Great Western Coffee Shop

This may seem like rather a daft question, but there is some kind of method in my madness. Don't think about it for too long! Just go with your gut feeling please.

Would surely depend which area you were raised in?
That said, I've been (mostly) raised in GWR land, but strangely prefer the West Country and Battle of Britain Bulleids, of which I saw many at Exeter (St Davids and Central).
Never interested in any other region.

Since I was not around during the lifetime of 'The Big Four' I have made a choice on the basis of my overall experience of the modern iterations, or at least as close as you can get to them, of these companies.

I have voted LMS having seen, and heard first hand, the last steam workings in the UK. 'Twas in Lancashire and a Stannier Black Five is still the finest steam locomotive in Creation  :)

I was brought up in GWR land and fed on stories of it.  I also live in Swindon which is a town that still has emotional attractions to the GWR.  I have also lived in two places in LMS land, but LMS but it never had the same attraction.  People there seemed to be more attracted to the Midland Railway or the Lancashire and Yorkshire rather than the LMS.

Went with my gut feeling and am only now now reflecting on it. Agree that childhood ties (often the patch where you grew up) may turn out to be key....

I was almost tempted to vote GWR purely because I've been in the territory for so long but I've also got fond memories of other frequent non GWR journeys from before moving to Bristol.

GWR for me, too. I grew up in deepest GWR-land, albeit in the BR(W) hydraulic era.

Has to be GWR, my early railway career was cast, forged, machined and honed in the former GWR Swindon Works, it was refined in GWR premier depot Old Oak Common and a final polish maintaining the grand Train Shed - Paddington.

I have work on all 3 of the 'foreign' railways in my career ........... my impressions?

LMS - ideas of grandeur

LNER - think they are the best

SR - Its complicated

GWR - know they are the best and just get on with it

 ;D
 

GWR through and through.

As a child, my reasonably frequent early trips to London were all from Templecombe. Up on the 730am from Exeter, home on the 6pm Waterloo. Twice a year for the dentist, Christmas to Bertram Mills' circus and Easter to the Schoolboys' and Schoolgirls' exhibition.

GWR I may be, but I secretly thought that unrebuilt Bullied pacifics were the best looking locomotives anywhere- and in later life I thought that the Wessex electrics were the best looking multiple units ever on the road. Thinking back, that 730 up from Exeter used to always meet the 11am outbound Brighton Belle after Clapham. Another fine sight.

Did I say? GWR through and through!  ;)

Went up to Paddington from Kingswear when in my pre-teen years on the night train (no sleeper).
Dad left me at Paddington for the day while he attended an interview/works meeting(?) in London.
Caught an early evening train back.
I stayed at Paddington all alone, but perfectly safe, and nothing went wrong.
During the school holidays I'd often have a weeks local rover (by myself) between Totnes, Exmouth (or was it Sidmouth) and the Kingswear branch.
Left home early morning, returned home in the dark, usually covered in soot.  A lovely week.
Couldn't do that nowadays.

Often walked around Central sheds without permission and no challenges.

'Great Western Coffee Shop'. I think I might be detecting some systemic bias  ::)  :)

Indeed - I am watching the vote tallies, but leaving Red Squirrel to comment on what he sees in the results; for sure the sampling here is a bit skewed - I'm sure we have more members from Bath than Basildon.

I am keeping my powder dry until the polls close…

Sorry to be a bit slow getting back to this, and thanks for all your votes and input. I finally succumbed to COVID just after Xmas, and have been out of commission for a week or so. But I'm on the mend now!

The idea for this poll sprung from grahame's thread King Charles coins: coins to celebrate Windrush, NHS and Flying Scotsman (http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=27040.msg329229#msg329229). I noted that 2023 was also the centenary of the Grouping which created the LMS, SR and LNER, as well as being the 75th anniversary of the creation of British Rail. I may have referred (well all right I DID refer) to the LMS, SR and LNER as 'the lesser three of the Big Four'.

Grahame set out to disprove this assertion by citing figures for route mileage, numbers of passengers hauled and freight tonnage. But can greatness be measured in these terms?

I wanted to test the theory that most of us would have a favourite, despite the fact that few forum members could have any meaningful memory of the pre-1948 railway. Nearly 80% of respondents did indeed declare a favourite. And despite the fact that the forum covers the territory of the LMS, SR and GWR, the GWR was the clear winner with over half of those who had a favourite choosing it.

Does this just come down to where you were brought up, or is there more to it than that?

Partly where I was brought up. Partly Brunel.

People might be biased by where they were brought up - but how could anyone complete with the company that brought you ...
* Only international passenger trains
* The ultimate 0-6-0 (Q1 class)
* Schools class - most elegant and powerful 4-4-0
* Steam locomotive with thermic siphons, bogies and cabs at each end
* First heavily electrified mass transit railway
* First double decker train in the UK
* and was the only company with separate network on an island

Edit to correct typos

The LMS owned the Northern Counties Committee network in Northern Ireland, post grouping.

I was thinking standard gauge but neglected to be specific to that ...(my excuse)

Were they the only company who collected tolls on road bridges (Hayling and Stetning branches)?

Caledonian / LMS collected tolls on the Connel Bridge

I am bored - and feeling pedantic. They may be the only company to bring international trains. They didn't bring only international trains but lots of others as well. But wait. Were the Hook Continental and its siblings not also international trains? Were the boat trains to Plymouth (think City of Truro) and Liverpool not also International trains?  If you mean actual trans-border stock movements, I am sure that i have seen photos of (freight) trains being loaded onto the ferry at Harwich.

So many questions. So many answers. That's what makes this forum fun.

Indeed.  What I said and what you nearly surmised.  International passenger stock movements with passengers in that stock at the time.

Agree on the fun - noting http://www.passenger.chat/27089 which I was writing at the very same time you were posting!

For most of the area covered by this forum, the GWR shared its territory with other railways - the Southern all the way to the West Country, and the LMS into Bristol and South Wales. Our choices don't just come down to where we are brought up.

So what makes the GWR unique?

At the heart of the GWR is what we could refer to as HS0 - Britain's first High-Speed inter-city railway, from Bristol to London. It's Engineer's Line Reference says it all: MLN, or Main Line. Was anything better built before HS1?

GWR's standard locos under Churchward led, through his protege Stanier, to the British Rail Standard locos. Evening Star was arguably the pinnacle of Great Western loco design. GWR locos didn't need lipstick or party frocks to make them look good or, more to the point, 'right'.

But perhaps the main thing the GWR had that set it aside from the other roads is that it alone survived the grouping:

(https://i0.wp.com/www.railwayaccidents.port.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Cartoon.jpg?ssl=1)

It didn't have to contend with the upheavals or internal rivalries that beset the other three. It didn't just keep the name of a previous company - it survived, enlarged, with its culture and traditions intact.

Good to see you back and repaired / recovering.   YOUR health comes even before GWR's position in the rail hierarchy ... including their way of inflating their mileage by being the "Great Way Round".  To this day, Taunton to Cardiff at 2 and a quarter hours on a through train to cover the less than 40 miles as the crow flies must be one of the longest diversions and slowest journeys in the UK.    Just imagine what would be said if London to Tunbridge Wells ... or Rochester ...  or Haywards Heath ... or Guildford (similar distances) took as long  ;D

I look forward to the day that this is shortened by running a class 800 equipped with air bags down the railway pier at Burnham to reappear at Penarth or Barry.