The Great Western Railway

Evidence for and against a railway line between London and Bristol was heard before a committee of the House of Lords during June 1835. By this time several other long distance locomotive hauled lines were already operational or under construction. These included The Liverpool and Manchester (opened in 1830), and The Grand Junction (Birmingham to Warrington) and The London and Birmingham Railways which had both received parliamentary approval in 1833. The GWR received its enabling Act on 31’st August 1835 with Isambard Kingdom Brunel as chief engineer. The first train ran in 1838. Therafter throughout the Victorian era the railway expanded into the south west and west of England and most of Wales. Each new development, or significant alteration to its infra structure, required further parliamentary approval. Planned works could be bundled together on an annual basis and submitted for parliamentary scrutiny in a single volume. Detailed below is an example of this – The Great Western Railway Plans and Sections, November 1879.  The usual timetable required all documents to be submitted by the end of November for consideration during the subsequent parliamentary session; in this case the session of 1879/80. The majority of the proposals were successful in gaining Royal Accent. This included changes to railways in Buckinghamshire, Monmouth and Glamorgan, and alterations to the Mitcheldean Road and Forest of Dean Junction Railway. There was a plethora of alterations to roads and footpaths in particular affecting arrangements at Slough, Taplow and Cardiff stations. By this date the GWR had over 2,000 miles of line.