1.
National Rail
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The name and the accompanying double arrow symbol are the intellectual property of the Secretary of State for Transport. The National Rail logo was introduced by ATOC in 1999, and was used on the Great Britain public timetable for the first time in the edition valid from 26 September in that year. Rules for its use are set out in the Corporate Identity Style Guidelines published by the Rail Delivery Group, the NR title is sometimes described as a brand. As it was used by British Rail, the operator before franchising, its use also maintains continuity and public familiarity. National Rail should not be confused with Network Rail, the two networks are generally coincident where passenger services are run. Most major Network Rail lines carry traffic and some lines are freight only. About twenty privately owned operating companies, each franchised for a defined term by government. The Rail Delivery Group is the association representing the TOCs and provides core services. It also runs Rail Settlement Plan, which allocates ticket revenue to the various TOCs, and Rail Staff Travel and it does not compile the national timetable, which is the joint responsibility of the Office of Rail Regulation and Network Rail. Since the privatisation of British Rail there is no longer a single approach to design on railways in Great Britain, the look and feel of signage, liveries and marketing material is largely the preserve of the individual TOCs. However, National Rail continues to use BRs famous double-arrow symbol and it has been incorporated in the National Rail logotype and is displayed on tickets, the National Rail website and other publicity. The trademark rights to the arrow symbol remain state-owned, being vested in the Secretary of State for Transport. The double arrow was already prescribed for indicating a railway station, the lettering used in the National Rail logotype is a modified form of the typeface Sassoon Bold. It is a misconception that Rail Alphabet was also used for printed material. The British Rail typefaces of choice from 1965 were Helvetica and Univers, TOCs may use what they like, examples include Futura, Helvetica, Frutiger, Bliss, and a modified version of Precious by London Midland. Several conurbations have their own metro or tram systems, most of which are not part of National Rail, LO now also possesses some infrastructure in its own right, following the reopening of the former East London line of London Underground as the East London Railway of LO. Heathrow Express and Eurostar are also not part of the National Rail network despite sharing of stations, northern Ireland Railways were never part of British Rail, which was always confined to Great Britain, and therefore are not part of the National Rail network. National Rail services have a common ticketing structure inherited from British Rail, through tickets are available between any pair of stations on the network, and can be bought from any station ticket office
2.
Reading, Berkshire
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Reading is a large, historically important town in Berkshire, England, of which it is the county town. The 19th century saw the coming of the Great Western Railway, Today Reading is a major commercial centre, with involvement in information technology and insurance, and, despite its proximity to London, has a net inward commuter flow. The first evidence for Reading as a settlement dates from the 8th century, by 1525, Reading was the largest town in Berkshire, and tax returns show that Reading was the 10th largest town in England when measured by taxable wealth. By 1611, it had a population of over 5000 and had grown rich on its trade in cloth, the 18th century saw the beginning of a major iron works in the town and the growth of the brewing trade for which Reading was to become famous. During the 19th century, the town rapidly as a manufacturing centre. It is ranked the UKs top economic area for economic success and wellbeing, according to such as employment, health, income. Reading is also a regional retail centre serving a large area of the Thames Valley. Every year it hosts the Reading Festival, one of Englands biggest music festivals, sporting teams based in Reading include Reading Football Club and the London Irish rugby union team, and over 15,000 runners annually compete in the Reading Half Marathon. In 2015, Reading had an population of 232,662. The town is represented in Parliament by two members, and has been continuously represented there since 1295, for ceremonial purposes the town is in the county of Berkshire and has served as its county town since 1867, previously sharing this status with Abingdon-on-Thames. It is in the Thames Valley at the confluence of the River Thames and River Kennet, and on both the Great Western Main Line railway and the M4 motorway. Reading is 75 miles east of Bristol,25 miles south of Oxford,42 miles west of London,17 miles north of Basingstoke,13 miles south-west of Maidenhead and 20 miles east of Newbury. Reading may date back to the Roman occupation of Britain, possibly as a port for Calleva Atrebatum. However the first clear evidence for Reading as a settlement dates from the 8th century, the name probably comes from the Readingas, an Anglo-Saxon tribe whose name means Readas People in Old English, or less probably the Celtic Rhydd-Inge, meaning Ford over the River. In late 870, an army of Danes invaded the kingdom of Wessex, on 4 January 871, in the first Battle of Reading, King Ethelred and his brother Alfred the Great attempted unsuccessfully to breach the Danes defences. The battle is described in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and that account provides the earliest known record of the existence of Reading. The Danes remained in Reading until late in 871, when they retreated to their quarters in London. After the Battle of Hastings and the Norman conquest of England, William the Conqueror gave land in, in its 1086 Domesday Book listing, the town was explicitly described as a borough
3.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
4.
Ordnance Survey National Grid
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The Ordnance Survey National Grid reference system is a system of geographic grid references used in Great Britain, different from using Latitude and Longitude. It is often called British National Grid, the Ordnance Survey devised the national grid reference system, and it is heavily used in their survey data, and in maps based on those surveys. Grid references are commonly quoted in other publications and data sources. The Universal Transverse Mercator coordinate system is used to provide references for worldwide locations. European-wide agencies also use UTM when mapping locations, or may use the Military Grid Reference System system, the grid is based on the OSGB36 datum, and was introduced after the retriangulation of 1936–1962. It replaced the previously used Cassini Grid which, up to the end of World War Two, had issued only to the military. The Airy ellipsoid is a regional best fit for Britain, more modern mapping tends to use the GRS80 ellipsoid used by the GPS, the British maps adopt a Transverse Mercator projection with an origin at 49° N, 2° W. Over the Airy ellipsoid a straight grid, the National Grid, is placed with a new false origin. This false origin is located south-west of the Isles of Scilly, the distortion created between the OS grid and the projection is countered by a scale factor in the longitude to create two lines of longitude with zero distortion rather than one. Grid north and true north are aligned on the 400 km easting of the grid which is 2° W. 2° 0′ 5″ W. OSGB36 was also used by Admiralty nautical charts until 2000 after which WGS84 has been used, a geodetic transformation between OSGB36 and other terrestrial reference systems can become quite tedious if attempted manually. The most common transformation is called the Helmert datum transformation, which results in a typical 7 m error from true, the definitive transformation from ETRS89 that is published by the OSGB is called the National Grid Transformation OSTN02. This models the detailed distortions in the 1936–1962 retriangulation, and achieves backwards compatibility in grid coordinates to sub-metre accuracy, the difference between the coordinates on different datums varies from place to place. The longitude and latitude positions on OSGB36 are the same as for WGS84 at a point in the Atlantic Ocean well to the west of Great Britain. In Cornwall, the WGS84 longitude lines are about 70 metres east of their OSGB36 equivalents, the smallest datum shift is on the west coast of Scotland and the greatest in Kent. But Great Britain has not shrunk by 100+ metres, a point near Lands End now computes to be 27.6 metres closer to a point near Duncansby Head than it did under OSGB36. For the first letter, the grid is divided into squares of size 500 km by 500 km, there are four of these which contain significant land area within Great Britain, S, T, N and H. The O square contains an area of North Yorkshire, almost all of which lies below mean high tide
5.
Network Rail
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Network Rail is the owner and infrastructure manager of most of the rail network in England, Scotland and Wales. Network Rail is an arms length public body of the Department for Transport with no shareholders, since 1 September 2014, Network Rail has been classified as a public sector body. Britains railway system was built by companies, but it was nationalised by the Transport Act 1947. Infrastructure and passenger and freight services were separated at that time, between 1994 and 2002 the infrastructure was owned and operated by Railtrack. The Hatfield train crash on 17 October 2000 was a moment in the collapse of Railtrack. The costs of modernising the West Coast Main Line were also spiralling, the purchase was completed on 3 October 2002. The SRA was abolished in November 2006, the company moved its headquarters to Kings Place,90 York Way, from 40 Melton Street, Euston, in August 2008. In October 2008, Sir Ian McAllister announced that he would not stand for re-election as chairman of Network Rail and he had held the position for six years. He noted that as Network Rail moved to a new phase in its development it was appropriate for a new chairman to lead it there, many track safety initiatives have been introduced in the time Network Rail has been responsible for this area. This ruling came into force in January 2009 for maintenance and property workers and in April 2009 for infrastructure, in 2009, allegations appeared in the media from the Transport Salaried Staffs Association concerning treatment of Network Rail employees. Former chief executive Iain Coucher was also accused of financial impropriety involving unspecified payments to his business partner Victoria Pender during his tenure at Network Rail, an internal investigation held by Network Rail in 2010, vetted by its auditors PricewaterhouseCoopers, uncovered no evidence of wrongdoing. An independent enquiry headed by Anthony White QC in 2011 further examined the claims, critical commentary appeared in the media concerning the knighthood awarded to John Armitt in the 2012 New Year Honours for services to engineering and construction. The reorganisation has been interpreted as a move back towards vertical integration of track, in 2016 Network Rail failed to check whether the Flying Scotsman could fit through tunnels along the Borders Route resulting in the cancellation of a trip just 24 hours before departure. Scottish Transport Minister Derek Mackay branded the affair a debacle, Network Rails attempt to electrify the West Coast Mainline has been dogged by poor planning and cost overruns, the projected cost has ballooned from by £1.2 billion to £2. It however owns a fleet of departmental stock, although it owns over 2,500 railway stations, it manages only 18 of the biggest and busiest of them, all the other stations being managed by one or other of the various train operating companies. Network Rail has a 15-year lease on Square One in Manchester with 800 staff in one of Manchesters largest refurbished office spaces, Network Rail should not be confused with National Rail. National Rail is not an organisation, but merely a brand, used to explain, the majority of Network Rail lines also carry freight traffic, some lines are freight only. A few lines that carry passenger traffic are not part of the National Rail network, conversely, a few National Rail services operate over track which is not part of the Network Rail network
6.
Great Western Railway
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The Great Western Railway was a British railway company that linked London with the south-west and west of England, the Midlands, and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835, Goods wagons were painted red but this was later changed to mid-grey. Great Western trains included long-distance express services such as the Flying Dutchman, the Cornish Riviera Express and it also operated many suburban and rural services, some operated by steam railmotors or autotrains. The company pioneered the use of larger, more economic goods wagons than were usual in Britain and it operated a network of road motor routes, was a part of the Railway Air Services, and owned ships, docks and hotels. The Great Western Railway originated from the desire of Bristol merchants to maintain their city as the port of the country. The company was founded at a meeting in Bristol in 1833 and was incorporated by Act of Parliament in 1835. Isambard Kingdom Brunel, then aged twenty-nine, was appointed engineer and this was by far Brunels largest contract to date. Firstly, he chose to use a gauge of 7 ft to allow for the possibility of large wheels outside the bodies of the rolling stock which could give smoother running at high speeds. Secondly, he selected a route, north of the Marlborough Downs and this meant the line was not direct from to London to Bristol. From Reading heading west, the line would curve in a northerly sweep back to Bath, the first 22.5 miles of line, from Paddington station in London to Maidenhead Bridge station, opened on 4 June 1838. When Maidenhead Railway Bridge was ready the line was extended to Twyford on 1 July 1839, the cutting was the scene of a railway disaster two years later when a goods train ran into a landslip, ten passengers who were travelling in open trucks were killed. This accident prompted Parliament to pass the 1844 Railway Regulation Act requiring railway companies to provide carriages for passengers. The next section, from Reading to Steventon crossed the Thames twice, a 7. 25-mile extension took the line to Faringdon Road on 20 July 1840. Meanwhile, work had started at the Bristol end of the line, on 17 December 1840, the line from London reached a temporary terminus at Wootton Bassett Road west of Swindon and 80.25 miles from Paddington. The section from Wootton Bassett Road to Chippenham was opened on 31 May 1841, as was Swindon Junction station where the Cheltenham and Great Western Union Railway to Cirencester connected. That was an independent line worked by the GWR, as was the Bristol and Exeter Railway, in 1851, the GWR purchased the Kennet and Avon Canal, which was a competing carrier between London, Reading, Bath and Bristol. The GWR was closely involved with the C&GWUR and the B&ER, the South Wales Railway had opened between Chepstow and Swansea in 1850 and became connected to the GWR by Brunels Chepstow Bridge in 1852. It was completed to Neyland in 1856, where a port was established
7.
Transport hub
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A transport hub is a place where passengers and cargo are exchanged between vehicles or between transport modes. Public transport hubs include train stations, rapid transit stations, bus stops, tram stop, airports, freight hubs include classification yards, airports, seaports and truck terminals, or combinations of these. For private transport, the parking lot functions as a hub, delta Air Lines pioneered the hub and spoke system for aviation in 1955 from its hub in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, in an effort to compete with Eastern Air Lines. FedEx adopted the hub and spoke model for overnight package delivery during the 1970s, when the United States airline industry was deregulated in 1978, Deltas hub and spoke paradigm was annexed by several airlines. Several airlines around the world operate hub and spoke systems, sections of city streets that are devoted to functioning as transit hubs are referred to as transit malls. Modern electronic passenger information systems and journey planners require a digital representation of the stops, airports have a twofold hub function. First they concentrate passenger traffic into one place for onward transportation and this makes it important for airports to be connected to the surrounding transport infrastructure, including roads, bus services, railway and rapid transit systems. Secondly some airports function as hubs for the airlines, or airline hubs. Airlines have extended the model in various ways. One method is to create additional hubs on a regional basis and this reduces the need to travel long distances between nodes that are close together. Another method is to use focus cities to implement point-to-point service for high traffic routes, there are usually three kinds of freight hubs, sea-road, sea-rail and road-rail, though they can also be sea-road-rail. With the growth of containerization, intermodal freight transport has become more efficient, central station Infrastructure security Intermodal Journey Planner Junction Layover Spoke-hub distribution paradigm
8.
River Thames
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The River Thames is a river that flows through southern England, most notably through London. At 215 miles, it is the longest river entirely in England and it also flows through Oxford, Reading, Henley-on-Thames and Windsor. The lower reaches of the river are called the Tideway, derived from its tidal reach up to Teddington Lock. It rises at Thames Head in Gloucestershire, and flows into the North Sea via the Thames Estuary, the Thames drains the whole of Greater London. Its tidal section, reaching up to Teddington Lock, includes most of its London stretch and has a rise, in Scotland, the Tay achieves more than double the average discharge from a drainage basin that is 60% smaller. Along its course are 45 navigation locks with accompanying weirs and its catchment area covers a large part of South Eastern and a small part of Western England and the river is fed by 38 named tributaries. The river contains over 80 islands, in 2010, the Thames won the largest environmental award in the world – the $350,000 International Riverprize. The Thames, from Middle English Temese, is derived from the Brittonic Celtic name for the river, Tamesas, recorded in Latin as Tamesis and yielding modern Welsh Tafwys Thames. It has also suggested that it is not of Celtic origin. A place by the river, rather than the river itself, indirect evidence for the antiquity of the name Thames is provided by a Roman potsherd found at Oxford, bearing the inscription Tamesubugus fecit. It is believed that Tamesubugus name was derived from that of the river, tamese was referred to as a place, not a river in the Ravenna Cosmography. The rivers name has always pronounced with a simple t /t/, the Middle English spelling was typically Temese. A similar spelling from 1210, Tamisiam, is found in the Magna Carta, the Thames through Oxford is sometimes called the Isis. Ordnance Survey maps still label the Thames as River Thames or Isis down to Dorchester, richard Coates suggests that while the river was as a whole called the Thames, part of it, where it was too wide to ford, was called *lowonida. An alternative, and simpler proposal, is that London may also be a Germanic word, for merchant seamen, the Thames has long been just the London River. Londoners often refer to it simply as the river in such as south of the river. Thames Valley Police is a body that takes its name from the river. The marks of human activity, in cases dating back to Pre-Roman Britain, are visible at various points along the river
9.
London Paddington station
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Paddington, also known as London Paddington, is a central London railway terminus and London Underground station complex, located on Praed Street in the Paddington area. The site has been the London terminus of the Great Western Railway, much of the main-line station dates from 1854 and was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel. It was first served by London Underground trains in 1863, as the western terminus of the Metropolitan Railway. Today, Paddington tube station is served by the Bakerloo, Circle, District and it is also the terminus for the Heathrow Express and Heathrow Connect services to and from London Heathrow Airport. It is one of 19 stations in the United Kingdom managed directly by Network Rail and it is situated in fare zone 1. The station complex is bounded at the front by Praed Street and at the rear by Bishops Bridge Road, on the west side of the station is Eastbourne Terrace, while the east side is bounded by the Paddington arm of the Grand Union Canal. The station is in a cutting, a fact obscured at the front by a hotel building. The surrounding area is residential, and includes the major St Marys Hospital, restaurants. Until recently there was little office accommodation in the area, however, recent redevelopment of derelict railway and canal land, marketed as Paddington Waterside, has resulted in new office complexes nearby. In addition to the Underground stations at Paddington, Lancaster Gate tube station on the Central line is a walk away to the south. A little further to the south lie the conjoined parks of Hyde Park, the National Rail station is officially named London Paddington, a name commonly used outside London but rarely by Londoners, who call it just Paddington, as on the London Underground map. Parts of the station, including the train shed, date from 1854. It is one of 19 stations managed by Network Rail, the first station was a temporary terminus for the GWR on the west side of Bishops Bridge Road, opened on 4 June 1838. The first GWR service from London to Taplow, near Maidenhead, after the main station opened in 1854, this became the site of the goods depot. It opened on 29 May 1854, the glazed roof is supported by wrought iron arches in three spans, respectively spanning 68 feet,102 feet and 70 feet. The roof is 699 feet long, and the original roof spans had two transepts connecting the three spans and it is commonly believed that these were provided by Brunel to accommodate traversers to carry coaches between the tracks within the station. However recent research, using documents and photographs, does not seem to support this belief. The Great Western Hotel was built on Praed Street in front of the station in 1851–1854 by architect Philip Charles Hardwick, the station was substantially enlarged in 1906–1915 and a fourth span of 109 feet was added on the north side, parallel to the others
10.
Interchange station
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Transfer may occur within the same mode, or between rail modes, or to buses. Such stations usually have more platforms than single route stations and these stations can exist in either commercial centers or on the city outskirts in residential areas. Cities typically plan for use around interchange stations for development. Passengers may be required to pay extra fare for the if they leave a paid area. With the opening of the Woodside and Birkenhead Dock Street Tramway in 1873, Birkenhead Dock railway station in Birkenhead, verney Junction interchange station in Buckinghamshire, England was built at the point of two railway lines intersecting each other in open countryside. The station was built in a remote field being used from 1868 to 1968. The Shing Mun Tunnels Bus Interchange in the New Territories, Hong Kong, manhattan Transfer on the Pennsylvania Railroad was located outside Newark, New Jersey in a relatively isolated area, and was used primarily for passenger interchange. In some cases, no dedicated underground passage or footbridge is provided, examples include Kuramae Station of Toei in Tokyo, Japan and Lexington Avenue-59th Street/Lexington Avenue–63rd Street stations in New York City. There are also bus interchanges, where people can change between different bus routes with no fare or only the differences of the fares of the two routes. Examples include Tai Lam Tunnel Bus Interchange and Shing Mun Tunnel Bus Interchange in the New Territories, Hong Kong, cross-platform interchange Railway station layout Maund, T. B. The Wirral Railway and its Predecessors
11.
Train operating companies
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A train operating company is a business operating passenger trains on the railway system of Great Britain under the collective National Rail brand. TOCs have existed since the privatisation of the network under the Railways Act 1993 and these operators can run services for the duration of the licence validity. The franchised operators have changed considerably since privatisation, previous franchises have been divided, merged, re-let to new operators, the term is also sometimes used to describe companies operating passenger or freight rail services over tracks that are owned by another company or a national network owner. Franchises were initially let by the Office of Passenger Rail Franchising and this was in turn replaced by the Strategic Rail Authority, which has since been abolished. For England and Wales, franchising is now the responsibility of the Department for Transport in the majority of cases, in Scotland, it is the responsibility of the Scottish Government. The Rail Delivery Group provides a commonality for the TOCs and provides some centralised co-ordination and its activities include the provision of a national timetable and online journey planner facility, and the operation of the various Railcard discount schemes. Eurostar is also a member of RDG, though it is not itself a TOC, until 2005 this role was performed by the Strategic Rail Authority. Most passenger trains are owned by a number of Rolling Stock Companies and are leased to the individual TOCs. However, a handful of TOCs own and maintain some of their own rolling stock, train operating companies also operate most of the networks stations, in their role as station facility owners, in which they lease the buildings and associated land from Network Rail. Network Rail manages some major railway stations and several stations are operated by London Underground or other companies, all passenger TOCs in Great Britain are privately owned. The majority of these franchises to operate rail services on specific parts of the railway. A third, Wrexham & Shropshire, with services between London and Wrexham, no longer exists, in addition, there are operators that fall outside the purview of National Rail, which operate specific services which are recent additions to Britains railways. The main examples are Eurostar, which operates to the continent via the Channel Tunnel, and Heathrow Express, many of the train operating companies are in fact parts of larger companies which operate multiple franchises. The franchising process was implemented, with private companies taking over the shadow franchises. Two shadow franchises, Chiltern Lines and Great Western Trains were purchased by their own management teams, Great Westerns management also bought North West Regional Railways and renamed it North Western Trains. Great Western Holdings, the owner of the operator of inter-city services from London Paddington Great Western Trains was sold to FirstBus. The TOC North Western Trains was also owned by Great Western Holdings, after the takeover FirstBus was renamed FirstGroup and the TOCs renamed First Great Western and First North Western. The completion of the link to Heathrow Airport led to Heathrow Express
12.
Great Western Railway (train operating company)
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Great Western Railway is a British train operating company owned by FirstGroup. It manages 208 stations and its trains call at over 270, GWR operates long-distance inter-city services along the Great Western Main Line to South West England and South Wales, as well as the Night Riviera sleeper service between London and Penzance. The company began operating in February 1996 as Great Western Trains, in December 1998 it became First Great Western after FirstGroup bought out its partners shares in Great Western Holdings. In April 2006, First Great Western, First Great Western Link and Wessex Trains were combined into the new Greater Western franchise and brought under the First Great Western brand. The company adopted its current name and a new livery in September 2015 to coincide with the start of a franchise that is due to run until April 2020. Great Western Holdings was owned by some former British Rail managers, FirstBus, in March 1998, FirstGroup bought out its partners stakes to give it 100% ownership. In December 1998, the franchise was rebranded as First Great Western, on 1 April 2004, First Great Western Link commenced operating the Thames Trains franchise. It operated local services from Paddington to Slough, Henley-on-Thames, Reading, Didcot, Oxford, Newbury, Bedwyn, Worcester, Hereford, Banbury. It also operated services from Reading to Gatwick Airport, and from Reading to Basingstoke, on 1 April 2006, the Great Western, Great Western Link and Wessex Trains franchises were combined into a new Greater Western franchise. FirstGroup, National Express and Stagecoach were shortlisted to bid for new franchise. On 13 December 2005, it was announced that FirstGroup had won the franchise, originally, First planned to subdivide its services into three categories based on routes. Following feedback from staff and stakeholders, the decision was taken to re-brand, in May 2011, FirstGroup announced that it had decided not to take up the option to extend its franchise beyond the end of March 2013. FirstGroup stated that, in the light of the plan to electrify the Great Western route from London via Bristol to Cardiff. CEO Tim OToole said, We believe we are best placed to manage these projects, in March 2012 Arriva, FirstGroup, National Express and Stagecoach were shortlisted to bid for the new franchise. The ITT ran from the end of July until October 2012, the winner would have been announced in March 2013, and taken on the franchise from 21 July 2013 until the end of July 2028. The new franchise would include the introduction of new Intercity Express Trains, capacity enhancements, the award of the franchise was again delayed in October 2012, while the Department for Transport reviewed the way rail franchises are awarded. In January 2013, the government announced that the current competition for the franchise had been terminated, a two-year franchise extension until September 2015 was agreed in October 2013, and subsequently extended until March 2019. A further extension to April 2019 was granted in March 2015, the company rebranded itself as Great Western Railway on 20 September 2015 and introduced a green livery in recognition of the former Great Western Railway
13.
CrossCountry
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CrossCountry is a train operating company in the United Kingdom owned by Arriva UK Trains, operating the New Cross Country franchise. It is one of only two franchised train operating companies that does not operate any stations, the other being the Caledonian Sleeper, all routes call or terminate at Birmingham New Street. In June 2006 the Department for Transport announced its intention to restructure a number of franchises, some services from the Central Trains franchise were to be added. In October 2006 the Department for Transport issued the Invitation to Tender to the bidders, Arriva, First, National Express. Originally due to conclude on 31 March 2016, in March 2013 the Secretary of State for Transport announced the franchise would be extended until 9 November 2019. The company operates a number of key InterCity routes outside London including the Cross Country Route from the North East to the South West, the tender did not require retention of the services beyond Guildford after December 2008, so the services to Gatwick Airport and Brighton ceased. As a result, all CrossCountry services now completely avoid Greater London, from December 2008 a daily Nottingham to Bournemouth service was introduced. From December 2010 a number of services from Newcastle were extended from Reading to Southampton, from May 2011 a number of services were extended from Edinburgh to Glasgow to replace East Coast services. CrossCountry extended some of its Bournemouth services to Weymouth for the Sailing at the 2012 Olympics & Paralympics, there were two services Monday to Saturday in each direction, with one in each direction on Sundays. These ran express to Weymouth from Bournemouth, one train also operated a Weymouth to Bournemouth return journey, calling at Wareham and Poole. Plans were included by CrossCountry to reopen a station at Kenilworth, in April 2008 it agreed with Warwickshire Council to draw up a business case. There is a proposal for a station at Worcester Parkway where the Cross Country Route route intersects the Cotswold Line, if built, it will be on two levels, with the low level served by CrossCountry, and the high level by Great Western Railway. CrossCountrys current consultation document proposes removing almost all services to the Paignton area in order to prioritise services between Exeter St Davids and Birmingham and it also plans to scrap the UKs longest direct rail service from Aberdeen to Penzance. This will mean the Penzance to Dundee Service at 09,35 will instead become the UKs longest direct rail service CrossCountry does not manage any stations, the whole station is therefore managed by the main operator of the low-level platforms, which is London Midland. Manea was only served by CrossCountry until 2013, when Greater Anglia started running 1 train every two hours at the station in addition to the CrossCountry services there, to try and create a more pleasurable travelling experience, CrossCountry has designated 4 stations as alternative changeover stations. Cheltenham Spa, Derby, Leamington Spa and Wolverhampton were selected, the aim here was to make connection times shorter - with the stations selected being much smaller. This avoids having to change trains at Birmingham New Street, which is a larger and these 4 stations are marked on the CrossCountry route map, in yellow. Latest performance figures released by NR for this report a PPM of 89. 2%
14.
Reading Southern railway station
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The station was referred to for exactly one century by an identical name to its neighbour, Reading, until 1949. Seven years after its opening the station expanded its uses by becoming the terminus of a new companys Waterloo to Reading line from London Waterloo station, the station closed for all purposes in 1970 when its demolition began. It was adjacent to, and to the south-east of, the Great Western Railways Reading General station known since the stations closure as Reading railway station. Part of the latters 1989-built concourse is on the site of the west end frontage of the other station. From the start, the RG&RR was worked by the SER, which leased it from 16 July 1846, and absorbed it in 1852. When the first section of line opened, the SER trains served a station north of Readings Forbury Road before moving into a permanent terminal, about 275 metres west. Reading had been served by the Great Western Railway since 1840, the competing 1855 SER station was west of Vastern Road, on the corner of Blagrave Street and Station Road, adjacent to but south-east of the GWR station, and at a lower level. In this way Reading gained a service into London Waterloo station, the SW&WJR was absorbed by the LSWR in 1878. The original station did not last long, since it was destroyed by fire in 1859 after being struck by lightning. A replacement was built, which had two faces, it was enlarged in 1896 by the provision of two more faces following the resiting of the locomotive shed. At the opening, there were four trains a day to Redhill, two of which continued to Tonbridge, a service to London Bridge began in 1852. In 1923, the LSWR and SER amalgamated, together with other railways including the LCDR, to form the Southern Railway, in 1900, there were ten trains each weekday from Waterloo to Reading, by 1914 there were 14, and in 1922,18. During the Dunkirk evacuation,293 special trains arrived at Reading from the Channel ports, most of which were handed over to the GWR. After the War, there was one train from Reading to London via the SER route, the 7. 27am to London Bridge, which arrived at 9.49. Three coaches sufficed between Reading and Redhill, but by 1960, six were required, the locomotive was normally a Schools class 4-4-0 based at Redhill. Reading South was renamed again on 11 September 1961, becoming Reading Southern, in the stations final arrangement, there were four platforms, east of Vastern Road were a locomotive depot on the north side of the line, and a goods shed and sidings on the south side. It was intended that the services would use the older platforms at Reading General, but in practice. Freight continued to be handled until September 1970, when all services were withdrawn except for the Huntley & Palmers biscuit traffic
15.
Stagecoach
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A stagecoach is a type of covered wagon used to carry passengers and goods inside. It is strongly sprung and generally drawn by four horses, usually four-in-hand, widely used before the introduction of railway transport, it made regular trips between stages or stations, which were places of rest provided for stagecoach travelers. The business of running stagecoaches or the act of journeying in them was known as staging, the yard of ale drinking glass is associated by legend with stagecoach drivers, though it was mainly used for drinking feats and special toasts. The stagecoach was a vehicle pulled by horses or mules. The primary requirement was that it was used as a conveyance, running on an established route. Vehicles that were used included buckboards and dead axle wagons, surplus Army ambulances, on the outside were two back seats facing one another, which the British called baskets. In addition to the driver who guided the vehicle, a shotgun messenger, armed with a coach gun. The stagecoach traveled at an speed of about five miles per hour. The term stage originally referred to the distance between stations on a route, the coach traveling the route in stages, but through metonymy it came to apply to the coach. A fresh set of horses would be staged at the next station, under this staging system, the resting, watering and feeding of the spent horses would not delay the coach. This system based on making fresh horses regularly available along a route had been in use by a number of different civilisations, the stagecoach was also called a stage or stage carriage. Varieties included, mail coach or post coach, used for carrying mail, mud coach, lighter and smaller, with flat sides and simpler joinery. Road coach, revived in Great Britain and Ireland during the half of the 19th century. The first crude depiction of a coach, not necessarily a stagecoach, was in an English manuscript from the 13th century, crude coaches were built from the 16th century. Without suspension, these coaches achieved very low speeds on the poor quality rutted roads of the time, by the mid 17th century, a basic stagecoach infrastructure had been put in place. The first stagecoach route started in 1610 and ran from Edinburgh to Leith and this was followed by a steady proliferation of other routes around the country. A string of coaching inns operated as stopping points for travellers on the route between London and Liverpool by the mid 17th century, the coach would depart every Monday and Thursday and took roughly ten days to make the journey during the summer months. They also became adopted for travel in and around London by mid-century
16.
Bristol
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Bristol is a city and county in South West England with a population of 449,300 in 2016. The district has the 10th largest population in England, while the Bristol metropolitan area is the 12th largest in the United Kingdom, the city borders North Somerset and South Gloucestershire, with the cities of Bath and Gloucester to the south-east and north-east, respectively. Iron Age hill forts and Roman villas were built near the confluence of the rivers Frome and Avon, Bristol received a royal charter in 1155 and was historically divided between Gloucestershire and Somerset until 1373, when it became a county of itself. From the 13th to the 18th century, Bristol was among the top three English cities after London in tax receipts, Bristol was surpassed by the rapid rise of Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham in the Industrial Revolution. Bristol was a place for early voyages of exploration to the New World. On a ship out of Bristol in 1497 John Cabot, a Venetian, in 1499 William Weston, a Bristol merchant, was the first Englishman to lead an exploration to North America. At the height of the Bristol slave trade, from 1700 to 1807, the Port of Bristol has since moved from Bristol Harbour in the city centre to the Severn Estuary at Avonmouth and Royal Portbury Dock. Bristols modern economy is built on the media, electronics and aerospace industries. The city has the largest circulating community currency in the U. K. - the Bristol pound, which is pegged to the Pound sterling. It is connected to London and other major UK cities by road, rail, sea and air by the M5 and M4, Bristol Temple Meads and Bristol Parkway mainline rail stations, and Bristol Airport. The Sunday Times named it as the best city in Britain in which to live in 2014 and 2017, the most ancient recorded name for Bristol is the archaic Welsh Caer Odor, which is consistent with modern understanding that early Bristol developed between the River Frome and Avon Gorge. It is most commonly stated that the Saxon name Bricstow was a calque of the existing Celtic name, with Bric a literal translation of Odor. Alternative etymologies are supported with the numerous variations in Medieval documents with Samuel Seyer enumerating 47 alternative forms. The Old English form Brycgstow is commonly used to derive the meaning place at the bridge, utilizing another form, Brastuile, Rev. Dr. Shaw derived the name from the Celtic words bras, or braos and tuile. The poet Thomas Chatterton popularised a derivation from Brictricstow linking the town to Brictric and it appears that the form Bricstow prevailed until 1204, and the Bristolian L is what eventually changed the name to Bristol. Iron Age hill forts near the city are at Leigh Woods and Clifton Down, on the side of the Avon Gorge, a Roman settlement, Abona, existed at what is now Sea Mills, another was at the present-day Inns Court. Isolated Roman villas and small forts and settlements were scattered throughout the area. Bristol was founded by 1000, by about 1020, it was a centre with a mint producing silver pennies bearing its name
17.
Isambard Kingdom Brunel
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Brunel built dockyards, the Great Western Railway, a series of steamships including the first propeller-driven transatlantic steamship, and numerous important bridges and tunnels. His designs revolutionised public transport and modern engineering, though Brunels projects were not always successful, they often contained innovative solutions to long-standing engineering problems. Brunel set the standard for a railway, using careful surveys to minimise grades and curves. This necessitated expensive construction techniques, new bridges, new viaducts, one controversial feature was the wide gauge, a broad gauge of 7 ft 1⁄4 in, instead of what was later to be known as standard gauge of 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in. Brunel astonished Britain by proposing to extend the Great Western Railway westward to North America by building steam-powered iron-hulled ships and he designed and built three ships that revolutionised naval engineering, the Great Western, the Great Britain, and the Great Eastern. In 2002, Brunel was placed second in a BBC public poll to determine the 100 Greatest Britons, in 2006, the bicentenary of his birth, a major programme of events celebrated his life and work under the name Brunel 200. Brunels name is an amalgamation of his parents names and he inherited the family name of his father, and his middle name is his mothers surname. Brunels first name, Isambard, comes from his fathers middle name, Isambard is a Norman name of Germanic origin, meaning iron-bright. A cognate name is the German surname Eisenbarth, which can still be found today among Bavarians and German-Americans and he had two older sisters, Sophia and Emma, and the whole family moved to London in 1808 for his fathers work. Brunel had a childhood, despite the familys constant money worries. His father taught him drawing and observational techniques from the age of four, during this time he also learned fluent French and the basic principles of engineering. He was encouraged to draw interesting buildings and identify any faults in their structure, when Brunel was eight he was sent to Dr Morrells boarding school in Hove, where he learned the classics. When Brunel was 15, his father Marc, who had accumulated debts of over £5,000, was sent to a debtors prison. After three months went by with no prospect of release, Marc let it be known that he was considering an offer from the Tsar of Russia. In August 1821, facing the prospect of losing a prominent engineer, Brunel subsequently studied under the prominent master clockmaker and horologist Abraham-Louis Breguet, who praised Brunels potential in letters to his father. In late 1822, having completed his apprenticeship, Brunel returned to England, Brunels father, Marc, was the chief engineer, and the project was funded by the Thames Tunnel Company. The composition of the riverbed at Rotherhithe was often more than waterlogged sediment. The latter incident, in 1828, killed the two most senior miners, and Brunel himself narrowly escaped death and he was seriously injured, and spent six months recuperating
18.
Malmaison Hotel, Reading
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The Malmaison Hotel Reading is a grade II listed hotel in the town of Reading in the English county of Berkshire. It is situated at the junction of Blagrave Street and Station Road and it was opened in 1844, shortly after the Great Western Railway opened its line from London, and is thought to be the oldest surviving railway hotel in the world. When the Great Western Main Line from London to Bristol was completed in 1841 a hotel was needed for people visiting the town, the building was completed in 1844 and was used as a hotel until a fire in the 1960s. Subsequently, the building was used as offices until it was renovated by the Malmaison hotel chain and reopened, in 2007, the Malmaison Hotel, Reading on the Maimaison website
19.
Hotel
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A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Small, lower-priced hotels may offer only the most basic guest services and facilities, Hotel rooms are usually numbered to allow guests to identify their room. Some boutique, high-end hotels have custom decorated rooms, some hotels offer meals as part of a room and board arrangement. In the United Kingdom, a hotel is required by law to serve food, in Japan, capsule hotels provide a tiny room suitable only for sleeping and shared bathroom facilities. The precursor to the hotel was the inn of medieval Europe. For a period of about 200 years from the mid-17th century, inns began to cater to richer clients in the mid-18th century. One of the first hotels in a sense was opened in Exeter in 1768. Hotels proliferated throughout Western Europe and North America in the early 19th century, Hotel operations vary in size, function, and cost. Most hotels and major hospitality companies have set standards to classify hotel types. Full service hotels often contain upscale full-service facilities with a number of full service accommodations, an on-site full service restaurant. Boutique hotels are independent, non-branded hotels that often contain upscale facilities. Small to medium-sized hotel establishments offer a limited amount of on-site amenities, economy hotels are small to medium-sized hotel establishments that offer basic accommodations with little to no services. Extended stay hotels are small to medium-sized hotels that offer full service accommodations compared to a traditional hotel. Timeshare and destination clubs are a form of property ownership involving ownership of a unit of accommodation for seasonal usage. A motel is a small-sized low-rise lodging with direct access to rooms from the car park. Boutique hotels are typically hotels with an environment or intimate setting. A number of hotels have entered the public consciousness through popular culture, some hotels are built specifically as a destination in itself, for example at casinos and holiday resorts. The organizational chart and volume of job positions and hierarchy varies by size, function and class
20.
Newbury, Berkshire
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Newbury /ˈnjuːbəri/ is a historic market town and the principal town in the west of Berkshire, England and has its own civil parish as well as the administrative headquarters of West Berkshire. It spans both sides of the River Kennet and the Kennet and Avon Canal, and has a town centre spread around its large market square. Newbury is famous for its racecourse, and as the headquarters of Vodafone UK, the town is located in the valley of the River Kennet,26 miles south of Oxford,25 miles north of Winchester,27 miles south east of Swindon and 20 miles west of Reading. Newbury lies on the edge of the picturesque Berkshire Downs, part of the North Wessex Downs Area of outstanding natural beauty and it lies in south central West Berkshire,3 miles north of the Hampshire/ West Berkshire county boundary. In the suburban village of Donnington lies the part-ruined Donnington Castle, to the south is a narrower range of hills including Walbury Hill and a few private landscape gardens and mansions such as Highclere Castle. Together with the town of Thatcham,3 miles distant. There was a Mesolithic settlement at Newbury, artefacts were recovered from the Greenham Dairy Farm in 1963, and the Faraday Road site in 2002. Additional material was found in excavations along the route of the Newbury Bypass, Newbury was founded late in the 11th century following the Norman conquest as a new borough, hence its name. Although there are references to the borough that predate the Domesday Survey it is not mentioned by name in the survey. However, its existence within the manor of Ulvritone is evident from the rise in value of that manor at a time when most manors were worth less than in Saxon times. In 1086 the Domesday Book assesses the borough as having land for 12 ploughs,2 mills, woodland for 25 pigs,11 villeins,11 bordars, and 51 enclosures rendering 70s 7d. Doubt has been cast over the existence of Newbury Castle, but the town did have connections and was visited a number of times by King John. Historically, the economic foundation was the cloth trade. This is reflected in the person of the 16th century cloth magnate, Jack of Newbury, the proprietor of what may well have been the first factory in England, and the later tale of the Newbury Coat. The latter was the outcome of a bet as to whether a suit could be produced by the end of the day from wool taken from a sheeps back at the beginning. The local legend was immortalized in a humorous novel by Elizabethan writer Thomas Deloney. Newbury was the site of two battles during the English Civil War, the First Battle of Newbury in 1643, the nearby Donnington Castle was reduced to a ruin in the aftermath of the second battle. The disruption of trade during the war, compounded by a collapse of the local cloth trade in the late 16th century
21.
Hungerford
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Hungerford is a historic market town and civil parish in Berkshire, England, centred 8 miles west of Newbury,9 miles east of Marlborough,30 miles northeast of Salisbury and 67 miles west of London. Its amenities include shops, cafés, restaurants, schools and sports teams or clubs in the national sports. Hungerford is an abbreviation and vowel shift from a Saxon name meaning Hanging Wood Ford. The town’s symbol is the star and crescent moon. The place does not occur in the Domesday Book of 1086, by 1241, it called itself a borough. In the late 14th century, John of Gaunt was medieval lord of the manor, during the English Civil War, the Earl of Essex and his army spent the night here in June 1644. In October of the year, the Earl of Manchester’s cavalry were also quartered in the town. Then, in the November, the King’s forces arrived in Hungerford on their way to Abingdon, during the Glorious Revolution of 1688, William of Orange was offered the Crown of England while staying at the Bear Inn in Hungerford. The Hungerford land south of the Kennet was for the centuries, until an 18th-century widespread growth in cultivation the area, st. Lawrences parish church stands next to the Kennet and Avon Canal. It was rebuilt in 1814–1816 by John Pinch the elder in Gothic Revival style, in the late 19th century, two policeman were shot by poachers in Eddington. Their memorial crosses still stand where they fell, the Hungerford massacre occurred on 19 August 1987. All of his victims were shot in the town or in nearby Savernake Forest, a report on this incident was commissioned by Home Secretary Douglas Hurd from the Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police, Colin Smith. It is one of three highly costly firearms atrocities in terms of lives since the invention of such rapid fire weapons, the other two being the Dunblane massacre and Cumbria shootings. The massacre led to the Firearms Act 1988, which banned the ownership of semi-automatic centre-fire rifles, the Hungerford Report had demonstrated that Ryans collection of weapons was legally licensed. Hungerford is a parish, covering the town of Hungerford. Parish council responsibilities are undertaken by Hungerford Town Council, which consists of fifteen councillors and committee members. The mayor is elected from amongst their numbers, the parish forms part of the district administered by the unitary authority of West Berkshire, and local government responsibilities are shared between the town council and unitary authority. Hungerford is part of the Newbury parliamentary constituency and its MP is the Conservative Richard Benyon, son of Sir William Benyon of Englefield House
22.
Bath stone
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Bath Stone is an oolitic limestone comprising granular fragments of calcium carbonate. An important feature of Bath Stone is that it is a freestone, so-called because it can be sawn or squared up in any direction, unlike other such as slate. Bath Stone has been used extensively as a building material throughout southern England, for churches, houses, some quarries are still in use, but the majority have been either converted to other purposes or are being filled in. Bath Stone is an oolitic limestone comprising granular fragments of calcium carbonate laid down during the Jurassic Period when the region that is now Bath was under a shallow sea. Layers of marine sediment were deposited, and individual spherical grains were coated with lime as they rolled around the sea bed, under the microscope, these grains or ooliths are sedimentary rock formed from ooids, spherical grains composed of concentric layers. That name derives from the Hellenic word òoion for egg, strictly, oolites consist of ooids of diameter 0. 25–2 mm. Rocks composed of larger than 2 mm are called pisolites. They frequently contain minute fragments of shell or rock, and sometimes even decayed skeletons of marine life, Bath stone was taken from the Bath Oolite Member and the Combe Down Member of the Chalfield Oolite Formation, part of the Great Oolite Group. An important feature of Bath Stone is that it is a freestone, that is one that can be sawn or squared up in any direction, unlike other such as slate. In the Roman and Medieval periods, Bath Stone was extensively used on domestic, ecclesiastical, the Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases, which was founded in 1738, was designed by John Wood the Elder, and built with Bath stone donated by Allen. It is a Grade II listed building, there is a fine pediment on the building, in Bath stone, which depicts the parable of the good Samaritan. St Stephens church, situated on Lansdown Hill in Bath, was constructed from a limestone sourced from the Limpley Stoke mine, the church has recently been restored. The material has also used widely outside Bath itself. Claverton Pumping Station at Claverton, which was built of Bath Stone in about 1810, pumps water from the River Avon to the Kennet and Avon Canal, using power from the flow of the River Avon. The stone was used for the Dundas Aqueduct, which is 150 yards long. Bristols Cabot Tower was also faced with Bath Stone, arnos Court Triumphal Arch was built from Bath stone in about 1760, and was later dismantled before being rebuilt in its current location. Bath Stone was also favoured by architect Hans Price, who designed much of 19th century Weston-super-Mare, in Barnstable, the 1855 construction of Butchers Row used Bath Stone. Apsley House, the house of the Dukes of Wellington, was remodelled by the 1st Duke
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