The Great Western Railway in Warwickshire

The history of the Great Western Railway in Warwickshire was, like the London Midland Railway, a story of competing independent railway companies which over time became the GWR. Robert Ferris traces the origins of the company from the early days of railways in the county to its last days of independence when on 31st December 1947 it became the Western Division of British Railways.

To navigate within the history of the Great Western Railway in Warwickshire click the following links.

Broad Gauge Plans and Politics

The first Great Western Railway Line in Warwickshire could have been the Birmingham & Gloucester Railway. This together with the Cheltenham & Great Western Union Railway (CGWU) and Bristol and Gloucester Railway (BGR) formed a through route from Birmingham to Bristol. These later two railways linked to the Great Western Railway at Bristol and Swindon respectively and both were to be constructed as broad gauge railways. Furthermore the CGWU which was to build the important link between the other two railway companies, from Cheltenham to Standish Junction (south of Gloucester) was in debt to the Great Western and eventually purchased by them in July 1843. Already owning the middle section the Great Western Railway was somewhat arrogant in its negotiations with the other two companies and when the Midland Railway made a better offer, they accepted and this trunk route was absorbed into the Midland railway on 3rd August 1846. The Great Western Railway had been outmaneuvered and humiliated.

The opening of the Great Western Railway broad gauge branch line from Didcot to Oxford on 12th June 1844 set the scene for another possible northwards expansion of the broard gauge into the industrial heart of Victorian England. Mining and manufacturing interests in the West Midlands wanted another railway route to the capital to compete with the “monstrous monopoly” of the London and Birmingham Railway (L&B), who were seen as unreliable, uncooperative and expensive. The alternative was the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway (OWW), a new broad gauge route, which would link at Oxford, with the Great Western Railway and at Wolverhampton, with the Grand Junction Railway (GJR). The GJR operated between Lancashire and Birmingham and were also looking for an independent route to the capital. The Great Western Railway agreed to support the OWW and once completed, to lease the line for 999 years.

At the same time that the Great Western Railway was supporting the OWW with a route to the North-west of Oxford, it was also looking North-east and promoted a second broad gauge line from Oxford to Rugby, where it intended to link to the Midland Counties Railway. The parliamentary bills authorising construction of these two lines were hotly contested (particularly by supporters of the L&B, but also by others who feared the extension of the broad gauge may jeopardise their railway investments). The one narrow gauge railway which supported these two new broad gauge lines was the GJR, who wrote to their shareholders explaining that “the directors have ascertained the perfect practicality of adding the Broad Gauge on the Grand Junction at a very reasonable cost”. Both new broad gauge lines received their Royal Ascent on 4th August 1845, although a provision was included that narrow gauge rails must also be laid down on certain sections if required by the Board of Trade.

The Great Western Railway had won the parliamentary battle for these two lines, but their opponents had managed to have set up a Royal Commission to investigate the Gauge Question. The eventual result of this commission was a halt to broad gauge expansion and after 1846 no more broad gauge lines were authorised by Parliament, outside the area already served by existing broad gauge railways.

Neither of these two new broad gauge lines from Oxford served Warwickshire, but the GJR now suggested that a branch line from their Curzon Street terminus in Birmingham to Fenny Compton on the Oxford & Rugby Railway should also be built. This would provide another possible route to London in addition to that via the connection with the OWW at Wolverhampton. When in the following year the GJR and L&B patched up their differences and amalgamated to form the LNWR, the Great Western Railway continued to promote this branch and in the absence of the broad gauge rails on the GJR, to extend it further to join the OWW near Wolverhampton. The three bills for this broad gauge line received Royal Ascent together on 3rd August 1846. They were the Birmingham & Oxford Junction Railway, Birmingham Extension Railway and Birmingham, Wolverhampton & Dudley Railway. The OWW initially supported the Great Western Railway’s plan, but soon realised that these new lines would be directly competing with the OWW for the same traffic.

Relationships were further strained with the economic crisis of 1846, when the Great Western Railway refused to underwrite the escalating costs of the OWW construction and in 1849 work on the construction of the OWW had to be stopped due to lack of funds. When the slump finally ended the following year the OWW declared independence from the broad gauge camp and started to look for other allies.

Robert Ferris