Great Western Trains

Great Western Trains was formed as part of the privatisation of British Rail. As with all of the original franchises, Great Western was formed as a division of British Rail prior to the franchise being let. The sector consisted of the express services out of London Paddington to the West of England (Bristol, Exeter, Penzance) and South Wales (Cardiff). Instead of being franchised to an existing private company, the franchise was awarded to Great Western Holdings (51 per cent management buyout, 24.5 per cent Badgerline and 24.5 per cent 3i). It was one of the first two to be privatised after South West Trains). The company was named Great Western Trains Ltd. The name was derived from that of the earlier Great Western Railway, which served a similar, but larger, area. FirstGroup, the successor of Badgerline, bought the Great Western company outright in 1998, having also bought the Great Eastern franchise the year before, rebranding it as First Great Western.

Livery
Great Western Trains' livery consisted of a dark green upper half covering the cab. The Iconic Merlin Logo was located half way down the upper half of the power-car and half way down the lower half of the carriages. The radiator towards the back of the power-car was also painted in dark green. The lower half of the locomotives and stock was painted in an Ivory color with the company name written on it. Earlier Carriages included the word Intercity. Great Western Trains was the only private train operating company to have Intercity on its carriages. Later paints omitted the Intercity writing due to copyright laws prohibiting the use of the brand. On the power-cars, the light clusters were also painted in green with a green band stretching back to the cab doors, also the lower part of the lower balancing was painted green. The power-car number was located just behind the cab door. By the time Great Western Trains was taken over by First Group, Most of its fleet had been painted in Great Western Merlin livery, but a few locomotives and stock continued to wear the Intercity Swallow livery. The last members of Great Western's fleet was painted into First Great Western 'Fag Packet Livery' in late 1999/early 2000, the last powercar to wear the Merlin livery was 43142. Class 47s and 08s were painted in full dark green with the Merlin logo half way down the side. The company name was located underneath the logo. Upon ownership by FGW, 08s and 47s were the first to be painted in FGW 'Fag Packet' livery, the last 47 to wear this livery was 47846 'Thor'. The class 08s had their livery changed fairly quickly and the last class 08 to wear Merlin livery remains a mystery.

Class 43 High Speed Train
Great Western Trains inherited a large number of HST sets from Intercity when they bought the franchise in 1996. In total, Great Western Trains had 84 Class 43 powercars running high speed services from London Paddington to all destinations. With 84 powercars, Great Western Trains could make 43 8-car sets. All of these HST sets were passed onto First Great Western when the company was bought in 1998.

Great Western trains also took interest in Brush's newer VP-185 engines. These engines were already being fitted into Midland Mainline class 43s and had turned out successful on the Midland region. In 1997, Great Western Trains fitted 4 Powercars, 43167,168,169,170, with these engines to see how they would work on the western region. These locomotives had previously been fitted with the unsuccessful Mirlees engines that they used for a short time in Inter-City days.

After successful tests with the VP-185s, a plan was drawn out to have all Paxman Valenta engines being used by Great Western to be replaced with these engines. However this scheme never got underway due to the company's buyout by First in 1998. The 4 testbed powercars still had their VP-185 engines until the introduction of MTU engines in 2005. When the time came for these locomotives engines to be replaced, the VP-185s were donated to East Midlands Trains to be fitted into their Class 43 powercars which were undergoing the same engine replacement treatment.

Class 47 Locomotive
Apart from the Class 43 HSTs, Great Western also inherited a small fleet of Class 47s, used on both long distance trains and as thunderbirds. In total, Great Western had 6 Class 47s running on their network,between London and Penzance on the Night Riviera. However, with such an extensive service, Great Western found it difficult to use these locomotives as both thunderbirds and on long distance services, many Class 37s were leased from Railfreight Distribution in 1996, but then from EWS after Rfd's demise. All of the Class 47s were passed onto FGW when the company was bought.



Class 08 Shunter
Great Western had a small but widely spread fleet of class 08s for shunter duties. In total, 14 class 08s were inherited from both Intercity and Network SouthEast. These locomotives could normally be found at the TMD's that were under Great Western's ownership. All of these locos were passed onto FGW.

Maintenance Depots
Great Western stock was maintained at the following locations:


 * Laira TMD (Plymouth)
 * St Phillips Marsh (Bristol)
 * Long Rock TMD (Penzance)
 * Old Oak Common TMD (London/Acton)
 * Landore (Swansea)

Intercity
- London Paddington, Reading, Newbury, Pewsey, Westbury, Castle Cary, Taunton, Tiverton Parkway, Exeter St Davids, Newton Abbot, Torquay, Paignton

- London Paddington, Reading, Didcot Parkway, Swindon, Chippenham, Bath Spa, Bristol Temple Meads, Weston Super Mare, Taunton, Tiverton Parkway, Exeter St Davids, Newton Abbot, Totnes, Plymouth, Liskaerd, Bodmin Parkway, Lostwithiel, Par, St Austell, Truro, Redruth, Camborne, St Erth, Penzance

- London Paddington, Reading, Didcot Parkway, Swindon, Bristol Parkway, Cardiff Central, Swansea, (Fishguard)

- London Paddington, Reading, Didcot Parkway, Oxford

- London Paddington, Reading, Didcot Parkway, Oxford, Hanborough, Combe, Finstock, Charlbury, Ascott-under-Wychwood, Shipton, Kingham, Moreton-in-Marsh, Honeybourne, Evesham, Pershore, Worcester Shrub Hill, Great Malvern, Ledbury, Hereford

- London Paddington, Reading, Didcot Parkway, Swindon, Kemble, Stroud, Stonehouse, (Gloucester), Cheltenham Spa

- (Sleeper service, later to be named Night Riviera) London Paddington, Reading (Only on outbound services), Taunton, Exeter St Davids, Newton Abbot, Plymouth, Liskeard, Bodmin Parkway, Lostwithieal, Par, St Austell, Truro, Redruth, Camborne, Hayle, St Erth, Penzance.

Local
Services run with HSTs but stopping at smaller stations

- London Paddington, Slough, Reading, Newbury, Hungerford, Bedwym, Pewsey, Westbury, Frome, Bruton, Castle Cary, Taunton, Tiverton Parkway, Exeter St Davids, Dawlish, Teignmouth, Newton Abbot, Torquay, Paignton

- London Paddington, Slough, Reading, Didcot Parkway, Swindon, Chippenham, Bath Spa, Bristol Temple Meads, Worle, Weston Super Mare, Bridgewater, Taunton, Tiverton Parkway, Exeter St Davids, Dawlish, Teignmouth, Newton Abbot, Totnes, Plymouth, Liskeard, Bodmin Parkway, Lostwithiel, Par, St Austell, Truro, Redruth, Camborne, Hayle, St Erth, Penzance