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The GWR bought ROD 2-8-0s in two batches: 20 practically new in 1919 (renumbered 3000–19) and a further 80 in 1925. The reason the GWR bought them was simple: money. In the case of the 1925 batch, they were offered for sale at £1,500 each at a time when a 28XX cost about £7,000. Whether the second batch was is a good buy is a different question. They turned out to be in generally poor condition and were taken into the works for investigation. Thirty were good enough to be worth overhauling properly (with copper fireboxes and various "Swindonisations") but the remaining 50 were given minimal attention and used until worn out (the last went in 1931). It was the original 20 (subsequently "Swindonised") plus the immediately-overhauled 30 of the 1925 batch that lasted: there were still 46 on the books at Nationalisation.

The Eccles accident report is here: https://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/documents/DoT_Eccles1984.pdf

It is pure pedantry on my part, but should be noted that the RSL no longer exists. It has been replaced by the R2 database, which resulted from the merger of the RSL and RAVERS.

About 30 feet, for what that's worth.

The shed at Cheltenham was considerably closer to St James until the Honeybourne line opened -- the new junction was pretty much on the site of the old shed.

How close is close? Stratford on Avon might provide a nice example of a two-road shed and on one view it is close to Tyseley. Admittedly Stratford isn't a terminus but with some re-arrangement it would work.

The use of sub-2,000 hp locomotives on heavy expresses was never going to end well, a fact of which at least some of BR's senior management was aware in the mid-1950s. Most notably, Gerard Fiennes gave a paper in 1955 to the effect that to compete with road over a distance of 70 miles and with air over 300 miles, end-to-end speeds of 70-75mph were needed, which would require 3,000 hp plus locomotives. Of course, the only thing that could produce that in a single body with 1950s technology was an EE Type 5.

The Metal Box factory in Worcester might provide the basis for a modern image building -- although rail traffic ceased about ten years ago.

Some further digging has turned up the answer in The Railway Times of 28 July 1855 – the provisional committee had on it two men, James Duff and William Tayler, who were “Trustees of the late James, Earl of Fife” (one later became a director once the railway company was incorporated). The “late James” must be the second earl, who had died in 1809. What I think that means is there was some complex trust involving the Fife estates and the trustees – presumably more or less at the instigation of the fourth earl, who had succeeded to the earldom in 1809 and died in 1857 – involved themselves in building the line. Someone presumably thought it would be good “PR” to put the Fife arms on the thing (but note that it was the sixth earl who married Prices Louise and was created a duke).

The heraldry appears to be that of the Earl of Fife, although I have no idea why the railway appropriated it (and that useful reference work, Railway Heraldry, does not provide an answer).

With apologies for the delay, in responding I believe that they were removed when the viaduct (or at least the steelwork) was re-built at the start of the twentieth century. I am not sure of the precise date of the re-build, but it was certainly before the start of the First War.

The plaque is for the Inverness and Aberdeen Junction Railway, which was a constituent of the Highland. It was originally on the Orton viaduct, along with this plaque:

The old trope that "GWR" stands for "Great Way Round".

It substantially pre-dates both Ahrons and Nock. The earliest use I have found dates from 1873 in the British Quarterly Review, attributed to "Lord Grosevnor", by which I think was meant Lord Richard Grosvenor (second son of the Marquess of Westminster; later created Lord Stanbridge), who was much involved with the LNWR .

With apologies for answering a question addressed to someone else, when that section was 4-track, the roads were the up main and up relief (towards Birmingham) and down main and down relief (towards Bristol). It was never two railways, one MR and one GWR, in parallel with different up/ down designations. North of Standish Jct, the GW and the MR had the same up/ down designation. Up was in the direction of Cheltenham St James/ Honeybourne/ Birmingham. The change happened at Standish Jct, where trains for Swindon became up trains, having been down trains (and vice versa). The quadruple track was a wartime project and it was only in place for only about 25 years – from 1942 to the mid-1960s.

To add some more detail, the water problems at Swindon were recognised right from the beginning. Gooch wrote a long letter to Brunel dated 13 September 1840 referring in terms to the “bad supply of water” as the “only objection” to siting the “principal engine establishment” there. Gooch thought water might “probably be collected in the neighbourhood, and as we have a great deal of side cutting they might be converted into reservoirs, and should even this fail us we have the canal.” The supply from Kemble to Swindon came later. I have not been able to get to the bottom of the precise chronology in the nineteenth century, but there seem to have been three basic phases prior to the change to electric pumping in 1935. 1. An early stage, using a horse-worked-pump when it seems the water was not taken to Swindon. 2. A steam-worked pump from 1872, from which time trains of tanks on wagon frames and old tenders were used to take the water to Swindon. 3. A piped supply from 1903, when a 15” pipe was laid beside the down line from Kemble to Swindon and semi-subterranean pumping station built at Kemble (the floor was 13’ 9” below rail level). A new borehole was sunk in 1967 and the old wells decommissioned. I think at that time the old pump house, located in the vee between the main and the Tetbury branch, was demolished and the hole back-filled.

Coke-breeze was one of the earlier forms of concrete-iron floors. Coke-breeze was a by-product of the town gas process. The aggregate made using it produced a lightweight, weak product, high in sulphur (obviously not ideal with the structural ironwork embedded in it). For anyone with access, there is a very interesting article in The Structural Engineer, May 2016, pp 44-47, summarising the history of floors constructed from iron/ steel and concrete .

How about Moreton-in-Marsh:

This puts me in mind of a discussion on a different thread about signals substantially in rear of the junction they control because the feather on G45 controls entry to the up loop, some 719 yards in advance of it.

Agreed. The BR livery is an obvious giveaway (as is the style of dress: definitely post-War not mid-1930s). I think the loco is actually 7013, Bristol Castle, wearing the plates off 4082, Windsor Castle.

Isn't there a rail-connected aggregates facility at Ipswich on the River Orwell?

Not so much quick release as remote-operated: there is a remote-uncoupling control in the cab.

I've nothing like some of the stories on this thread. My only really memorable delay was when Ascott-under-Wychwood SB (back when it was still a proper box) was struck by lightning -- I think requiring (although I may be mis-remembering this) pilotman working.

Parcels traffic was removed from the Lawn in the rebuilding and moved to where the old platform A had been, with the Lawn "re-constructed as a spacious and handsomely-styled circulating area for passengers" (see History of the GWR, vol 3, p 96).

The powers (along with a lot of other powers) were conferred by the London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway Act 1903. Section 38 provided that: Section 37 enabled for the Brighton company to acquire land at Deptford to construct “stations for generating and transforming electrical power” and also to make “such works on their railways and lands as may be necessary for connecting such generating and transforming stations with the railways of the Company”. The Deptford land (“delineated on the deposited plans”) were described in the Act as: That appears to be this area, as shown on this 25” map: I don’t think the power to build the power station can ever have been used. That triangle of land was where the old Milwall FC ground was built before the First War.