What is Great Western Railway?
{{unreferenced|date=April 2013}} The '''Great Western Railway''' (GWR) was a [[railway]] [[company]] in the [[United Kingdom]], that was started in 1833. It was engineered by [[Isambard Kingdom Brunel]]. The railway company also ran [[bus]] services and owned [[ships]] and [[hotel]]s. In 1948, the [[government]] took control of the company and Great Western Railway then was renamed the Western Region of [[British Railways]]. The first [[railway line]] built by the Great Western Railway opened in 1838. It started in [[London]] and ended in [[Maidenhead]] which was {{convert|22.5|mi|km|1}} west. By 1841, the area of service had been made much longer and so their trains went farther west to the towns of [[Reading, Berkshire|Reading]], [[Swindon]], [[Bath, Somerset|Bath]] and [[Bristol]]. By 1852, the railway line had become {{convert|305|mi|km|0}} long and went to [[Penzance]]. Penzance railway station is both the farthest south and farthest west in [[Great Britain]]. In 1923, the GWR took over several smaller railways (most of them in [[Wales]]) and became one of the [[Big Four British railway companies]]. In 1948, Britain's railways were [[Nationalization|nationalized]] and the GWR became the Western Region of [[British Railways]]. == Related pages == * [[Reading railway station]] {{Bigfour}} {{multistub|Transport|UK}} {{authority control}} [[Category:Big Four (British railway companies)]] [[Category:1833 establishments in Europe]] [[Category:1948 disestablishments in the United Kingdom]] [[Category:1830s establishments in the United Kingdom]]