Swindon Works
In the early 1840s the Great Western Railway needed a place to maintain and build its locomotives, roughly halfway between London and Bristol, where the line from Gloucester joined the main line. It chose a patch of open ground by the village of Swindon. The works opened in 1843, and the company built houses, a school, a church and a market for its workers beside them.
Swindon grew into one of the largest railway workshops in the world. Its forges, foundries and erecting shops produced and repaired locomotives, carriages and wagons for the whole system, and at its peak employed over ten thousand people. A section of the town called the railway village, with rows of stone cottages, still stands.
The last of the steam engines
Swindon built its last steam locomotive in 1960. It was a heavy freight engine of the 9F class numbered 92220, and it was named Evening Star and painted in green passenger livery rather than the usual black, to mark the end of an era. It is now in the national collection. The works carried on building diesels and carriages for a time, but it was closed in 1986. Parts of the buildings are now used by a museum, a shopping outlet and the offices of a heritage organisation.