These riches never materialised and the line simply ran from Upwey Junction to Abbotsbury. It was worked by the GWR. In 1895 the north curve at Bradford Junction was opened, allowing through running from the Limpley Stoke direction towards Melksham. Exceptionally severe frost had caused damage to the lining of Box tunnel and the extensive repair work necessitated the night-time and Sunday diversion of trains, involving reversal at Westbury or Trowbridge. The new curve was hastily laid in on the earthworks of the original 1845 Devizes branch, and it opened on 11 March. The GWR, the Bristol and Exeter Railway and the South Devon Railway had long since amalgamated, and there was an important through route from London to Taunton, Exeter and Plymouth. However the route was not direct: it ran via Bristol, and the GWR was sometimes called the "great way round". The LSWR had a significantly shorter route from London to Exeter via Salisbury. The GWR had a line from Reading to Devizes, joining with the WS&WR lines there, and it was clear that filling in some gaps would create a coherent direct route between Reading and Taunton. The GWR had more than once obtained Parliamentary powers to build such lines but they had lapsed, when in 1895 the directors took the decision to start work. This was to be a trunk main line, and the first task was to double the line east of Patney, which had been built as the "Berks and Hants Extension Railway", and to build a new line from Patney to Westbury, the Stert and Westbury cut-off. This was started in 1895, and goods traffic first ran on the route on 29 July 1900, followed by local passenger trains on 1 October. This shortened the distance from Paddington to Westbury, and therefore to Yeovil and Weymouth, by over 14 miles (23  km). As part of the work, Westbury station was much extended, as its status as a junction station becoming more important. The next phase of work was to construct the Langport cut-off, which ran west from Castle Cary to join the Bristol and Exeter line east of Taunton. This was opened in stages: it was opened from Castle Cary to Charlton Mackrell on 1 July 1905. On 2 April 1906 part of the line was opened at the western end, from a new junction at Cogload, near Taunton, to Somerton.