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Series
Great Western Railway Company: Severn Tunnel Papers
Catalogue reference: RAIL 265
What's it about?
RAIL 265
This series contains various papers concerning both the Severn Tunnel and the Sudbrook Pumping Station.
Full description and record details
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Reference (The unique identifier to the record described, used to order and refer to it)
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RAIL 265
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Title (The name of the record)
- Great Western Railway Company: Severn Tunnel Papers
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Date (When the record was created)
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1879-1957
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Description (What the record is about)
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This series contains various papers concerning both the Severn Tunnel and the Sudbrook Pumping Station.
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Held by (Who holds the record)
- The National Archives, Kew
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Former department reference (Former identifier given by the originating creator)
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GW 16
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Legal status (A note as to whether the record being described is a Public Record or not)
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Public Record(s)
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Language (The language of the record)
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English
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Creator(s) (The creator of the record)
- Great Western Railway Company, 1835-1947
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Physical description (The amount and form of the record)
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19 files and volumes
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Subjects (Categories and themes found in our collection (our subject list is under development, and some records may have no subjects or fewer than expected))
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- Topics
- Railways
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Administrative / biographical background (Historical or biographical information about the creator of the record and the context of its creation)
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The construction of the Severn Tunnel was authorised by the Severn Tunnel Railway Act 1872, the promotion of which was undertaken by the Great Western Railway Company (GWR). The act authorised the construction of a railway commencing at a junction with the Bristol and South Wales Union Railway at Almondsbury, Gloucestershire to a junction with the South Wales Railway at Rogiet, Monmouth, the length of which would be just over seven miles and seven furlongs. Of this length, four and a half miles would be in tunnel.
Work was commenced on 18 Mar 1873 and the first special train carrying Sir Daniel Gooch (Chairman of the GWR), his wife and friends travelled through the tunnel on 5 Sept 1885. The opening for normal traffic was delayed because the pumping station at Sudbrook (which drains the tunnel) had not been fully completed and a large Guibal fan to ventilate the tunnel had yet to be installed. When this work was finished, the first goods train services started using the tunnel on 1 Sept 1886. The passenger services began on 1 Dec 1886.
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Record URL
- https://beta.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/id/C12453/
Catalogue hierarchy
Over 27 million records
This record is held at The National Archives, Kew
218,721 records
Within the department: RAIL
Records of the pre-nationalisation railway companies, pre-nationalisation canal and...
You are currently looking at the series: RAIL 265
Great Western Railway Company: Severn Tunnel Papers
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