GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY COMPANY. A British railway company. which was incorporated in 1835 to construct a line of railway between Bristol and London, now serves the territory embraced within a triangle bounded by lines drawn from London to Liverpool Liverpool to Penzance, and Penzance to London. Its headquarters are at Paddington station. which is the London terminus of the railway. The capital of the company exceeds 152 millions sterling and its trains run over 8.916 miles of track along which there are about I.;oo stations and halts. The rolling stock consists of approximately 4.000 locomotives. io.000 passenger train vehicles. and 88,000 freight train vehicles. The staff numbers 110.849. During the year 1927 the railway carried 13o million passengers and 78 million tons of freight. The fastest "start to stop" train run in the British Isles (Swindon to London) runs at 61.8 m.p.h. and the famous "non stop" run by the Cornish Riviera express (London to Plymouth, 2254 m.) is accomplished in four hours.
The locomotive, carriage and wagon works of the railway are at Swindon. About 13.000 persons are employed there, and the annual wage bill is over L2.000,000. The company operates steam ship services between Fishguard and Ireland and to the Channel Islands. (F. J. C. P.)