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Great Western Railway in the 19th Century by OS Nock Soft Cover
Great Western Railway in the 19th Century by OS Nock
Soft Cover
200 pages
Copyright 1971
CONTENTS
PREFACE7
I PIONEER DAYS11
II BRISTOL AND THE EXETER ROAD24
III THE BATTLE OF THE GAUGES 36
IV SWINDON 48
V SOUTH DEVON AND CORNWALL60
VI THE BROAD GAUGE IN SOUTH WALES 74
VII OXFORD, WORCESTER AND WOLVERHAMPTON 84
VIII ADVERSITY AND RESURGENCE 96
IX ON THE LINE: A CHAPTER OF ANECDOTE AND REMINISCENCE 107
X NARROW GAUGE IN THE ASCENDANT 120
XI THE SEVERN TUNNEL 131
XII THE END OF THE BROAD GAUGE 140
XIII COACHING STOCK 152
XIV DEAN LOCOMOTIVES AND THEIR WORK 167
XV PRELUDE TOA NEW AGE 186
INDEX198
PREFACE
AMONG the old railway companies of Great Britain none has been written up more thoroughly, or more appreciatively than the Great Western. There have been articles by the hundred, pamphlets, brochures, and a plethora of full length books - two indeed by your humble servant. And now here am I setting out to add yet another, and a book moreover that will run inevitably into a couple of volumes ! What is there new to be written ? The ground would appear to have been covered so thoroughly from the impartial scholarship of MacDermot to W. G. Chapman, and the boisterous controversialism of Professor Tuplin. It is perhaps inevitable that Brunel should be a favourite subject for biographers, and the intensely human story of this amazing man tends to dominate the stage, as we see it in retrospect, when actually he did not really do so at the time.
Today, unhappily, the Great Western Railway as an institution is receding into history, and one can perhaps make a better appraisal of its great men, its traffic and its engineering affairs than when it was a living entity in our midst. The anxious days of 1838, when Brunel was on the point of resignation, assume a new poignancy; the birth and development of `New Swindon' assumes an added significance in these days of welfare state, and one can see the famous engines of Churchward and Collett in clearer perspective. The Great Western Railway during the nineteenth century was a concern of such multifarious and far flung activities that to write chronologically of the system would be to jump from one place to another in a way that would be confusing in the extreme. I have chosen instead to present a series of essays dealing with various well-defined aspects of its history, engineering topography and so on, much of which seemed at times to be no more than loosely connected with the fountain head at Paddington.
In preparing this first volume I have had the most invaluable help from a number of good friends, particularly among the present-day officers of the Western Region, who have put numerous drawings, photographs and other information at my disposal. I am also especially indebted to the Archivist of the British Transport Commission for making available to me the magnificent collection of photographs of broad gauge engines and trains taken by the late Rev. A. H. Malan. The detailed references to the work of the Dean locomotives was made possible by Mr. G. J. Aston, who sent me the relevant volumes from the train running notes compiled by the late R. E. Charlewood. In addition to all the above I have had considerable help from reference to the various works listed in the bibliography. To the Superintendent of H.M. Nautical Almanac Office of the Royal Greenwich Observatory I am indebted for the trouble he took to verify the feasibility of the sun's rays shining right through Box Tunnel on Brunel's birthday. To Mr. B. W. C. Cooke, Editor of The Railway Magazine, I am grateful for permission to quote the two passages from Ahrons included in Chapter IX.
O. S. NOCK.20 Sion Hill,Bath, Somerset. April 1962.
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