During fifty-four years of its existence the Great Western Railway ran broad gauge trains. These ran on tracks with a distance between the rails of 7' 0¼", instead of the 4' 8½" that is standard on most of the world's railways. The Great Western Railway's brilliant young engineer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-1859) saw the advantages of a wider gauge in allowing more spacious trains, greater stability and higher speeds.
The first broad gauge train, drawn by 2-2-2 locomotive, "North Star", ran from London Paddington to Maidenhead on 4 June 1838. By 30 June 1841 the Great Western main line was complete and trains were able to run right through from Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads -- and indeed beyond, since by this point an associated broad gauge company, the Bristol & Exeter Railway, had completed its line as far as Bridgwater in Somerset.
With the development of the 2-2-2 "Fire Fly" and 4-2-2 "Iron Duke" classes of locomotives by the GWR's Locomotive Superintendent, Sir Daniel Gooch (1816-1889), enormous feats of speed became possible on the broad gauge. Speeds of a mile a minute were commonplace, and locomotives of the "Iron Duke" class were occasionally known to achieve a speed of eighty miles an hour. This made possible the "Flying Dutchman" express, for several decades the world's fastest train. In 1852 this train was running the 194 miles between Paddington and Exeter daily at an average speed of 53 m.p.h. Between Paddington and Swindon the average speed was even higher -- a stunning 59 m.p.h. With the extension of the Great Western main line over the years, by 1867 the "Flying Dutchman" express was running all the way between Paddington and Penzance.
In spite of its spectacular performance, however, the days of the broad gauge were destined to be limited. There was considerable inconvenience in transferring goods and passengers between trains of different gauges, and the 4' 8½" companies were not willing to make the investment necessary to widen their gauge to 7' 0¼". This led to enormous opposition to the broad gauge. The Great Western suffered a spectacular defeat in 1845 when they failed to gain control of the Bristol & Gloucester and Birmingham & Gloucester Railways, and from then on the broad gauge was pretty much doomed.
The Gauge Act of 1846 decreed that apart from local additions to the system of the Great Western and associated lines, all new railways should be built to the 4' 8½" gauge. More broad gauge lines did, however, continue to be built. The last broad gauge line to be built was the four and a half mile long branch line from St. Erth to St. Ives in Cornwall, opened on 1 June 1877. The broad gauge was at its maximum extent on 31 December 1865, at which point there were 596 miles of broad gauge track and 237 miles of mixed gauge track. With mixed gauge a third rail allowed the use of the track by both 7' 0¼" and 4' 8½" gauge trains.
After 1865 the Directors of the GWR began a systematic policy of narrowing all broad gauge lines to 4' 8½". By 1890 all of the Great Western lines were either 4' 8½" or mixed gauge except for the Taunton to Chard branch, the main line between Exeter and Truro, and a number of branch lines west of Exeter. Only a minority of trains between Paddington and Exeter were still broad gauge, although some broad gauge expresses like the "Flying Dutchman" and the "Cornishman" ran right through from Paddington to Penzance. The Chard branch was narrowed between the 18 and 20 July 1891, leaving just the lines to the west of Exeter on which only broad gauge trains could be run.
Rather than disrupt traffic on the main line for a long period while the final sections were narrowed, the Directors made the decision to bring in a large number of additional workers and convert the remaining 171 miles of broad gauge track in a single weekend. The weekend chosen was from 20 to 23 May 1892. The final day of broad gauge operation was Friday, 20 May 1892. The last broad gauge "Cornishman" , left Paddington station for Penzance at 10.15 a.m. The broad gauge "Flying Dutchman" followed at its usual 11.45 a.m., but terminated at Plymouth instead of running through to Penzance. The last broad gauge train out of Paddington was the 5.00 p.m. Plymouth train.
The very last broad gauge train of all left Penzance at 9.45 p.m. on the same day, behind "convertible" locomotives 0-6-0 No. 1256 and 0-4-4T No. 3557. The train arrived and terminated at Exeter St. David's at 4.00 a.m. on 21 May 1892. The empty stock then ran on through Taunton and Bristol to Swindon. At 9.45 a.m. on that May morning in 1892 the two locomotives trundled almost unnoticed with their train past the Swindon 'F' signal box, over the points and off the main line. As they did so the fifty-four years of the broad gauge on the Great Western Railway had finally come to an end.