Discover how Great Western stations endured for nearly 200 years, retaining character before modernisation reshaped access, security, and electrification. There was never a railway company so loved and revered as the Great Western. Great Western stations of the old company have survived for nearly 200 years in some cases, but modernisation in the shape of enhanced access, security and electrification means that many have lost their essential character. GWR Stations: Paddington to Birmingham and the Cambrian shows the stations as they were for many years, before recent modernisation, and the survivors that have managed to retain their character, usually by keeping a low profile and quietly carrying on with what they were built for so many years ago. The stations featured are, for the most part, not main line behemoths, but more modest structures found on secondary main lines and branch lines. Many of the old GWR names have been shortened in recent years, but the former names, usually derived from the original Act of Parliament for the line, are used here.