LIGHT RAILS TO HEMYOCK

Ask any ten people with railway knowledge what the Great Western Railway means to them and you are sure to hear phrases like ‘broad gauge’, ‘the only railway to retain its name after Grouping’, ‘Paddington’ and ‘Brunel’. However. I would not mind betting that if you asked any one of those enthusiasts to give you a list of things GWR, ‘branch lines’ would be on that list. Did the GWR have more branch lines than any other railway? Did GWR branch lines become notorious because they served more obscure and unsuitable places than other railways? Or were GWR branch lines simply more scenically attractive than those of most other railways?

I don’t know that there are straight answers to any of those questions but it is certainly true that some GWR branch lines stood out, at least in enthusiasts’ minds, as something rather special.

In fact, there wasn’t a ‘standard GWR branch line’ because very few were actually built by the GWR. Most were promoted privately, usually by influential folk who were miffed that a GWR main line did not serve their town but passed a few miles away. Or, perhaps equally effective in promoting a new minor railway, there would be the existence of a railway whose services were deemed too expensive by local businesses! The lack of an affordable rail service in mid-19th century England would hamper a town’s development in much the same way that lack of highspeed broadband is said to affect progress today, while promoting an alternative railway connection would surely concentrate the minds of the existing railway