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 board 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 jeopardies 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
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