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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.
In October of that year the GWR introduced an early version of the autotrain service on its Stroud Valley line, while in 1909 the Cunard Line began routing their ships from New York into the refurbished port of Fishguard using the four-funnelled Mauretania, the largest liner afloat.
Beginnings. The Great Western Railway was originally founded to provide a route from Bristol to London, using broad gauge track as developed by its chief engineer I. K. Brunel. It wasn't long before its sights turned northwards due to the success of its standard gauge rivals, the Grand Junction Railway, and the London & Birmingham Railway.
In 1835, a collaboration between a group of businessmen and the brilliant young engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel started the story of the Great Western Railway. GWR opened the original Grandpont terminus station in Oxford in 1844 on what is now the corner of Marlborough Road and Western Road.
GWR arrived in Oxford in 1844, with the opening of the original Grandpoint station. Three proposals were submitted from 1837 to 1842 before construction finally began. A new site was opened in 1852 with the original finally closing in 1872 after operating as a goods station.
Mar 18, 2024 · Historians disagree about when we should date the first 'true' railway but most accept it to be the Liverpool and Manchester, which opened in 1830, linking one of Britain's biggest ports with the nation's largest textile manufacturing centre.
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In March, 1833, he was chosen to superintend the construction of the Bristol-London railway, which in the same year adopted its present-day title - “Great Western Railway”. Within a month of his engagement Brunel, the son of a famous engineer, had planned and drawn up a route from Bristol to London.