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Swindon Railway Station
Swindon railway station is on the Great Western Main Line in South West England, serving the town of Swindon, Wiltshire. The station is down the line from the zero point at and lies between and . It is managed by Great Western Railway, which also operates all of the services from the station. It is the busiest station in Wiltshire, and the third busiest station in South West England. Being roughly halfway between the English and Welsh capitals of London and Cardiff, it is an important junction where the former Great Western Railway line to and , the main line to , and the South Wales Main Line via diverge. The station is sited approximately from the central bus station and the town centre. It is served by GWR services from Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads; Cheltenham Spa via Gloucester; , and the rest of South Wales; and to . History The main line of the Great Western Railway (GWR) was built and opened in stages. Construction began in late 1835, and by the end of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Swindon
Swindon () is a town in Wiltshire, England. At the time of the 2021 Census the population of the built-up area was 183,638, making it the largest settlement in the county. Located at the northeastern edge of the South West England region, Swindon lies on the M4 corridor, 84 miles (135 km) to the west of London and 36 miles (57 km) to the east of Bristol. The Cotswolds lie just to the town's north and the North Wessex Downs to its south. Recorded in the 1086 Domesday Book as ''Suindune'', the arrival of the Great Western Railway in 1843 transformed it from a small market town of 2,500 into a thriving railway hub that would become one of the largest Swindon Works, railway engineering complexes in the world at its peak. This brought with it pioneering amenities such as the UK's first lending library and a 'cradle-to-grave' healthcare centre that was later used as a blueprint for the NHS. Swindon's railway heritage can be primarily seen today with the grade 2 listed Railway Villag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cheltenham And Great Western Union Railway
The Cheltenham and Great Western Union Railway was a railway company intended to link Cheltenham, Gloucester and Swindon, in England. It was authorised in 1836 but it found it very hard to raise money for the construction, and it opened only a part of its line, between Swindon and Cirencester, in 1841. It sold its business to the Great Western Railway, which quickly built the line through to Gloucester in 1845 and Cheltenham in 1847; part of that route was shared with other companies. From 1903 the route introduced railmotors, small self-powered coaches, that enabled the opening of numerous low-cost passenger stopping places. The Cirencester branch (as it had become) closed in 1964 but most of the 1845 network is still in use as a main passenger line between Swindon and Gloucester. Gloucester and Cheltenham Railway The first railway in the Cheltenham area was the Gloucester and Cheltenham Railway, authorised by the Gloucester and Cheltenham Railway Act 1809 ( 49 Geo. 3. c. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
APTIS
APTIS was the Accountancy and Passenger Ticket Issuing System used on the British Rail/National Rail network until 2007. It was originally called "Advanced Passenger Ticket Issuing System" as it was being developed at the time of the Advanced Passenger Train. It was widely known as the All-Purpose Ticket-Issuing System, a description which was used during the development of the prototype devices. Ford, Roger (1984). "Technology Update: Ticket issuing and revenue control". In: ''Modern Railways'', Volume 41, May 1984, Pages 256-257.Glover, John (1985). "Mechanisation of ticket issuing". In: ''Modern Railways'', Volume 42, April 1985, Pages 192-195. It led to the introduction, on the national railway, of a new standardised machine-printable ticket, the APTIS ticket, which replaced the Edmondson railway ticket first introduced in the 1840s. Overview APTIS issued impact printed tickets on credit-card sized card ticket stock, with a magnetic stripe on the centre of the reverse w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Swindon Town Railway Station
Swindon Town railway station was on the Midland and South Western Junction Railway at Swindon in Wiltshire, England. The station was open from 1881 to 1972, and was sited in the Old Town area about one-and-a-half miles from the Great Western Railway's Swindon Junction. History Swindon Town was originally planned under an Act of 1873 for a different site to the east of the eventual station, with a tunnel to be built under the hill on which the Old Town sits. But money ran out and the line was realigned to run south of the hill. The Swindon, Marlborough and Andover Railway opened between Swindon Town and Marlborough on 27 July 1881; in early 1882, the line was extended northwards from Swindon Town to a junction with the Great Western main line at Rushey Platt, and services were started between the two Swindon stations. Rushey Platt became a junction the following year with the opening of the Swindon and Cheltenham Extension Railway as far as Cirencester Watermoor. The SM&A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Storey
A storey (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English) or story (American English), is any level part of a building with a floor that could be used by people (for living, work, storage, recreation, etc.). Plurals for the word are ''storeys'' (UK, CAN) and ''stories'' (US). The terms ''floor'', ''level'', or ''deck'' are used in similar ways as storey (e.g., "the 16th ''floor''"). However, when referring to an entire building, it is more usual to use storey or story (e.g., "a 16-''storey'' building"). The floor at ground or street level is called the ''ground floor'' (i.e. it needs no number); the floor below ground is called ''basement'', and the floor above ground is called "first" in many regions. However, in some regions, like the US, ''ground floor'' is synonymous with ''first floor'', leading to differing numberings of floors, depending on region – even between different national varieties of English. The words ''storey'' and ''floor'' normally exclud ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Swindonian
Swindon is a large town in Wiltshire, England; its residents are called Swindonians and many have achieved notability throughout its history. * Heidi Alexander – Labour Party MP for Swindon South * Sam Allen – football manager at Swindon Town * Joseph Armstrong – engineer and the second locomotive superintendent of the Great Western Railway lived, worked and is buried in Swindon * Dean Ashton – Premiership footballer, played for West Ham United, born in Swindon * Colin Bailey – drummer * Ralph Bates – writer * Carl Benjamin – YouTuber, political commentator better known as Sargon of Akkad * Billy Bodin – footballer, born in Swindon * Mark A. Brennan – Canadian landscape painter, born in Swindon, 1968 * Jazz Carlin – swimmer, World Champion in 400m and 800m freestyle * Lucy Cohu – actress, born in Swindon, 1968 * Julian Clary – comedian, formerly a resident of Rodbourne, but not born in Swindon. His family still lives in the area. * Jamie Cox ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Swindon Works
Swindon Works was opened by the Great Western Railway in 1843 in Swindon, Wiltshire, England. It served as the principal west England maintenance centre until closed in 1986. History In 1835, Parliament approved the construction of the Great Western Main Line between Paddington railway station, London and Bristol Temple Meads railway station, Bristol by the Great Western Railway (GWR). Its Chief Engineer was Isambard Kingdom Brunel. From 1836, Brunel had been buying locomotives from various makers for the new railway. Brunel's general specifications gave the locomotive makers a free hand in design, although subject to certain constraints such as piston speed and axle load, resulting in a diverse range of locomotives of mixed quality. In 1837, Brunel recruited Daniel Gooch and gave him the job of rectifying the heavy repair burden of the GWR's mixed bag of purchased locomotives. It became clear that the GWR needed a central repair works, so in 1840 Gooch identified a site at S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carriage
A carriage is a two- or four-wheeled horse-drawn vehicle for passengers. In Europe they were a common mode of transport for the wealthy during the Roman Empire, and then again from around 1600 until they were replaced by the motor car around 1900. They were generally owned by the rich, but second-hand private carriages became common public transport, the equivalent of modern cars used as taxis. Carriage suspensions are by leather strapping or, on those made in recent centuries, steel springs. There are numerous names for different types. Two-wheeled carriages are usually owner-driven. Coaches are a special category within carriages. They are carriages with four corner posts and a fixed roof. Two-wheeled war chariots and transport vehicles such as four-wheeled wagons and two-wheeled carts were forerunners of carriages. In the 21st century, horse-drawn carriages are occasionally used for public parades by royalty and for traditional formal ceremonies. Simplified modern versio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Old Penny
The British pre-decimal penny was a denomination of sterling coinage worth of one pound or of one shilling. Its symbol was ''d'', from the Roman denarius. It was a continuation of the earlier English penny, and in Scotland it had the same monetary value as one pre-1707 Scottish shilling, thus the English penny was called in Scottish Gaelic. The penny was originally minted in silver, but from the late 18th century it was minted in copper, and then after 1860 in bronze. The plural of "penny" is "pence" (often added as an unstressed suffix) when referring to an amount of money, and "pennies" when referring to a number of coins. Thus 8''d'' is eightpence or eight pence, but "eight pennies" means specifically eight individual penny coins. Before Decimal Day in 1971, sterling used the Carolingian monetary system (£sd), under which the largest unit was a pound (£) divisible into 20 shillings (s), each of 12 pence (d). The pre-decimal penny was demonetised on 1 September 197 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cirencester Town Railway Station
Cirencester Town railway station was one of three railway stations which formerly served the town of Cirencester, Gloucestershire, England; the others were and . History The Cheltenham and Great Western Union Railway was promoted to link the towns of Cheltenham and Gloucester to the Great Western Railway at ; there was to be a branch from to Cirencester. The line was authorised on 21 June 1836, but took several years to build. The first section to open was that between Swindon and Kemble (where there was no station at first) together with the Cirencester branch; it opened on 31 May 1841. On 12 September 1874 as the first train from Kemble Junction was entering the station the engine ran off the rails. No passengers were injured. On 1 July 1924 the station was renamed ''Cirencester Town''. A fire broke out on 7 April 1948 in the packing office when a stove pipe overheated and ignited the ceiling joists. The damage was confined to ceiling timbers. In 1956 some additions to t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Somerset Coalfield
The Somerset Coalfield in northern Somerset, England is an area where coal was mined from the 15th century until 1973. It is part of a larger coalfield which stretched into southern Gloucestershire. The Somerset coalfield stretched from Cromhall in the north to the Mendip Hills in the south, and from Bath in the east to Nailsea in the west, a total area of about . Most of the pits on the coalfield were concentrated in the Cam Brook, Wellow Brook and Nettlebridge Valleys and around Radstock and Farrington Gurney. The pits were grouped geographically, with clusters of pits close together working the same coal seams often under the same ownership. Many pits shared the trackways and tramways which connected them to the Somerset Coal Canal or railways for distribution. The early pits were adits where coal outcropped or bell pits where coal was close to the surface. These methods were abandoned when deep seams were mined. The deepest shaft on the coalfield was at the Strap ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
North Wilts Canal
North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography. Etymology The word ''north'' is related to the Old High German ''nord'', both descending from the Proto-Indo-European unit *''ner-'', meaning "left; below" as north is to left when facing the rising sun. Similarly, the other cardinal directions are also related to the sun's position. The Latin word ''borealis'' comes from the Greek ''boreas'' "north wind, north" which, according to Ovid, was personified as the wind-god Boreas, the father of Calais and Zetes. ''Septentrionalis'' is from ''septentriones'', "the seven plow oxen", a name of ''Ursa Major''. The Greek ἀρκτικός (''arktikós'') is named for the same constellation, and is the source of the English word ''Arctic''. Other languages have other derivations. For example, in Lezgian, ''kefer'' can mean bo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
