North Wessex Downs, Marlborough Downs to the east, t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Western Main Line
The Great Western Main Line (GWML) is a main line railway in England that runs westwards from London Paddington to . It connects to other main lines such as those from Reading to Penzance and Swindon to Swansea. Opened in 1841, it was the original route of the first Great Western Railway which was merged into the Western Region of British Railways in 1948. It is now a part of the national rail system managed by Network Rail with the majority of passenger services provided by the current Great Western Railway franchise. The line has recently been electrified along most of its length. The eastern section from Paddington to was electrified in 1998. Work to electrify the remainder of the route started in 2011 with an initial aim to complete the work all the way to Bristol by 2016, but in that year the section through Bath to Bristol Temple Meads was deferred with no date set for completion because costs had tripled. History The line was built by the Great Western Railway ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Durston
Durston is a village and civil parish in Somerset, England, situated on the A361 road north east of Taunton and south of Bridgwater in the Somerset West and Taunton district. The parish lies on undulating ground between the lowest slopes of the Quantock Hills and the valley of the River Tone at the Curry and Hay Moors. The parish has a population of 136. History The place-name derives from the Anglo-Saxon word 'deór-tún', being a combination of the word for a wild animal, a deer (deór,) and the word for a fenced enclosure (tún). The most likely interpretation is 'deer park’. Alwig (a Saxon; also written Alwi) held DURSTON manor from King Edward the Confessor before the Norman Conquest. Durston appeared in the Domesday Book in 1086 as follows: ''Richard holds of Roger Arundel, DURSTON. Alwig held it TRE and it paid geld for 2 hides and 3 virgates of land. There is land for 4 ploughs. In demesne is 1 plough and 4 slaves; and 4 villans and 5 bordars and 4 cottars with 3 pl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bristol And Exeter Railway
The Bristol & Exeter Railway (B&ER) was an English railway company formed to connect Bristol and Exeter. It was built on the broad gauge and its engineer was Isambard Kingdom Brunel. It opened in stages between 1841 and 1844. It was allied with the Great Western Railway (GWR), which built its main line between London and Bristol, and in time formed part of a through route between London and Cornwall. It became involved in the gauge wars, a protracted and expensive attempt to secure territory against rival companies supported by the London and South Western Railway (LSWR) which used the narrow gauge, later referred to as ''standard gauge''. At first it contracted with the GWR for that company to work the line, avoiding the expense of acquiring locomotives, but after that arrangement expired in 1849, the B&ER operated its own line. It opened a number of branches within the general area it served: to Clevedon, Cheddar, Wells, Weston-super-Mare, Chard, Yeovil and Tiverton. The B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Berks And Hants Railway
The Berks and Hants Railway comprised two railway lines built simultaneously by the Great Western Railway (GWR) south and west from in an attempt to keep the London and South Western Railway (LSWR) out of the area that it considered to be its territory in England. One line ran from Reading to and was entirely in the county of Berkshire ("Berks"). A later Berks and Hants Extension Railway continued the Hungerford line to in Wiltshire. Since 1906 part of this route has formed the direct Reading to Taunton Line used by trains to Devon and Cornwall. The term 'Berks and Hants Line' has been used intermittently by officials and passengers for the whole route from Reading to Taunton even though it does not enter Hampshire and most was never built by the Berks and Hants Railway. The second line ran from Reading to and terminated adjacent to the LSWR station there. Later the GWR station was closed and trains on the Reading to Basingstoke Line now use a platform of the rebuilt LSWR ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Gauge War
The Gauge War (or Gauge Wars) was a figurative war of intense competition to control new territory, waged between expanding railway companies in Great Britain in the nineteenth century. The contest for which track gauge should become the standard carried with it the greater struggle for which companies and stakeholders would win or lose in commerce, controlling or commercially dominating rights of way. The Gauge War was arguably the earliest format war between two similar but incompatible technologies. Origins The Great Western Railway adopted the broad gauge of at the outset, while competing railway companies adopted the gauge of , which later became standard gauge. As the railway companies sought to expand commercially and geographically, they wished to dominate areas of the country, hoping to exclude their competitors. The networks polarised into groups of ''broad gauge companies'' and of ''narrow gauge companies''. The term ''narrow gauge'' at the time referred to th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Standard Gauge
A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), International gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge and European gauge in Europe, and SGR in East Africa. It is the most widely used track gauge around the world, with approximately 55% of the lines in the world using it. All high-speed rail lines use standard gauge except those in Russia, Finland, and Uzbekistan. The distance between the inside edges of the rails is defined to be 1435 mm except in the United States and on some heritage British lines, where it is defined in U.S. customary/Imperial units as exactly "four feet eight and one half inches" which is equivalent to 1435.1mm. History As railways developed and expanded, one of the key issues was the track gauge (the distance, or width, between the inner sides of the rails) to be used. Different railways used different gauges, and where rails of different gauge met – ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Broad Gauge
A broad-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge (the distance between the rails) broader than the used by standard-gauge railways. Broad gauge of , commonly known as Russian gauge, is the dominant track gauge in former Soviet Union (CIS states, Baltic states, Georgia and Ukraine), Mongolia and Finland. Broad gauge of , commonly known as Irish Gauge, is the dominant track gauge in Ireland, and the Australian states of Victoria and Adelaide. Broad gauge of , commonly known as Iberian gauge, is the dominant track gauge in Spain and Portugal. Broad gauge of , commonly known as Indian gauge, is the dominant track gauge in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Argentina, Chile, and on BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) in the San Francisco Bay Area. This is the widest gauge in common use anywhere in the world. It is possible for trains on both Iberian gauge and Indian gauge to travel on each other's tracks with no modifications in the vast majority of cases. History In Gr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Swindon
Swindon () is a town and unitary authority with Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough status in Wiltshire, England. As of the 2021 Census, the population of Swindon was 201,669, making it the largest town in the county. The Swindon unitary authority area had a population of 233,410 as of 2021. Located in South West England, the town lies between Bristol, 35 miles (56 kilometres) to its west, and Reading, Berkshire, Reading, equidistant to its east. Recorded in the 1086 Domesday Book as ''Suindune'', it was a small market town until the mid-19th century, when it was selected as the principal site for the Great Western Railway's repair and maintenance Swindon Works, works, leading to a marked increase in its population. The new town constructed for the railway workers produced forward-looking amenities such as the UK’s first lending library and a ‘cradle-to-grave' health care centre that was later used as a blueprint for the National Health Service, NHS. After the W ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Basingstoke
Basingstoke ( ) is the largest town in the county of Hampshire. It is situated in south-central England and lies across a valley at the source of the River Loddon, at the far western edge of The North Downs. It is located north-east of Southampton, south-west of London, 27 miles (43 km) west of Guildford, south of Reading and north-east of the county town and former capital Winchester. According to the 2016 population estimate, the town had a population of 113,776. It is part of the borough of Basingstoke and Deane and part of the parliamentary constituency of Basingstoke. Basingstoke is an old market town expanded in the mid-1960s, as a result of an agreement between London County Council and Hampshire County Council. It was developed rapidly after the Second World War, along with various other towns in the United Kingdom, in order to accommodate part of the London 'overspill' as perceived under the Greater London Plan in 1944. Basingstoke market was mentioned in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bradford-on-Avon
Bradford-on-Avon (sometimes Bradford on Avon or Bradford upon Avon) is a town and civil parish in west Wiltshire, England, near the border with Somerset, which had a population of 9,402 at the 2011 census. The town's canal, historic buildings, shops, pubs and restaurants make it popular with tourists. The history of the town can be traced back to Roman origins. It has several buildings dating from the 17th century, when the town grew due to the thriving English woollen textile industry. Geography The town lies partly in the Avon Valley, and partly on the hill that marks the Vale's western edge, southeast of Bath, in the hilly area between the Mendip Hills, Salisbury Plain and the Cotswold Hills. The local area around Bath provides the Jurassic limestone known as Bath stone, from which the older buildings are constructed. The River Avon (the Bristol Avon) runs through the town. The larger town of Trowbridge is nearby to the southeast. The town includes the suburbs of Bea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chippenham, Wiltshire
Chippenham is a market town in northwest Wiltshire, England. It lies northeast of Bath, west of London, and is near the Cotswolds Area of Natural Beauty. The town was established on a crossing of the River Avon and some form of settlement is believed to have existed there since before Roman times. It was a royal vill, and probably a royal hunting lodge, under Alfred the Great. The town continued to grow when the Great Western Railway arrived in 1841. The town had a population of 36,548 in 2021. Geography Location Chippenham is in western Wiltshire, at a prominent crossing of the River Avon, between the Marlborough Downs to the east, the southern Cotswolds to the north and west and Salisbury Plain to the southeast. The town is surrounded by sparsely populated countryside and there are several woodlands in or very near the town, such as Bird's Marsh, Vincients Wood and Briars Wood. Suburbs Suburbs include Cepen Park (North & South), Hardenhuish, Monkton, Lowden, Pewsham, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
