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The original proposal when the Badminton Line was a branch from the GW line to the Severn & Wye Joint more or less parallel with the Midland route. The Midland objected, and the accommodation reached was for the format show above. The relevant legislation is the Great Western Railway (South Wales and Bristol Direct Railway) Act 1896. Without trawling through all the primary material, it is difficult to identify why the flying junction was built (and I am in general inclined to be very doubtful about un-footnoted assertions in railway history books), but I would suggest two possibilities: 1. The Midland was not paying for it, and so had no reason not to insist on a flying junction, given that it would be to their operational advantage not to have a flat junction. 2. The busier junction at the time it was all built was the junction at Yate. It is hard to appreciate it now the north to/ from Bristol traffic goes via Filton, but back then the Midland route was definitely the primary one.

The Town station was on the very edge of the town because it was on the line on to Port Patrick. With the benefit of hindsight, it is perhaps unfortunate that the Cairnryan Military Railway was closed.

The east side of the triangle at Yate was taken out well before the bridge was closed, and had never been that heavily used. The history is rather interesting. Here is the 1914 RCH diagram for anyone not familiar with the area: There was a great legal tussle between the Midland and the Great Western before it (and the other side of the triangle) opened after the Badminton Line was built, fought all way to the House of Lords. The GW prevailed against the Midland's argument that the running powers granted to the GW were confined to traffic to and from the Berkeley Road Junction Railway and to traffic in connection with the Severn and Wye and Severn Bridge Railway. The Midland's desire was to force the GW traffic to go via Mangotsfield. For anyone with access to the law reports, the references are: Warrington J: [1908] 2 Ch 445 Court of Appeal: [1908] 2 Ch 644 House of Lords: [1909] AC 445 Even once the junctions opened , the east side of the triangle did not see much use. There was a temporary closure during the Great War and again in 1927. It was reopened during the Second War (and a new "ARP" style box built at Westerleigh East Junction) but closed again in 1950.

I realise I omitted to mention the Berkeley loop which would have obviated the need for a reversal at Berkeley Road, but that did not open until 1908.

As has been said above, the Severn Bridge was primarily built to take coal traffic to Sharpness from the Forest of Dean. That traffic never materialised in the anticipated volume. It was begun after the tunnel (in 1875) but finished well before (in 1879). The bridge was never intended to be a major through route – indeed, it was not really capable of being one, even leaving aside the fact it was single track and the weight restrictions. Traffic from the north for south Wales would naturally go via Gloucester. Traffic from the east for south Wales also had to go via Gloucester because there is no triangular junction at Stonehouse (although I suppose a reversal at Standish Jct might have been possible, if an operational nuisance). Traffic from Bristol for south Wales might in theory have gone via the bridge, but that would have required a reversal at Berkeley Road. Of course once the tunnel opened, such coal traffic as there was to Sharpness could have gone that way, but until the Badminton Line opened at the start of the twentieth century, that would have necessitated a reversal in Bristol as well as a reversal at Berkeley Road. Even once the Badminton Line had opened, it would have been a rather circuitous route and still required the Berkeley Road reversal.

There is also quite a lot of GWR diagrams and other material on the Severn Valley signalling site: http://www.svrsig.org/diags/Diagrams.htm

With apologies for reviving an old thread, there is a good deal of information about the development of these "pot" sleepers in the "History of the Great Western Railway", vol 3, pp 203-205. This includes a drawing of the original (type A) and revised (type B) variants. The dimensions of both were 1'6.5" x 2'0.5" x 5.25".

The timing of the change in nomenclature seems unlikely to be coincidental. The two additional lines (as has been said above, standard gauge only) opened from Southall to West Drayton on 25 November 1878, and then to Slough on 1 June 1879 (and then on 8 September 1884 to the east end of Maidenhead Bridge -- no further extensions were made until the 1890s). My source for these dates is MacDermot (as revised by Clinker), vol 2, p 170.

In the case of Oxford (and also Worcester) there was an additional reason for the centre roads: the scissors cross-overs which formerly existed half-way along the platforms. These enabled two (short) trains to be handled at the same time. They were removed at some point post-war.