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We advise you check your journey before traveling with us today
There is a good service across our network
We advise you check your journey before traveling with us today
There is a good service across our network
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The Great Western Railway, and the communities around it, have been shaped by many inspirational individuals. Our new fleet of Intercity Express Trains celebrate these people and their legacies by bearing their names.
Each train will have its own identity, with their name accompanied by an individual coin specifically designed to reflect the person themselves. This is inspired by GWR’s heritage where the flagship locomotive King George V bore a set of commemorative coins.
The trains that we have already named are featured below, including biographical information on each person as well as pictures and videos from the ceremonies.
Pictured: 800004 crosses Maidenhead Bridge on 30 June 2016
In our new Intercity Express Trains, the revolution he started continues to inspire today.
Pictured: George Johnny Johnson in front of 800019
To mark International Women’s Day in 2017, the Bristol Post named Ralph among the city’s top 100 women.
Among his many achievements, Cameron was the first to cross the Alps and the Sahara by hot-air balloon and crossed the Atlantic in 1992.
Pictured: Harry Billinge at the naming ceremony of the Intercity Express Train 802006 in Penzance on 7 October 2020.
Second World War pilot Ken Rees, who played a vital part in the ‘Great Escape’ from a German prisoner-of-war camp, was honoured during a ceremony at Swansea station on 7 May 2021.
Wing Commander Ken ReesTulbahadur Pun VC, one of only 13 Gurkha soldiers to have received the Victoria Cross, was honoured during a ceremony at Paddington station on 23 June 2021.
Pun’s son Arjun and daughter Megh Kumari were joined by guests including actress Joanna Lumley OBE, whose father Major James Rutherford Lumley was Pun’s Commanding Officer during the Second World War.
“This is an extraordinarily graceful gesture from Great Western Railway. I think it’s quite wonderful because Tulbahadur Pun’s name has gone down in history already, but this train means he will be remembered every day. I wish he was here to see it – he was such a modest man but I think this would have amused him and made him so proud.”
Mini-marvels Lincoln Callaghan and Henry Cleary were the first BBC Make A Difference Superstars to be celebrated during a ceremony at Paddington station on July 5 2021.
Lincoln was aged just five when he got on his bike to answer an SOS from his beloved Didcot Town Football Club.
Didcot, known as The Railwaymen, launched an appeal in April 2020 to raise £10,000 to help ends meet during the pandemic.
Lincoln asked dad Chris if they could do a cycle ride to help raise funds and used the exercise time allowed to complete the 100k challenge and raise more than £2,250. The duo then started an online scratch card competition which raised a further £1,000.Didcot Town director and trustee Roger Neal said:
“It was incredibly difficult for us to keep going during the pandemic and the fantastic work Lincoln has done literally helped us to keep the lights on.”
Crisis Chief Executive Jon Sparkes said:
“Our year-round work to support people out of homelessness is only possible because of people like Henry. He really is a superstar in our eyes and we’re really pleased to see his amazing efforts recognised in such a wonderful way.
Pictured: Christopher Dando
Christopher, from Westbury-sub-Mendip, helped to ensure the safety of 23 residents at Court House Retirement Home in Cheddar by gathering a team of carers who voluntarily locked themselves into a safe bubble for the benefit of their residents.
Christopher and eight colleagues moved into the home for 12 weeks, working round-the-clock to keep the pandemic at bay.
Christopher, who went without seeing wife Alison and daughters Chloe and Edith, led by example, working in the kitchen, helping with personal care, emptying rubbish, cutting the grass and organising morale-boosting events for residents and staff.
Wells MP James Heappey said:
“Many of us have lost loved ones and had to make sacrifices over these past couple of years, but it’s thanks to people like Christopher and his team who have managed to keep community spirits alive.”
Pictured: Evette Wakely
Royal Mail worker Evette put a smile on residents’ faces by galvanizing a team of 12 fancy-dress colleagues to deliver the post and raise money for the Love Musgrove Covid-19 Response Fund, helping nurses and patients at Musgrove Park Hospital in Taunton. Within a month they had raised more than £5,000.
She also arranged for a convoy of Royal Mail vans to deliver a gift to a girl awaiting major heart surgery, as well as spearheading a fundraising month to raise £2,695 for the homeless and raising another £3,500 for St Margaret’s Hospice in Taunton.
Evette also helped raise thousands of pounds for Elliot’s Touch, a charity in Watchet helping to fund research and find cures for Cardiomyopathy in Children and Mitochondrial Disease.
Taunton Deane MP Rebecca Pow said:
“It’s because of people like Evette that we’ve managed to get through these difficult couple of years, and it’s absolutely fitting that GWR and BBC Radio Somerset have honoured her in this way.”
Pictured: Evette Wakely with family
Alan famously led a team in ‘Hut 8’ at the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park, Britain’s codebreaking centre during the war.
In 1942 he and his team cracked the vitally important and most difficult German Naval Enigma. His work in the field of computer science was groundbreaking and paved the way for modern computing.
Alan is also an admired role model within the LGBTQ+ community and his legacy has helped change social attitudes in Britain.
Although laws during the 1950s made it illegal for him to be openly gay, Alan did not shy away from his sexuality. He was arrested for gross indecency which resulted in a sentence of chemical castration.
2 years later Alan died of cyanide poisoning. Following the launch of an internet campaign in 2009, he was granted a posthumous royal pardon four years later. A subsequent legal amendment, known as ‘Turing’s Law’, pardoned 65,000 other convicted gay and bisexual men.
Inagh Payne, speaking on behalf of the family, said:
“Alan was very special to us and we are so incredibly proud of everything he did. Despite not being fond of neither fuss nor social occasions, he would have been delighted to have a train named after him.
“We have our own fond memories of him as a loving and caring uncle and it is wonderful to see this tribute to him, and that he is remembered, and his life celebrated by so many people.”
‘Trainbow’ was first unveiled in 2018 to support Pride events across the network and demonstrate GWR’s support for the LGBTQ+ community.
Its livery has now been updated to include black, brown, light blue, light pink and white, bringing focus on inclusion for trans individuals, marginalised people of colour and those living with HIV/AIDS.
Intercity Express Train 800008 also pays a nod to the World War Two codebreakers and their mastery of palindromes. And, as you might expect with something related to Alan Turing, there is more to the design of the new livery than first meets the eye.
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