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Brunel was the engineer in charge of designing the Great Western Railway, which ran from London to Bristol. With future high speed running in mind he opted for the stability offered by a rail gauge of seven feet and a quarter inch (2140 mm). The first stretch from London to Maidenhead opened for public use on 4th June 1838. 
In many places the broad gauge and standard gauge trains operated over the same stretch of line, which was laid with three rails. On the right in this view is a standard gauge line, and on the left the track is mixed gauge. The location is the Great Western Society's preservation site at Didcot. 3rd June 2001.  The rails that Brunel used for his broad gauge railway were of a type known as bridge rail. These sections of bridge rail were put to further use as fence posts when the broad gauge was abandoned. The location is Chivenham near Basingstoke. Photograph taken 19th October 1988.  A different view of the layout at Didcot. The wooden block over one of the rails is a wheel stop. It is a safety measure to prevent a runaway vehicle from the siding from crashing into a train on the other line. 3rd June 2001.  The preservation site at Didcot includes this transfer shed. Broad gauge vehicles used the line on the left and standard gauge ones used the line on the right. The arches at the far end of the shed are of slightly different sizes, the one on the left being the larger of the two as it needed to accommodate broad gauge trains. 3rd June 2001.
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