The man who became the Chief Engineer responsible for planning and building the Great Western Railway line was Isambard Kingdom Brunel who at only 27 years was quite happy to ignore precedents and the notions of more experienced engineers. He came up with the broad gauge of seven foot to lay out his track. When criticised that travellers would not survive a journey through his proposed tunnel at Box, he ignored that and was proved right. When other engineers declared that the flat brick arches across the Thames at Maidenhead couldn't possibly stand, he built it anyway, and it still survives to this day. Yet his own notions about locomotive construction were incorrect, and fortunately he had enough sense to hire a brilliant young man called David Gooch who at once put the Great Western at the forefront of development. A few of Brunel's decisions like extending the route westward to Exeter were a failure, but such was his reputation and charisma that he was simply allowed to replace the system with a conventional railway and continue his work of extending the Great Western Railway empire which spread from London westward to the tip of Cornwall, up into South Wales and north towards the Midlands. When other railways were grouped together into four main line companies in 1923, the GWR was the only one to retain its identity. Even after nationalisation when it lost its noble title, its character lived on, particularly in its fine fleet of locomotives. It attracted engineers of great imagination such as George Jackson Churchward and Charles Benjamin Collett and was leading the way in the introduction of the electric telegraph and recorded the first locomotive travelling at over 100 miles per hour with City of Truro in 1904, even if some railway historians have questioned whether it actually happened. There is always something new for railway enthusiasts to admire on the Great Western. Colour posters, photographs of stations and tracks, archive images, extensive appendices, the book tells the story of one of Britain's most successful heritage railway projects. Formed in 1960, the Great Western Society was founded by a group of schoolboys who wanted to save a Great Western Tank locomotive and an auto trailer. Today that original project has blossomed into the best collection of Great Western rolling stock and locomotives in the world. This is the story of the Society and its members. 205 large glossy pages, colour.
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