A Broadgauge Journey from Paddington to the West – Part 1, by Reverend Canon Brian Arman, 7th June 2022

7th June 2022 Meeting

For our June meeting we had our much travelled Society President, Reverend Canon Brian Arman, visit us to show his slide presentation of ‘A Broad Gauge Journey from Paddington to the West – Part 1’.

Brian was born in Swindon and now lives in Bristol so has GWR running through him. We started and finished earlier than normal so that he could get the last train home as he was presenting at the South Wales Branch the following night!!

He started explaining why Broad Gauge was chosen as Brunel was charged with designing and building a railway from London to Bristol as economically  as possible with no stipulation of gauge.

All the slides were from lithographs and glass plates and the first slide was from September 1859 and featured Brunel himself, just a couple of months before his early untimely death.

We saw the old Paddington Station which had two arrival platforms and two departure ones. Fowler’s Ghost was seen, an unusual locomotive which was designed to run on hot bricks. An extraordinary photo of ‘PERSEUS’ was shown after its boiler exploded!

A couple of lovely shots at Castle Hill Station [now West Ealing] shows an 8’ Single. The old station frontage at Maidenhead was seen as well as other stations along the way.

GWR Broad gauge replica 4-2-2 "Iron Duke" is in steam on the temporary track on the South Carriage Drive in Kensington Gardens, alongside the Albert Memorial. This was one of the events to celebrate 150 years of the GWR. Good Friday, 5th April 1985. Image Credit: Geoff Plumb.

As there was a lot of inter-action and Q&A we only managed to reach Reading, but what an interesting show and we can’t wait for Brian to return next year to carry on our journey.

 

 

An increased attendance of 20 turned up and were confronted by our ‘Mistress of the Urn’ Lizzie who was doing her second session as doorman as we are not having refreshments until September.

 

Brian was whisked away to Watford Junction Station to catch the first of four trains to get home, one of which potentially could have given him his first ride on the Elizabeth Line from Tottenham Court Road to Paddington.

Rob Davidson, Watford Branch Secretary