Great West Way® Travel Magazine | Issue 04

HISTORIC STOPS
TRAIN TRAVEL
Making tracks on the Great West Way
can point you at endless amounts of
history and fun facts to be discovered
along its length from London to Bristol
Words: Geoff Moore
TAKING TO THE TRACKS is certainly one way to
explore locations and the history of the Great
West Way. In one go the journey is just 1hr
40min, but stopping en route to explore the
route in your own time is 'slow travel' at its best.
One of England’s great long-distance railway lines,
the Great Western Railway runs along the full distance
of the Great West Way – from London’s Paddington
station to Bristol Temple Meads. It’s chief engineer was
Isambard Kingdom Brunel and you’ll travel the course
he plotted back in the 1830s, including his Box Tunnel,
infamously said to be impossible to build. Before he
built it.
Setting out west from Paddington, how about
making the first stop at Windsor and Eton Central?
It was here where a race to impress a real Royal took
place just outside her castle in the town. Two opposing
rail companies ‘The Great Western’ and ‘The London
and South Western Railway’ set out to be the first to
provide the monarch with a rail service.
In 1840 Queen Victoria encouraged by Prince Albert
took a trip from Slough - which was then the nearest
station to the castle - to Paddington. And today
parts of the original elegant façade can still be seen
indicating its former short lived Royal connection.
The GWR line extension was built to almost within
touching distance of the castle walls. With the two
companies frantically making progress to Windsor it
was the Great Western that finally won the race.
Although they had to build a massive curving brick
arch viaduct over the ‘playing fields of Eton’, plus bridge
the Thames in order to get into the centre.
For the London and South Western Railway, a bridge
failure disrupted their attempt to win and still the town
has two stations within 600 metres of each other.
Windsor and Eton Central and Windsor Eton Riverside.
GWR’s central station has an expansive metal and
glass roof that almost mimic’s Paddington’s. This was to
allow the Queen’s mounted soldiers to wait undercover
before escorting her back to the castle.
Today, you can enjoy an alfresco cocktail in the
stations All Bar One restaurant and bar, the exact
location where in March 1882 the last (of eight)
assassination attempts on Queen Victoria took place.
78 GreatWestWay.co.uk