History of the Great Western Railway - 1. Consolidation 1923-29

For more than 150 years the Great Western Railway has captured the hearts of all railway enthusiasts. It can fairly claim to be Britain's most charismatic railway; outstanding for the performance and style of its lovomotives, the glamour of its distinctive liveries and the magnificence of the scenery through which its lines passed. In this three-volume work, of which this is volume one. Semmens describes the financial details of the amalgamation, and traces the development of the new Group through the 1920s. It was a period of great rivalry between the GWR's neighbours, the SR and LMSR. Speed, comfort, frequency and price were always being compared and contested. The ports played an important role in the activities of the railway, which became the largest dock operator in the world. Passengers took the trains to ports like Weymouth, Plymouth and Fishguard while the volume of freight passing through the docks at Cardiff, Newport and Swansea were enormous. 1927 saw the construction of the `Kings', the GWR's largest locomotives and by the end of the decade it had become a larger and more enterprising company than ever before...