Around the World in Search of Coke 2: Day 25

Jul 16, 20133 min read

Deviation Actions

Published: Jul 16, 2013

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Day Twenty-Five: Going Great Western

Quite a lot of driving today.

Left Bedford at nine thirty, heading towards Swindon on several random A roads throughout Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire before we eventually arrived at the Museum of the Great Western Railway at noon.

The museum is made out of the old GWR Locomotive and Carriage Works (as is the neighbouring factory outlet, strangely), the main hall having originally been 'K' shed of the works. The site was chosen for a workshop by Isambard Kingdom Brunel in 1843 and built it's first locomotive (the imaginatively named Great Western) two years later. Back then, of course, the railway had been built to a gauge of seven feet wide, and therefore the engines built there were pretty huge.

Ooooohhhh...

The museum starts by explaining the operations of the works from opening until it's closure in 1986, showing the construction of locomotives through several segments until giving you the finished product (Castle-class No. 4073 Caerphilly Castle). It then shows several aspects of life working for the Great Western in the 1930s (or thereabouts), including engine driving, luggage handling, signalling, shunting wagons and so forth. It then ends on a railway station display, including No. 4003 Lode Star, on loan from the NRM.

After that, we had lunch at the cafe before checking out the outlet. There was nothing there, except this;

Don't see many of these in shopping malls, I daresay.

We then left town, heading down towards Plymouth on the Dreaded Motorway. During this time, we discovered that there is nothing at RoadChef, Exeter services was designed by sadists, British roundabouts are scary, Lamborghini drivers are absolute lunatics and pr**ks and Plymouth roads at peak hour are unfun. We finished off with KFC for dinner and are now resting in a Travelodge a short way out of Plymouth. Tomorrow we head over the county line to Cornwall to ride trains and visit some village that was in a television show my mum likes. Guess which.

Now, I'm going to go to bed. Brunel will likely haunt my dreams. Eh, I can live with that...