Talk:Coaches of the Great Western Railway

Loading Gauge
> The GWR always had an in-built loading gauge advantage over the other British railways, > in that its entire infrastructure was originally designed for broad gauge dimensions.

This is simply not true. At least half of the GWR was never broad gauge, and the broad gauge clearances between rail and platform/structures were not especially generous. Some lines had a significantly more generous loading gauge than the GWR did. The Great Northern and Midland, amongst others had greater height in the centre of the vehicle, and the LBSCR greater height at the eaves. But at the grouping each of the big 4 was forced to adopt a lowest common denominator loading gauge, and that for the GWR was a little wider and higher than that for LMS, LNER and Southern. As another example the Caledonian Railway had a steam locomotive design in preparation at the time of the grouping which featured 21" diameter outside cylinders, whereas 19" was the largest size on the GWR (Cox, Chronicles of Steam) 212.159.44.170 (talk) 16:40, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

What is true to say is that after the broad gauge was gone the GWR was able to rework those main lines that had been broad gauge to give a slightly wider, but not especially higher loading gauge *above* platform height, and this did permit longer and wider carriages on those lines only. There were a complex set of restrictions which governed which lines various longer and or wider Great Western carriages were allowed to transit, including lines belonging to other companies. 212.159.44.170 (talk) 16:19, 19 May 2018 (UTC)