title: Cape Breton Island

text: Louisbourg itself was one of the most important commercial and military centres in New France. Louisbourg was captured by New Englanders with British naval assistance in the Siege of Louisbourg (1745) and by British forces in 1758. The French population of Île Royale was deported to France after each siege. While French settlers returned to their homes in Île Royale after the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was signed in 1748, the fortress was demolished after the second siege in 1758. Île Royale remained formally part of New France until it was ceded to Great Britain by the Treaty of Paris in 1763. It was then merged with the adjacent British colony of Nova Scotia (present day peninsular Nova Scotia and New Brunswick). Acadians who had been expelled from Nova Scotia and Île Royale were permitted to settle in Cape Breton beginning in 1764, and established communities in northwestern Cape Breton, near Chéticamp, and southern Cape Breton, on and near Isle Madame.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: Some of the first British-sanctioned settlers on the island following the Seven Years' War were Irish, although upon settlement they merged with local French communities to form a culture rich in music and tradition. From 1763 to 1784, the island was administratively part of the colony of Nova Scotia and was governed from Halifax.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: The first permanently settled Scottish community on Cape Breton Island was Judique, settled in 1775 by Michael Mor MacDonald. He spent his first winter using his upside-down boat for shelter, which is reflected in the architecture of the village's Community Centre. He composed a song about the area called "O 's àlainn an t-àite", or "O, Fair is the Place."


title: Cape Breton Island

text: During the American Revolution, on 1 November 1776, John Paul Jones, the father of the American Navy, set sail in command of "Alfred" to free hundreds of American prisoners working in the area's coal mines. Although winter conditions prevented the freeing of the prisoners, the mission did result in the capture of "Mellish", a vessel carrying a vital supply of winter clothing intended for John Burgoyne's troops in Canada.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: Major Timothy Hierlihy and his regiment on board "HMS Hope" worked in and protected the coal mines at Sydney Cape Breton from privateer attacks. Sydney, Cape Breton provided a vital supply of coal for Halifax throughout the war. The British began developing the mining site at Sydney Mines in 1777. On 14 May 1778, Major Hierlihy arrived at Cape Breton. While there, Hierlihy reported that he "beat off many piratical attacks, killed some and took other prisoners."


title: Cape Breton Island

text: A few years into the war, there was also a naval engagement between French ships and a British convoy off Sydney, Nova Scotia, near Spanish River (1781), Cape Breton. French ships, fighting with the Americans, were re-coaling and defeated a British convoy. Six French and 17 British sailors were killed, with many more wounded.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: In 1784, Britain split the colony of Nova Scotia into three separate colonies: New Brunswick, Cape Breton Island, and present-day peninsular Nova Scotia, in addition to the adjacent colonies of St. John's Island (renamed Prince Edward Island in 1798) and Newfoundland. The colony of Cape Breton Island had its capital at Sydney on its namesake harbour fronting on Spanish Bay and the Cabot Strait. Its first Lieutenant-Governor was Joseph Frederick Wallet DesBarres (1784–1787) and his successor was William Macarmick (1787).


title: Cape Breton Island

text: A number of United Empire Loyalists emigrated to the Canadian colonies, including Cape Breton. David Mathews, the former Mayor of New York City during the American Revolution, emigrated with his family to Cape Breton in 1783. He succeeded Macarmick as head of the colony and served from 1795 to 1798.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: An order forbidding the granting of land in Cape Breton, issued in 1763, was removed in 1784. The mineral rights to the island were given over to the Duke of York by an order-in-council. The British government had intended that the Crown take over the operation of the mines when Cape Breton was made a colony, but this was never done, probably because of the rehabilitation cost of the mines. The mines were in a neglected state, caused by careless operations dating back at least to the time of the final fall of Louisbourg in 1758.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: Large-scale shipbuilding began in the 1790s, beginning with schooners for local trade, moving in the 1820s to larger brigs and brigatines, mostly built for British ship owners. Shipbuilding peaked in the 1850s, marked in 1851 by the full-rigged ship "Lord Clarendon", which was the largest wooden ship ever built in Cape Breton.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: In 1820, the colony of Cape Breton Island was merged for the second time with Nova Scotia. This development is one of the factors which led to large-scale industrial development in the Sydney Coal Field of eastern Cape Breton County. By the late 19th century, as a result of the faster shipping, expanding fishery and industrialization of the island, exchanges of people between the island of Newfoundland and Cape Breton increased, beginning a cultural exchange that continues to this day.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: The 1920s were some of the most violent times in Cape Breton. They were marked by several severe labour disputes. The famous murder of William Davis by strike breakers, and the seizing of the New Waterford power plant by striking miners led to a major union sentiment that persists to this day in some circles. William Davis Miners' Memorial Day continues to be celebrated in coal mining towns to commemorate the deaths of miners at the hands of the coal companies.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: The turn of the 20th century saw Cape Breton Island at the forefront of scientific achievement with the now-famous activities launched by inventors Alexander Graham Bell and Guglielmo Marconi.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: Following his successful invention of the telephone and being relatively wealthy, Bell acquired land near Baddeck in 1885. He chose the land, which he named "Beinn Bgreagh", largely due to its resemblance to his early surroundings in Scotland. He established a summer estate complete with research laboratories, working with deaf people including Helen Keller, and continued to invent. Baddeck would be the site of his experiments with hydrofoil technologies as well as the Aerial Experiment Association, financed by his wife Mabel Gardiner Hubbard. These efforts resulted in the first powered flight in Canada when the AEA "Silver Dart" took off from the ice-covered waters of Bras d'Or Lake. Bell also built the forerunner to the iron lung and experimented with breeding sheep.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: Marconi's contributions to Cape Breton Island were also quite significant, as he used the island's geography to his advantage in transmitting the first North American trans-Atlantic radio message from a station constructed at Table Head in Glace Bay to a receiving station at Poldhu in Cornwall, England. Marconi's pioneering work in Cape Breton marked the beginning of modern radio technology. Marconi's station at Marconi Towers, on the outskirts of Glace Bay, became the chief communication centre for the Royal Canadian Navy in World War I through to the early years of World War II.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: Promotions for tourism beginning in the 1950s recognized the importance of the Scottish culture to the province, as the provincial government started encouraging the use of Gaelic once again. The establishment of funding for the Gaelic College of Celtic Arts and Crafts and formal Gaelic language courses in public schools are intended to address the near-loss of this culture to assimilation into Anglophone Canadian culture.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: In the 1960s, the Fortress of Louisbourg was partially reconstructed by Parks Canada, using the labour of unemployed coal miners. Since 2009, this National Historic Site of Canada has attracted an average of 90 000 visitors per year.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: It lies in the southeastern extremity of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Cape Breton is separated from the Nova Scotia peninsula by the very deep Strait of Canso. The island is joined to the mainland by the Canso Causeway.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: Cape Breton Island is composed of rocky shores, rolling farmland, glacial valleys, barren headlands, highlands, woods and plateaus.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: The island is characterized by a number of elevations of ancient crystalline and metamorphic rock rising up from the south to the north, and contrasted with eroded lowlands. The bedrock of blocks that developed in different places around the globe, at different times, and then were fused together via tectonics.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: Cape Breton is formed from three terranes. These are fragments of the earth's crust formed on a tectonic plate and attached by accretion or suture to crust lying on another plate. Each of these has its own distinctive geologic history, which is different from that of the surrounding areas. The southern half of the island formed from the Avalon terrane, which was once a microcontinent in the Paleozoic era. It is made up of volcanic rock that formed near what is now called Africa. Most of the northern half of the island is on the Bras d'Or terrane (part of the Ganderia terrane). It contains volcanic and sedimentary rock formed off the coast of what is now South America. The third terrane is the relatively small Blair River inlier on the far northwestern tip. It contains the oldest rock in the Maritimes, formed up to 1.6 billion years ago. These rocks, which can be seen in the Polletts Cove - Aspy Fault Wilderness Area north of Pleasant Bay, are likely part of the Canadian Shield, a large area of Precambrian igneous and metamorphic rock that forms the core of the North American continent.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: The Avalon and Bras d'Or terranes were pushed together about 500 million years ago when the supercontinent Gondwana was formed. The Blair River inlier was sandwiched in between the two when Laurussia was formed 450-360 million years ago, at which time the land was found in the tropics. This collision also formed the Appalachian Mountains. Associated rifting and faulting is now visible as the canyons of the Cape Breton Highlands. Then, during the Carboniferous period, the area was flooded, which created sedimentary rock layers such as sandstone, shale, gypsum, and conglomerate. Later, most of the island was tropical forest which later formed coal deposits.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: Much later, the land was shaped by repeated ice ages which left striations, till, U-shaped valleys, and carved the Bras d'Or Lake from the bedrock. Examples of U-shaped valleys are those of the Chéticamp, Grande Anse, and Clyburn River valleys. Other valleys have been eroded by water, forming V-shaped valleys and canyons. Cape Breton has many fault lines but few earthquakes. Since the North American continent is moving westward, earthquakes tend to occur on the western edge of the continent.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: The warm summer humid continental climate is moderated by the proximity of the cold, oftentimes polar Labrador Current and its warmer counterpart the Gulf Stream, both being dominant currents in the North Atlantic Ocean.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: There are lowland areas in along the western shore, around Lake Ainslie, the Bras d'Or watershed, Boularderie Island, and the Sydney coalfield. They include salt marshes, coastal beaches, and freshwater wetlands.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: Starting in the 1800s, many areas were cleared for farming or timber. Many farms were abandoned from the 1920s to the 1950s with fields being reclaimed by white spruce, red maple, white birch, and balsam fir. Higher slopes are dominated by yellow birch and sugar maple. In sheltered areas with sun and drainage, Acadian forest is found. Wetter areas have tamarack, and black spruce. The weather station at Ingonish records more rain than anywhere else in Nova Scotia.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: Behind barrier beaches and dunes at Aspy Bay are salt marshes. The Aspy, Clyburn, and Ingonish rivers have all created floodplains which support populations of black ash, fiddle head fern, swamp loosestrife, swamp milkweed, southern twayblade, and bloodroot.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: Red sandstone and white gypsum cliffs can be observed throughout this area. Bedrock is Carboniferous sedimentary with limestone, shale, and sandstone. Many fluvial remains from are glaciation found here. Mining has been ongoing for centuries, and more than 500 mine openings can be found, mainly in the east.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: Karst topography is found in Dingwall, South Harbour, Plaster Provincial Park, along the Margaree and Middle Rivers, and along the north shore of Lake Ainslie. The presence of gypsum and limestone increases soil pH and produces some rich wetlands which support giant spear, tufted fen, and other mosses, as well as vascular plants like sedges.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: This ecosystem is spread throughout Cape Breton and is defined as hills and slopes 150-300m above sea level, typically covered with Acadian forest.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: Forests in this area were cleared for timber and agriculture and are now a mosaic of habitats depending on the local terrain, soils and microclimate. Typical species include ironwood, white ash, beech, sugar maple, red maple, and yellow birch. The understory can include striped maple, beaked hazelnut, fly honeysuckle, club mosses and ferns. Ephemerals are visible in the spring, such as Dutchman's breeches and spring beauty.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: In ravines, shade tolerant trees like hemlock, white pine, red spruce are found. Less well-drained areas are forested with balsam fir and black spruce.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: An extension of the Appalachian mountain chain, elevations average 350 metres at the edges of the plateau and rise to more than 500 metres at the centre. The area has broad, gently rolling hills bisected with deep valleys and steep-walled canyons. A majority of the land is a taiga of balsam fir, with some white birch, white spruce, mountain ash, and heart-leaf birch.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: The northern and western edges of the plateau, particularly at high elevations, resemble arctic tundra. Trees 30–90 high, overgrown with reindeer lichens, can be 150 years old. At very high elevations some areas are exposed bedrock without any vegetation apart from Cladonia lichens. There are many barrens, or heaths, dominated by bushy species of the Ericaceae family.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: Spruce, killed by spruce budworm in the late 1970s, has reestablished at lower elevations, but not at higher elevations due to moose browsing. Decomposition is slow, leaving thick layers of plant litter. Ground cover includes wood aster, twinflower, liverworts, wood sorrel, bluebead lily, goldthread, various ferns, and lily-of-the-valley, with bryophyte and large-leaved goldenrod at higher elevations. The understory can include striped maple, mountain ash, ferns, and mountain maple.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: Near water, bog birch, alder, and mountain-ash are found. There are many open wetlands populated with stunted tamarack and black spruce. Poor drainage has led to the formation of peatlands which can support tufted clubrush, Bartram's serviceberry, coastal sedge, and bakeapple.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: The eastern shore is unique in that while not at a high elevation, it has a cool climate with much rain and fog, strong winds, and low summer temperatures. It is dominated by a boreal forest of black spruce and balsam fir. Sheltered areas support tolerant hardwoods such as white birch and red maple. Many salt marshes, fens, and bogs are found there.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: There are many beaches on the highly crenalated coastline. Unlike elsewhere on the island, these are rocky and support plants unlike those of sandy beaches. The coast provides habitat for common coast bird species like common eider, black legged kittiwake, black guillemot, whimbrel, and great cormorant.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: Land is drained into the Gulf of Saint Lawrence via the rivers Aspy, Sydney, Mira, Framboise, Margaree, and Chéticamp. The largest freshwater lake is Lake Ainslie.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: Local government on the island is provided by the Cape Breton Regional Municipality, the Municipality of the County of Inverness, the Municipality of the County of Richmond, and the Municipality of the County of Victoria, along with the Town of Port Hawkesbury.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: The island has five Miꞌkmaq Indian reserves: Eskasoni (the largest in population and land area), Membertou, Wagmatcook, Waycobah, and Potlotek.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: The island's residents can be grouped into five main cultures: Scottish, Mi'kmaq, Acadian, Irish, English, with respective languages Scottish Gaelic, Mi'kmaq, French, and English. English is now the primary language, including a locally distinctive Cape Breton accent, while Mi'kmaq, Scottish Gaelic and Acadian French are still spoken in some communities.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: Later migrations of Black Loyalists, Italians, and Eastern Europeans mostly settled in the island's eastern part around the industrial Cape Breton region. Cape Breton Island's population has been in decline two decades with an increasing exodus in recent years due to economic conditions.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: Statistics Canada in 2001 reported a "religion" total of 145,525 for Cape Breton, including 5,245 with "no religious affiliation." Major categories included:


title: Cape Breton Island

text: Sydney has traditionally been the main port, with facilities in a large, sheltered, natural harbour. It is the island's largest commercial centre and home to the "Cape Breton Post" daily newspaper, as well as one television station, CJCB-TV (CTV), and several radio stations. The Marine Atlantic terminal at North Sydney is the terminal for large ferries traveling to Channel-Port aux Basques and seasonally to Argentia, both on the island of Newfoundland.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: Point Edward on the west side of Sydney Harbour is the location of Sydport, a former navy base () now converted to commercial use. The Canadian Coast Guard College is nearby at Westmount. Petroleum, bulk coal, and cruise ship facilities are also in Sydney Harbour.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: Glace Bay, the second largest urban community in population, was the island's main coal mining centre until its last mine closed in the 1980s. Glace Bay was the hub of the Sydney & Louisburg Railway and a major fishing port. At one time, Glace Bay was known as the largest town in Nova Scotia, based on population.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: Port Hawkesbury has risen to prominence since the completion of the Canso Causeway and Canso Canal created an artificial deep-water port, allowing extensive petrochemical, pulp and paper, and gypsum handling facilities to be established. The Strait of Canso is completely navigable to Seawaymax vessels, and Port Hawkesbury is open to the deepest-draught vessels on the world's oceans. Large marine vessels may also enter Bras d'Or Lake through the Great Bras d'Or channel, and small craft can use the Little Bras d'Or channel or St. Peters Canal. While commercial shipping no longer uses the St. Peters Canal, it remains an important waterway for recreational vessels.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: The industrial Cape Breton area faced several challenges with the closure of the Cape Breton Development Corporation's (DEVCO) coal mines and the Sydney Steel Corporation's (SYSCO) steel mill. In recent years, the Island's residents have tried to diversify the area economy by investing in tourism developments, call centres, and small businesses, as well as manufacturing ventures in fields such as auto parts, pharmaceuticals, and window glazings.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: While the Cape Breton Regional Municipality is in transition from an industrial to a service-based economy, the rest of Cape Breton Island outside the industrial area surrounding Sydney-Glace Bay has been more stable, with a mixture of fishing, forestry, small-scale agriculture, and tourism.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: Tourism in particular has grown throughout the post-Second World War era, especially the growth in vehicle-based touring, which was furthered by the creation of the Cabot Trail scenic drive. The scenery of the island is rivalled in northeastern North America by only Newfoundland; and Cape Breton Island tourism marketing places a heavy emphasis on its Scottish Gaelic heritage through events such as the Celtic Colours Festival, held each October, as well as promotions through the Gaelic College of Celtic Arts and Crafts.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: Whale-watching is a popular attraction for tourists. Whale-watching cruises are operated by vendors from Baddeck to Chéticamp. The most popular species of whale found in Cape Breton's waters is the pilot whale.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: The Cabot Trail is a scenic road circuit around and over the Cape Breton Highlands with spectacular coastal vistas; over 400,000 visitors drive the Cabot Trail each summer and fall. Coupled with the Fortress of Louisbourg, it has driven the growth of the tourism industry on the island in recent decades. The "Condé Nast" travel guide has rated Cape Breton Island as one of the world's best island destinations.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: The island's primary east–west road is Highway 105, the Trans-Canada Highway, although Trunk 4 is also heavily used. Highway 125 is an important arterial route around Sydney Harbour in the Cape Breton Regional Municipality. The Cabot Trail, circling the Cape Breton Highlands, and Trunk 19, along the island's western coast, are important secondary roads. The Cape Breton and Central Nova Scotia Railway maintains railway connections between the port of Sydney to the Canadian National Railway in Truro.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: Cape Breton Island is served by several airports, the largest, the JA Douglas McCurdy Sydney Airport, situated on Trunk 4 between the communities of Sydney and Glace Bay, as well as smaller airports at Port Hawksbury, Margaree, and Baddeck.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: Gaelic speakers in Cape Breton, as elsewhere in Nova Scotia, constituted a large proportion of the local population from the 18th century on. They brought with them a common culture of poetry, traditional songs and tales, music and dance, and used this to develop distinctive local traditions.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: Most Gaelic settlement in Nova Scotia happened between 1770 and 1840, with probably over 50,000 Gaelic speakers emigrating from the Scottish Highlands and the Hebrides to Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. Such emigration was facilitated by changes in Gaelic society and the economy, with sharp increases in rents, confiscation of land and disruption of local customs and rights. In Nova Scotia, poetry and song in Gaelic flourished. George Emmerson argues that an "ancient and rich" tradition of storytelling, song, and Gaelic poetry emerged during the 18th century and was transplanted from the Highlands of Scotland to Nova Scotia, where the language similarly took root there. The majority of those settling in Nova Scotia from the end of the 18th century through to middle of the next were from the Scottish Highlands, rather than the Lowlands, making the Highland tradition's impact more profound on the region. Gaelic settlement in Cape Breton began in earnest in the early nineteenth century.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: The Gaelic language became dominant from Colchester County in the west of Nova Scotia into Cape Breton County in the east. It was reinforced in Cape Breton in the first half of the 19th century with an influx of Highland Scots numbering approximately 50,000 as a result of the Highland Clearances.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: From 1892 to 1904, Jonathon MacKinnon published the Scottish Gaelic-language biweekly newspaper () in Sydney, Nova Scotia. During the 1920s, several Scottish Gaelic-language newspapers were printed in Sydney for distribution primarily on Cape Breton, including the (), which included Gaelic-language lessons; the United Church-affiliated (); and MacKinnon's later endeavor, ().


title: Cape Breton Island

text: Gaelic speakers, however, tended to be poor; they were largely illiterate and had little access to education. This situation persisted into the early days of the twentieth century. In 1921 Gaelic was approved as an optional subject in the curriculum of Nova Scotia, but few teachers could be found and children were discouraged from using the language in schools. By 1931 the number of Gaelic speakers in Nova Scotia had fallen to approximately 25,000, mostly in discrete pockets. In Cape Breton it was still a majority language, but the proportion was falling. Children were no longer being raised with Gaelic.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: From 1939 on, attempts were made to strengthen its position in the public school system in Nova Scotia, but funding, official commitment and the availability of teachers continued to be a problem. By the 1950s the number of speakers was less than 7,000. The advent of multiculturalism in Canada in the 1960s meant that new educational opportunities became available, with a gradual strengthening of the language at secondary and tertiary level. At present several schools in Cape Breton offer Gaelic Studies and Gaelic language programs, and the language is taught at Cape Breton University.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: The 2016 Canadian Census shows that there are only 40 reported speakers of Gaelic as a mother tongue in Cape Breton. On the other hand, there are families and individuals who have recommenced intergenerational transmission. They include fluent speakers from Gaelic-speaking areas of Scotland and speakers who became fluent in Nova Scotia and who in some cases studied in Scotland. Other revitalization activities include adult education, community cultural events and publishing.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: Cape Breton is well known for its traditional fiddle music, which was brought to North America by Scottish immigrants during the Highland Clearances. The traditional style has been well preserved in Cape Breton, and cèilidhs have become a popular attraction for tourists. Inverness County in particular has a heavy concentration of musical activity, with regular performances in communities such as Mabou and Judique. Judique is recognized as "" () or the 'Home of Celtic Music', featuring the Celtic Music Interpretive Centre. The traditional fiddle music of Cape Breton is studied by musicians around the world, where its global recognition continues to rise.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: Local performers who have received significant recognition outside of Cape Breton include Angus Chisholm; Buddy MacMaster; Joseph Cormier, the first Cape Breton fiddler to record an album made available in Europe (1974); Lee Cremo; Bruce Guthro; Natalie MacMaster; Ashley MacIsaac; The Rankin Family; Aselin Debison; Gordie Sampson; John Allan Cameron; and the Barra MacNeils.


title: Cape Breton Island

text: The Men of the Deeps are a male choral group of current and former miners from the industrial Cape Breton area.


title: Philosophical zombie

text: A philosophical zombie or p-zombie argument is a thought experiment in philosophy of mind that imagines a hypothetical being that is physically identical to and indistinguishable from a normal person but does not have conscious experience, qualia, or sentience. For example, if a philosophical zombie were poked with a sharp object it would not inwardly feel any pain, yet it would outwardly behave exactly as if it did feel pain, including verbally expressing pain. Relatedly, a zombie world is a hypothetical world indistinguishable from our world but in which all beings lack conscious experience.


title: Philosophical zombie

text: Philosophical zombie arguments are used in support of mind-body dualism against forms of physicalism such as materialism, behaviorism and functionalism. These arguments aim to resist the possibility of any physicalist solution to the "hard problem of consciousness" (the problem of accounting for subjective, intrinsic, first-person, what-it's-like-ness). Proponents of philosophical zombie arguments, such as the philosopher David Chalmers, argue that since a philosophical zombie is by definition physically identical to a conscious person, even its logical possibility would refute physicalism, because it would establish the existence of conscious experience as a further fact. Such arguments have been criticized by many philosophers. Some physicalists like Daniel Dennett argue that philosophical zombies are logically incoherent and thus impossible; other physicalists like Christopher Hill argue that philosophical zombies are coherent but not metaphysically possible.


title: Philosophical zombie

text: Philosophical zombies are associated with David Chalmers, but it was philosopher Robert Kirk who first used the term "zombie" in this context in 1974. Prior to that, Keith Campbell made a similar argument in his 1970 book "Body and Mind", using the term "Imitation Man." Chalmers further developed and popularized the idea in his work. In his 1911 Oxford "Life and consciousness" Lectures, Henri Bergson already argues to his audience that it is impossible to prove with mathematical certainty that he is in fact an I, a creature enstowed with consciousness: "I might be a well constructed automaton - going, coming, speaking - without internal consciousness, and the very words by which I declare at this moment that I am conscious being might be words pronounced without conciousness."(Bergson, 1911). Bergson proceeds to argue that we infer from analogy between this other being and ourselves. Following this thought experiment further, Bergson proceeds to argue against the idea that conciousness is restricted to the brain - which he conceives as an organ of choice -, but instead resides in the whole body. (Bergson, 1911)


title: Philosophical zombie

text: There has been a lively debate about what the zombie argument shows. Critics who primarily argue that zombies are not conceivable include Daniel Dennett, Nigel J. T. Thomas, David Braddon-Mitchell, and Robert Kirk; critics who assert mostly that conceivability does not entail possibility include Katalin Balog, Keith Frankish, Christopher Hill, and Stephen Yablo; and critics who question the logical validity of the argument include George Bealer.


title: Philosophical zombie

text: In his 2019 update to the article on philosophical zombies in the "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy", Kirk summed up the current state of the debate:


title: Philosophical zombie

text: A 2013 survey of professional philosophers conducted by Bourget and Chalmers produced the following results:


title: Philosophical zombie

text: In 2020, the same survey yielded "inconceivable" 16%, "conceivable but not possible" 37%, "metaphysically possible" 24%, and "other" 23%.


title: Philosophical zombie

text: Though philosophical zombies are widely used in thought experiments, the detailed articulation of the concept is not always the same. P-zombies were introduced primarily to argue against specific types of physicalism such as behaviorism, according to which mental states exist solely as behavior. Belief, desire, thought, consciousness, and so on, are only behavior (whether external behavior or internal behavior) or tendencies towards behaviors. A p-zombie that is behaviorally indistinguishable from a normal human being but lacks conscious experiences is therefore not logically possible according to the behaviorist, so an appeal to the logical possibility of a p-zombie furnishes an argument that behaviorism is false. Proponents of zombie arguments generally accept that p-zombies are not physically possible, while opponents necessarily deny that they are metaphysically or, in some cases, even logically possible.


title: Philosophical zombie

text: The unifying idea of the zombie is that of a human completely lacking conscious experience. It is possible to distinguish various zombie sub-types used in different thought experiments as follows:


title: Philosophical zombie

text: Zombie arguments often support lines of reasoning that aim to show that zombies are metaphysically possible in order to support some form of dualism – in this case the view that the world includes two kinds of substance (or perhaps two kinds of property): the mental and the physical.


title: Philosophical zombie

text: In contrast to dualism, in physicalism, material facts determine all other facts. Since any fact other than that of consciousness may be held to be the same for a p-zombie and for a normal conscious human, it follows that physicalism must hold that p-zombies are either not possible or are the same as normal humans.


title: Philosophical zombie

text: The zombie argument is a version of general modal arguments against physicalism such as that of Saul Kripke. Further such arguments were notably advanced in the 1970s by Thomas Nagel (1970; 1974) and Robert Kirk (1974) but the general argument was most famously developed in detail by David Chalmers in "The Conscious Mind" (1996).


title: Philosophical zombie

text: According to Chalmers one can coherently conceive of an entire zombie world, a world physically indistinguishable from this world but entirely lacking conscious experience. The counterpart of every conscious being in our world would be a p-zombie. Since such a world is conceivable, Chalmers claims, it is metaphysically possible, which is all the argument requires. Chalmers states: "Zombies are probably not naturally possible: they probably cannot exist in our world, with its laws of nature." The outline structure of Chalmers' version of the zombie argument is as follows;


title: Philosophical zombie

text: The above is a strong formulation of the zombie argument. There are other formulations of the zombies-type argument which follow the same general form. The premises of the general zombies argument are implied by the premises of all the specific zombie arguments.


title: Philosophical zombie

text: A general zombies argument is in part motivated by potential disagreements between various anti-physicalist views. For example, an anti-physicalist view can consistently assert that p-zombies are metaphysically impossible but that inverted qualia (such as inverted spectra) or absent qualia (partial zombiehood) are metaphysically possible. Premises regarding inverted qualia or partial zombiehood can substitute premises regarding p-zombies to produce variations of the zombie argument.


title: Philosophical zombie

text: The metaphysical possibility of a physically indistinguishable world with either inverted qualia or partial zombiehood would imply that physical truths do not metaphysically necessitate phenomenal truths.


title: Philosophical zombie

text: To formulate the general form of the zombies argument, take the sentence 'P' to be true if and only if the conjunct of all microphysical truths of our world obtain, take the sentence 'Q' to be true if some phenomenal truth, that obtains in the actual world, obtains. The general argument goes as follows.


title: Philosophical zombie

text: Q can be false in a possible world if any of the following obtains: (1) there exists at least one invert relative to the actual world (2) there is at least one absent quale relative to the actual world (3) all actually conscious beings are p-zombies (all actual qualia are absent qualia).


title: Philosophical zombie

text: Another way to construe the zombie hypothesis is epistemically – as a problem of causal explanation, rather than as a problem of logical or metaphysical possibility. The "explanatory gap" – also called the "hard problem of consciousness" – is the claim that (to date) no one has provided a convincing causal explanation of how and why we are conscious. It is a manifestation of the very same gap that (to date) no one has provided a convincing causal explanation of how and why we are not zombies.


title: Philosophical zombie

text: The philosophical zombie argument can also be seen through the counterfeit bill example brought forth by Amy Kind. Amy Kind’s example centers around the idea that you have to imagine a counterfeit 20 dollar bill was made to be exactly like an authentic 20 dollar bill. This is logically possible. And yet the counterfeit bill would not really have the same value. Like the critique against Descartes conceivability argument, are people really logically conceiving of zombies when they say they are? When philosophers claim that zombies are conceivable, they invariably underestimate the task of conception, and end up imagining something that violates their own definition.


title: Philosophical zombie

text: According to Amy Kind, in her book “Philosophy of Mind: the basics”>, The Zombie Argument can be put in this standard form from a dualist point of view:


title: Philosophical zombie

text: Galen Strawson argues that it is not possible to establish the conceivability of zombies, so that the argument, lacking its first premise, can never get going.


title: Philosophical zombie

text: Chalmers has argued that zombies are conceivable, saying "it certainly seems that a coherent situation is described; I can discern no contradiction in the description."


title: Philosophical zombie

text: Many physicalist philosophers have argued that this scenario eliminates itself by its description; the basis of a physicalist argument is that the world is defined entirely by physicality; thus, a world that was physically identical would necessarily contain consciousness, as consciousness would necessarily be generated from any set of physical circumstances identical to our own.


title: Philosophical zombie

text: The zombie argument claims that one can tell by the power of reason that such a "zombie scenario" is metaphysically possible. Chalmers states; "From the conceivability of zombies, proponents of the argument infer their metaphysical possibility" and argues that this inference, while not generally legitimate, is legitimate for phenomenal concepts such as consciousness since we must adhere to "Kripke's insight that for phenomenal concepts, there is no gap between reference-fixers and reference (or between primary and secondary intentions)."


title: Philosophical zombie

text: That is, for phenomenal concepts, conceivability implies possibility. According to Chalmers, whatever is logically possible is also, in the sense relevant here, metaphysically possible.


title: Philosophical zombie

text: Another response is the denial of the idea that qualia and related phenomenal notions of the mind are in the first place coherent concepts. Daniel Dennett and others argue that while consciousness and subjective experience exist in some sense, they are not as the zombie argument proponent claims. The experience of pain, for example, is not something that can be stripped off a person's mental life without bringing about any behavioral or physiological differences. Dennett believes that consciousness is a complex series of functions and ideas. If we all can have these experiences the idea of the p-zombie is meaningless.


title: Philosophical zombie

text: Dennett argues that "when philosophers claim that zombies are conceivable, they invariably underestimate the task of conception (or imagination), and end up imagining something that violates their own definition". He coined the term "zimboes" – p-zombies that have second-order beliefs – to argue that the idea of a p-zombie is incoherent; "Zimboes think they are conscious, think they have qualia, think they suffer pains – they are just 'wrong' (according to this lamentable tradition), in ways that neither they nor we could ever discover!".


title: Philosophical zombie

text: Michael Lynch agrees with Dennett, arguing that the zombie conceivability argument forces us to either question whether or not we actually have consciousness or accept that zombies are not possible. If zombies falsely believe they are conscious, how can we be sure we are not zombies? We may believe we are experiencing conscious mental states when, in fact, we merely hold a false belief. Lynch thinks denying the possibility of zombies is more reasonable than questioning our own consciousness.


title: Philosophical zombie

text: Furthermore, when concept of self is deemed to correspond to physical reality alone (reductive physicalism), philosophical zombies are denied by definition. When a distinction is made in one's mind between a hypothetical zombie and oneself (assumed not to be a zombie), the hypothetical zombie, being a subset of the concept of oneself, must entail a deficit in observables (cognitive systems), a "seductive error" contradicting the original definition of a zombie.


title: Philosophical zombie

text: Thomas Metzinger dismisses the argument as no longer relevant to the consciousness community, calling it a weak argument that covertly relies on the difficulty in defining "consciousness", calling it an "ill-defined folk psychological umbrella term".


title: Philosophical zombie

text: Verificationism states that, for words to have meaning, their use must be open to public verification. Since it is assumed that we can talk about our qualia, the existence of zombies is impossible.


title: Philosophical zombie

text: Artificial intelligence researcher Marvin Minsky saw the argument as circular. The proposition of the possibility of something physically identical to a human but without subjective experience assumes that the physical characteristics of humans are not what produces those experiences, which is exactly what the argument was claiming to prove.


title: Philosophical zombie

text: Richard Brown agrees that the zombie argument is circular. To show this, he proposes "", which are creatures "non"physically identical to people in every way and lacking phenomenal consciousness. If existed, they would refute dualism because they would show that consciousness is not nonphysical, i.e., is physical. Paralleling the argument from Chalmers: It is conceivable that exist, so it is possible they exist, so dualism is false. Given the symmetry between the zombie and arguments, we cannot arbitrate the physicalism/dualism question "a priori".


title: Philosophical zombie

text: Similarly, Gualtiero Piccinini argues that the zombie conceivability argument is circular. Piccinini’s argument questions whether the possible worlds where zombies exist are accessible from our world. If physicalism is true in our world, then physicalism is one of the relevant facts about our world for determining whether a possible zombie world is accessible from our world. Therefore, asking whether zombies are metaphysically possible in our world is equivalent to asking whether physicalism is true in our world.


title: Philosophical zombie

text: Stephen Yablo's (1998) response is to provide an error theory to account for the intuition that zombies are possible. Notions of what counts as physical and as physically possible change over time so conceptual analysis is not reliable here. Yablo says he is "braced for the information that is going to make zombies inconceivable, even though I have no real idea what form the information is going to take."


title: Philosophical zombie

text: The zombie argument is difficult to assess because it brings to light fundamental disagreements about the method and scope of philosophy itself and the nature and abilities of conceptual analysis. Proponents of the zombie argument may think that conceptual analysis is a central part of (if not the only part of) philosophy and that it certainly can do a great deal of philosophical work. However, others, such as Dennett, Paul Churchland and W.V.O. Quine, have fundamentally different views. For this reason, discussion of the zombie argument remains vigorous in philosophy.


title: Philosophical zombie

text: Some accept modal reasoning in general but deny it in the zombie case. Christopher S. Hill and Brian P. Mclaughlin suggest that the zombie thought experiment combines imagination of a "sympathetic" nature (putting oneself in a phenomenal state) and a "perceptual" nature (imagining becoming aware of something in the outside world). Each type of imagination may work on its own, but they're not guaranteed to work when both used at the same time. Hence Chalmers's argument need not go through.


title: Philosophical zombie

text: Moreover, while Chalmers defuses criticisms of the view that conceivability can tell us about possibility, he provides no positive defense of the principle. As an analogy, the generalized continuum hypothesis has no known counterexamples, but this does not mean we must accept it. And indeed, the fact that Chalmers concludes we have epiphenomenal mental states that do not cause our physical behavior seems one reason to reject his principle.


title: Philosophical zombie

text: Frank Jackson's Mary's room argument is based around a hypothetical scientist, Mary, who is forced to view the world through a black-and-white television screen in a black and white room. Mary is a brilliant scientist who knows everything about the neurobiology of vision. Even though Mary knows everything about color and its perception (e.g. what combination of wavelengths makes the sky seem blue), she has never seen color. If Mary were released from this room and were to experience color for the first time, would she learn anything new? Jackson initially believed this supported epiphenomenalism (mental phenomena are the effects, but not the causes, of physical phenomena) but later changed his views to physicalism, suggesting that Mary is simply discovering a new way for her brain to represent qualities that exist in the world.


title: Philosophical zombie

text: Swampman is an imaginary character introduced by Donald Davidson. If Davidson goes hiking in a swamp and is struck and killed by a lightning bolt while nearby another lightning bolt spontaneously rearranges a bunch of molecules so that, entirely by coincidence, they take on exactly the same form that Davidson's body had at the moment of his untimely death then this being, 'Swampman', has a brain structurally identical to that which Davidson had and will thus presumably behave exactly like Davidson. He will return to Davidson's office and write the same essays he would have written, recognize all of his friends and family and so forth.


title: Philosophical zombie

text: John Searle's Chinese room argument deals with the nature of artificial intelligence: it imagines a room in which a conversation is held by means of written Chinese characters that the subject cannot actually read, but is able to manipulate meaningfully using a set of algorithms. Searle holds that a program cannot give a computer a "mind" or "understanding", regardless of how intelligently it may make it behave. Stevan Harnad argues that Searle's critique is really meant to target functionalism and computationalism, and to establish neuroscience as the only correct way to understand the mind.


title: Philosophical zombie

text: Physicist Adam Brown has suggested constructing a type of philosophical zombie using counterfactual quantum computation, a technique in which a computer is placed into a superposition of running and not running. If the program being executed is a brain simulation, and if one makes the further assumption that brain simulations are conscious, then the simulation can have the same output as a conscious system, yet not be conscious.


title: Naveen Jindal

text: Naveen Jindal (born 9 March 1970) is an Indian billionaire industrialist, and a former Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha from Kurukshetra, Haryana in the 14th and 15th Lok Sabha. He currently serves as the Chairman of Jindal Steel and Power Limited and Chancellor of O. P. Jindal Global University.


title: Naveen Jindal

text: He is an active campaigner for population stabilisation, women's empowerment, environmental conservation, health and education. As an acknowledgement of Jindal's donations to his alma mater, the University of Texas at Dallas renamed its School of Management to Naveen Jindal School of Management in 2011.


title: Naveen Jindal

text: Jindal was born in Hisar, Haryana, on 9 March 1970, youngest child of the late industrialist-philanthropist-politician Shri Om Prakash Jindal, former Minister of Power in the Government of Haryana, India, and his wife Smt Savitri Jindal who too was a minister in Haryana Government till 2014. Jindal studied at Campus School, CCS HAU and DPS Mathura Road before graduating in Commerce from Hans Raj College, Delhi University in 1990. He completed an MBA at the University of Texas at Dallas in 1992. He was the President of the Student Government and recipient of the Student Leader of the Year Award at the University of Texas at Dallas.


title: Naveen Jindal

text: Naveen Jindal is the youngest child of Smt Savitri Jindal and late Om Prakash Jindal. His father was born into a farming family in Haryana's Hisar district, and became the founder of the steel and power conglomerate, the O.P. Jindal Group. O.P. Jindal stood for elections to the Haryana Legislative Assembly and won thrice in 1991, 2000 and 2005 and contested elections to the Lok Sabha from Haryana's Kurukshetra constituency in 1996 and won. O.P Jindal was serving as the Power Minister in the Haryana government when he died on 31 March 2005, in a helicopter crash at the age of 74.


title: Naveen Jindal

text: Naveen's mother Savitri Jindal was a Minister in the Haryana Government and MLA from Hisar. She is the Chairperson Emeritus of Jindal Steel and Power Limited and JSW Steel.


title: Naveen Jindal

text: Naveen is married to acclaimed Kuchipudi dancer and chairperson of National Bal Bhawan, Shallu Jindal , the daughter of Abhey Kumar Oswal -founder of Oswal Agro Mills and Oswal Greentech- and sister of Shael Oswal and Pankaj Oswal. The couple has two children, a son and a daughter.


title: Naveen Jindal

text: Naveen has eight siblings: including Prithviraj Jindal, Sajjan Jindal and Ratan Jindal who are industrialists like him. Prithviraj Jindal is the Chairman (Non - Executive) of Jindal SAW Ltd. Sajjan is the Chairman of JSW Group. Ratan Jindal is the managing Director of Jindal Stainless Limited.


title: Naveen Jindal

text: Naveen Jindal is known as the man who won the right to display the National Flag on all days of the year for all Indians.


title: Naveen Jindal

text: Jindal's struggle for the tricolour began in early 1992 when he hoisted a tricolour at his factory in Raigarh. The then Commissioner of Bilaspur objected to it on the ground that as per the Flag Code of India, a private citizen was not permitted to fly the Indian flag except on certain days. Jindal filed a petition before the High Court arguing that no law could forbid Indian citizens from flying the national flag and, furthermore, the Flag Code of India was only a set of executive instructions from the Government of India and therefore not law. While he went out to court against the objections of the government officials, he did not remove the flag from the factory and kept flying it with respect and dignity.


title: Naveen Jindal

text: The High Court allowed the petition and held the Flag Code of India was not a valid restriction on the right to freedom of expression under Article 19 of the Indian Constitution. The High Court observed that, according to Article 19(2), the only valid limitations on this right were those that were contained in the statute. In cases concerning the regulation of the flying of the national flag, such limitations could be found in the Emblems and Names (Prevention of Improper Use) Act 1950 or the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act 1971.


title: Naveen Jindal

text: The Union of India filed an appeal against this decision to the Supreme Court on the basis that whether citizens were free to fly the national flag was a policy decision, and could not be subject to court interference.


title: Naveen Jindal

text: Supreme Court was pleased to grant leave and stay the operation of the impugned judgment. The flag continued to fly as Jindal's lawyer said "it would not be contempt of court since the judgement had only been stayed".


title: Naveen Jindal

text: The matter then came up for hearing before the Supreme Court which observed that prima facie they see no reason why citizens cannot express patriotism by displaying the national flag. The court also observed that restrictions on flying of the national flag only on certain days by private citizens seemed unsustainable.


title: Naveen Jindal

text: The Supreme Court on 23 January 2004 dismissed the Civil Appeal No. 2920 of 1996 arising out of SLP No. 1888 of 1996 filed by the Union of India against the judgment and order dates 22 September 1995 of Delhi High Court and held that flying the national flag was a symbol of expression that came within the right to freedom of expression under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution.


title: Naveen Jindal

text: Jindal has been strongly advocating to mark 23 January as the "National Flag Day". While India observes Armed Forces Flag Day on 7 December, it does not have a National Flag Day.


title: Naveen Jindal

text: Jindal is the Chairman of Jindal Steel and Power Limited (formerly known as Jindal Strips Limited) which was a moderately performing enterprise when Jindal first took over its Raigarh and Raipur operations in 1993. Today, JSPL operates an iron manufacturing plant in Raigarh, Chhattisgarh, and plants in Jharkhand and Odisha. The company has set up captive power plants using waste products from the sponge iron making process to generate power.


title: Naveen Jindal

text: He has been ranked amongst Asia’s 25 Hottest People in Business by the Fortune Asia magazine for turning a struggling steel company into an Asian blue-chip giant. He has also been ranked as India’s Best CEO by Business Today based on a BT-INSEAD-HBR study of top value creators for the period 1995 to 2011. JSPL has been rated the Second Highest Value Creator in the world by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) of USA.


title: Naveen Jindal

text: Naveen Jindal set up the world's first coal-gasification based steelmaking plant at Angul, Odisha that uses the locally available high-ash coal and turns it into synthesis gas for steel making thus reducing the dependence on imported coke-rich coal. Jindal believes that coal gasification technology has immense potential for countries like India, where non-coking coal is abundantly available.


title: Naveen Jindal

text: Recently Union steel minister Ram Chandra Prasad Singh inaugurated Jindal Steel's 1.4 MTPA TMT rebar mill at its integrated complex in Odisha's Angul district.


title: Naveen Jindal

text: Jindal Steel is expanding its Angul Plant capacity from 6 MTPA to 12MTPA and the company will achieve an overall 15 MTPA steelmaking capacity by 2025.


title: Naveen Jindal

text: In 2014, the Supreme Court of India in a surprise move cancelled the coal blocks allocated to Indian steel and Power companies that had been allocated through successive Governments at the Centre. Jindal's company too was affected as its coal blocks got cancelled and it has to pay the arbitrary retrospective levy. This led to a scenario where most of the private steel and power companies in India became Non Performing Assets.


title: Naveen Jindal

text: The company went from the second-highest wealth creator with a share price of Rs 700 to a debt-ridden one with its share price tumbling down to Rs 62. The company however scripted a turnaround and came back green. In 2022 March, its share price jumped to Rs 530.


title: Naveen Jindal

text: Business India magazine wrote: "JSPL has placed a singular focus on sweating its assets, improving capacity utilisations and deleveraging. From a loss-making company to making a PAT of Rs7,500 crore is a big story."


title: Naveen Jindal

text: Jindal founded the OP Jindal Global University (OPJGU or JGU) in 2009, in memory of his father, Mr. O.P. Jindal. Situated in Sonepat, Haryana, JGU has made significant progress towards achieving the goal through its nine schools; three research, capacity building and training institutes; and multiple research initiatives and centres. JGU is one of the few universities in Asia that maintains a 1:9 faculty-student ratio and appoints faculty members from India and different parts of the world with outstanding academic qualifications and experience. The Jindal Global Law School at JGU is India’s Number One Law School and among the top 100 in the world.


title: Naveen Jindal

text: Jindal is also the Founder and Patron of the OP Jindal University, Chhattisgarh. It started as an engineering college in 2008 and in a span of 4years, OPJU became India’s first and only private university to offer courses in steelmaking, metallurgy and management. The University was awarded the ‘Best Private University in Chhattisgarh’ at The Progress Global Awards 2020.


title: Naveen Jindal

text: Jindal completed his MBA from the School of Management, the University of Texas at Dallas. In 2011, Jindal made a very substantial donation to the same institution, and as a result of which, the School of Management was renamed "Naveen Jindal School of Management" the same year.


title: Naveen Jindal

text: This recognition has also led to the establishment of the Naveen Jindal Institute for Indo-American Business Studies.


title: Naveen Jindal

text: During the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, India witnessed a tragic and emergency situation as hospitals ran short of the sudden demand for liquid medical oxygen. With death looming all around, there was despair. The Indian steel industry came forward and decided to halt production and divert their stock of liquid medical oxygen to hospitals.


title: Naveen Jindal

text: Jindal's efforts coupled with his tweets of tankers leaving his plants came as messages of hope. His selfless act of handling the situation directly and sending Oxygen was lauded by all. Chief Ministers of several Indian states took to Twitter and thanked Jindal for his timely intervention that potentially saved thousands of lives.


title: Naveen Jindal

text: Jindal's involvement in politics began in his student days. He was the President of the Student Government and recipient of the Student Leader of the Year Award at the University of Texas at Dallas. After completing his post-graduation in the US, Jindal returned to India and began managing his father's political affairs.


title: Naveen Jindal

text: In 2004 he stood for elections from the Kurukshetra constituency in the north Indian state of Haryana on an Indian National Congress ticket. He defeated his nearest rival Abhay Singh Chautala by a margin of 130,000 votes. He was re-elected in the 2009 general elections. His focus as an MP has been on the problems of corruption, over-population, women's empowerment, environment, health and education. Jindal moved a private member bill in Lok Sabha for a comprehensive Food and Nutrition Security Scheme that paved the way for the Food Security Act. He lost the 2014 Lok Sabha election from Kurukshetra.


title: Naveen Jindal

text: Naveen Jindal is an active Polo player. He is the Captain and Patron of the Jindal Panther Polo Team. He started playing Polo 3 decades ago at the age of 18 and really got hooked on it. He started his own team in 1995 that has won various tournaments including the Indian Open, Indian Masters, Maharaja Hari Singh Memorial Cup, Maharaja Jiwaji Rao Scindia Cup and the Bhopal Pataudi Cup. He was declared the Most Valuable Player at the finals of Maharaja Jiwaji Rao Scindia Gold Cup 2019.


title: Naveen Jindal

text: “I was always very fond of horses. When we moved to Delhi, I joined the President’s Estate Polo Club just to ride. I saw people playing polo and was fascinated by it. I started playing and got hooked," he said in an interview with Mint.


title: Naveen Jindal

text: Naveen Jindal is an accomplished skeet shooter. The Indian Shooting Team, under his captaincy, won a silver medal in the South Asian Federation Games, April 2004, in Pakistan. He has also represented the country in the Asian games held in Busan, South Korea in 2002. In 2003, he set a National record in skeet shooting which stays unmatched till today.


title: Naveen Jindal

text: He was also a part of the Haryana shooting team that won the gold medal at the 54th National shooting Championship competition (Big Bore) in the civilian category held at Gurgaon in May 2011.


title: Great Western Railway

text: The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran its first trains in 1838 with the initial route completed between London and Bristol in 1841. It was engineered by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who chose a broad gauge of —later slightly widened to —but, from 1854, a series of amalgamations saw it also operate standard-gauge trains; the last broad-gauge services were operated in 1892.


title: Great Western Railway

text: The GWR was the only company to keep its identity through the Railways Act 1921, which amalgamated it with the remaining independent railways within its territory, and it was finally merged at the end of 1947 when it was nationalised and became the Western Region of British Railways.


title: Great Western Railway

text: The GWR was called by some "God's Wonderful Railway" and by others the "Great Way Round" but it was famed as the "Holiday Line", taking many people to English and Bristol Channel resorts in the West Country as well as the far southwest of England such as Torquay in Devon, Minehead in Somerset, and Newquay and St Ives in Cornwall. The company's locomotives, many of which were built in the company's workshops at Swindon, were painted a Brunswick green colour while, for most of its existence, it used a two-tone "chocolate and cream" livery for its passenger coaches. Goods wagons were painted red but this was later changed to mid-grey.


title: Great Western Railway

text: Great Western trains included long-distance express services such as the "Flying Dutchman", the "Cornish Riviera Express" and the "Cheltenham Spa Express". It also operated many suburban and rural services, some operated by steam railmotors or autotrains. The company pioneered the use of larger, more economic goods wagons than were usual in Britain. It ran ferry services to Ireland and the Channel Islands, operated a network of road motor (bus) routes, was a part of the Railway Air Services, and owned ships, canals, docks and hotels.


title: Great Western Railway

text: The Great Western Railway originated from the desire of Bristol merchants to maintain their city as the second port of the country and the chief one for American trade. The increase in the size of ships and the gradual silting of the River Avon had made Liverpool an increasingly attractive port, and with a Liverpool to London rail line under construction in the 1830s Bristol's status was threatened. The answer for Bristol was, with the co-operation of London interests, to build a line of their own; a railway built to unprecedented standards of excellence to out-perform the lines being constructed to the North West of England.


title: Great Western Railway

text: The company was founded at a meeting in Bristol on 21 January 1833. Isambard Kingdom Brunel, then aged 27, was appointed engineer on 7 March 1833. The name Great Western Railway was adopted on 19 August 1833, and the company and was incorporated by Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835.


title: Great Western Railway

text: This was by far Brunel's largest contract to date. He made two controversial decisions. Firstly, he chose to use a broad gauge of to allow for the possibility of large wheels outside the bodies of the rolling stock which could give smoother running at high speeds. Secondly, he selected a route, north of the Marlborough Downs, which had no significant towns but which offered potential connections to Oxford and Gloucester. This meant the line was not direct from London to Bristol. From Reading heading west, the line would curve in a northerly sweep back to Bath.


title: Great Western Railway

text: Brunel surveyed the entire length of the route between London and Bristol himself, with the help of many, including his solicitor, Jeremiah Osborne of the Bristol law firm Osborne Clarke, who on one occasion rowed Brunel down the River Avon to survey the bank of the river for the route.


title: Great Western Railway

text: George Thomas Clark played an important role as an engineer on the project, reputedly taking the management of two divisions of the route including bridges over the River Thames at Lower Basildon and Moulsford and of Paddington Station. Involvement in major earth-moving works seems to have fed Clark's interest in geology and archaeology and he, anonymously, authored two guidebooks on the railway: one illustrated with lithographs by John Cooke Bourne; the other, a critique of Brunel's methods and the broad gauge.


title: Great Western Railway

text: The first of line, from Paddington station in London to Maidenhead Bridge station, opened on 4 June 1838. When Maidenhead Railway Bridge was ready the line was extended to on 1 July 1839 and then through the deep Sonning Cutting to on 30 March 1840. The cutting was the scene of a railway disaster two years later when a goods train ran into a landslip; ten passengers who were travelling in open trucks were killed.


title: Great Western Railway

text: This accident prompted Parliament to pass the 1844 Railway Regulation Act requiring railway companies to provide better carriages for passengers. The next section, from Reading to crossed the Thames twice and opened for traffic on 1 June 1840. A extension took the line to Faringdon Road on 20 July 1840. Meanwhile, work had started at the Bristol end of the line, where the section to Bath opened on 31 August 1840.


title: Great Western Railway

text: On 17 December 1840, the line from London reached a temporary terminus at west of Swindon and from Paddington. The section from Wootton Bassett Road to was opened on 31 May 1841, as was Swindon Junction station where the Cheltenham and Great Western Union Railway (C&GWUR) to Cirencester connected. That was an independent line worked by the GWR, as was the Bristol and Exeter Railway (B&ER), the first section of which from Bristol to was opened on 14 June 1841. The GWR main line remained incomplete during the construction of the Box Tunnel, which was ready for trains on 30 June 1841, after which trains ran the from Paddington through to Bridgwater. In 1851, the GWR purchased the Kennet and Avon Canal, which was a competing carrier between London, Reading, Bath and Bristol.


title: Great Western Railway

text: The GWR was closely involved with the C&GWUR and the B&ER and with several other broad-gauge railways. The South Devon Railway was completed in 1849, extending the broad gauge to Plymouth, whence the Cornwall Railway took it over the Royal Albert Bridge and into Cornwall in 1859 and, in 1867, it reached over the West Cornwall Railway which originally had been laid in 1852 with the standard gauge or "narrow gauge" as it was known at the time. The South Wales Railway had opened between and in 1850 and became connected to the GWR by Brunel's Chepstow Bridge in 1852. It was completed to in 1856, where a transatlantic port was established.


title: Great Western Railway

text: There was initially no direct line from London to Wales as the tidal River Severn was too wide to cross. Trains instead had to follow a lengthy route via Gloucester, where the river was narrow enough to be crossed by a bridge. Work on the Severn Tunnel had begun in 1873, but unexpected underwater springs delayed the work and prevented its opening until 1886.


title: Great Western Railway

text: Brunel had devised a track gauge for his railways in 1835. He later added , probably to reduce friction of the wheel sets in curves. This became the broad gauge. Either gauge may be referred to as "Brunel's" gauge.


title: Great Western Railway

text: In 1844, the broad-gauge Bristol and Gloucester Railway had opened, but Gloucester was already served by the lines of the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway. This resulted in a break of gauge that forced all passengers and goods to change trains if travelling between the south-west and the North. This was the beginning of the "gauge war" and led to the appointment by Parliament of a Gauge Commission, which reported in 1846 in favour of standard gauge so the 7-foot gauge was proscribed by law (Regulating the Gauge of Railways Act) except for the southwest of England and Wales where connected to the GWR network.


title: Great Western Railway

text: Other railways in Britain were to use standard gauge. In 1846 the Bristol and Gloucester was bought by the Midland Railway and it was converted to standard gauge in 1854, which brought mixed-gauge track to Temple Meads station – this had three rails to allow trains to run on either broad or standard gauge.


title: Great Western Railway

text: The GWR extended into the West Midlands in competition with the Midland and the London and North Western Railway. Birmingham was reached through in 1852 and Wolverhampton in 1854. This was the furthest north that the broad gauge reached. In the same year the Shrewsbury and Birmingham Railway and the Shrewsbury and Chester Railway both amalgamated with the GWR, but these lines were standard gauge, and the GWR's own line north of Oxford had been built with mixed gauge.


title: Great Western Railway

text: This mixed gauge was extended southwards from Oxford to at the end of 1856 and so allowed through goods traffic from the north of England to the south coast (via the London and South Western Railway – LSWR) without transshipment.


title: Great Western Railway

text: The line to Basingstoke had originally been built by the Berks and Hants Railway as a broad-gauge route in an attempt to keep the standard gauge of the LSWR out of Great Western territory but, in 1857, the GWR and LSWR opened a shared line to on the south coast, the GWR route being via Chippenham and a route initially started by the Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth Railway. Further west, the LSWR took over the broad-gauge Exeter and Crediton Railway and North Devon Railway, also the standard-gauge Bodmin and Wadebridge Railway.


title: Great Western Railway

text: It was several years before these remote lines were connected with the parent LSWR system and any through traffic to them was handled by the GWR and its associated companies.


title: Great Western Railway

text: By now the gauge war was lost and mixed gauge was brought to Paddington in 1861, allowing through passenger trains from London to Chester. The broad-gauge South Wales Railway amalgamated with the GWR in 1862, as did the West Midland Railway, which brought with it the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway, a line that had been conceived as another broad-gauge route to the Midlands but which had been built as standard gauge after several battles, both political and physical.


title: Great Western Railway

text: On 1 April 1869, the broad gauge was taken out of use between Oxford and Wolverhampton and from Reading to Basingstoke. In August, the line from to was converted from broad to standard and the whole of the line from Swindon through Gloucester to South Wales was similarly treated in May 1872. In 1874, the mixed gauge was extended along the main line to Chippenham and the line from there to Weymouth was narrowed. The following year saw mixed gauge laid through the Box Tunnel, with the broad gauge now retained only for through services beyond Bristol and on a few branch lines.


title: Great Western Railway

text: The Bristol and Exeter Railway amalgamated with the GWR on 1 January 1876. It had already made a start on mixing the gauge on its line, a task completed through to Exeter on 1 March 1876 by the GWR. The station here had been shared with the LSWR since 1862. This rival company had continued to push westwards over its Exeter and Crediton line and arrived in Plymouth later in 1876, which spurred the South Devon Railway to also amalgamate with the Great Western. The Cornwall Railway remained a nominally independent line until 1889, although the GWR held a large number of shares in the company.


title: Great Western Railway

text: One final new broad-gauge route was opened on 1 June 1877, the St Ives branch in west Cornwall, although there was also a small extension at Sutton Harbour in Plymouth in 1879. Part of a mixed gauge point remains at Sutton Harbour, one of the few examples of broad gauge trackwork remaining in situ anywhere.


title: Great Western Railway

text: Once the GWR was in control of the whole line from London to Penzance, it set about converting the remaining broad-gauge tracks. The last broad-gauge service left Paddington station on Friday, 20 May 1892; the following Monday, trains from Penzance were operated by standard-gauge locomotives.


title: Great Western Railway

text: After 1892, with the burden of operating trains on two gauges removed, the company turned its attention to constructing new lines and upgrading old ones to shorten the company's previously circuitous routes. The principal new lines opened were:


title: Great Western Railway

text: The generally conservative GWR made other improvements in the years before the World War I such as restaurant cars, better conditions for third class passengers, steam heating of trains, and faster express services. These were largely at the initiative of T. I. Allen, the Superintendent of the Line and one of a group of talented senior managers who led the railway into the Edwardian era: Viscount Emlyn (Earl Cawdor, Chairman from 1895 to 1905); Sir Joseph Wilkinson (general manager from 1896 to 1903), his successor, the former chief engineer Sir James Inglis; and George Jackson Churchward (the Chief Mechanical Engineer). It was during this period that the GWR introduced road motor services as an alternative to building new lines in rural areas, and started using steam rail motors to bring cheaper operation to existing branch lines.


title: Great Western Railway

text: At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the GWR was taken into government control, as were most major railways in Britain. Many of its staff joined the armed forces and it was more difficult to build and maintain equipment than in peacetime. After the war, the government considered permanent nationalisation but decided instead on a compulsory amalgamation of the railways into four large groups. The GWR alone preserved its name through the "grouping", under which smaller companies were amalgamated into four main companies in 1922 and 1923. The GWR built a war memorial at Paddington station, unveiled in 1922, in memory of its employees who were killed in the war.


title: Great Western Railway

text: The new Great Western Railway had more routes in Wales, including of former Cambrian Railways lines and from the Taff Vale Railway. A few independent lines in its English area of operations were also added, notably the Midland and South Western Junction Railway, a line previously working closely with the Midland Railway but which now gave the GWR a second station at Swindon, along with a line that carried through-traffic from the North via Cheltenham and to Southampton.


title: Great Western Railway

text: The 1930s brought hard times but the company remained in fair financial health despite the Depression. The Development (Loans, Guarantees and Grants) Act 1929 allowed the GWR to obtain money in return for stimulating employment and this was used to improve stations including London Paddington, and Cardiff General; to improve facilities at depots and to lay additional tracks to reduce congestion. The road motor services were transferred to local bus companies in which the GWR took a share but instead, it participated in air services.


title: Great Western Railway

text: A legacy of the broad gauge was that trains for some routes could be built slightly wider than was normal in Britain and these included the 1929-built "Super Saloons" used on the boat train services that conveyed transatlantic passengers to London in luxury. When the company celebrated its centenary during 1935, new "Centenary" carriages were built for the Cornish Riviera Express, which again made full use of the wider loading gauge on that route.


title: Great Western Railway

text: With the outbreak of World War II in 1939, the GWR returned to direct government control, and by the end of the war a Labour government was in power and again planning to nationalise the railways. After a couple of years trying to recover from the ravages of war, the GWR became the Western Region of British Railways on 1 January 1948. The Great Western Railway Company continued to exist as a legal entity for nearly two more years, being formally wound up on 23 December 1949. GWR designs of locomotives and rolling stock continued to be built for a while and the region maintained its own distinctive character, even painting for a while its stations and express trains in a form of chocolate and cream.


title: Great Western Railway

text: About 40 years after nationalisation British Rail was privatised and the old name was revived by Great Western Trains, the train operating company providing passenger services on the old GWR routes to South Wales and the South West. This subsequently became First Great Western, as part of the FirstGroup, but in September 2015 changed its name to Great Western Railway in order to 'reinstate the ideals of our founder'. The operating infrastructure, however, was transferred to Railtrack and has since passed to Network Rail. These companies have continued to preserve appropriate parts of its stations and bridges so historic GWR structures can still be recognised around the network.


title: Great Western Railway

text: The original Great Western Main Line linked London Paddington station with Temple Meads station in Bristol by way of , Didcot, , and Bath. This line was extended westwards through Exeter and Plymouth to reach and , the most westerly railway station in England. Brunel and Gooch placed the GWR's main locomotive workshops close to the village of Swindon and the locomotives of many trains were changed here in the early years. Up to this point the route had climbed very gradually westwards from London, but from here it changed into one with steeper gradients which, with the primitive locomotives available to Brunel, was better operated by types with smaller wheels better able to climb the hills. These gradients faced both directions, first dropping down through Wootton Bassett Junction to cross the River Avon, then climbing back up through Chippenham to the Box Tunnel before descending once more to regain the River Avon's valley which it followed to Bath and Bristol.


title: Great Western Railway

text: Swindon was also the junction for a line that ran north-westwards to then south-westwards on the far side of the River Severn to reach Cardiff, and west Wales. This route was later shortened by the opening of a more direct east–west route through the Severn Tunnel. Another route ran northwards from Didcot to from where two different routes continued to Wolverhampton, one through Birmingham and the other through Worcester. Beyond Wolverhampton the line continued via to and (via a joint line with the LNWR) onwards to Birkenhead and Warrington; another route via enabled the GWR to reach . Operating agreements with other companies also allowed GWR trains to run to Manchester. South of the London to Bristol main line were routes from Didcot to Southampton via , and from Chippenham to via .


title: Great Western Railway

text: A network of cross-country routes linked these main lines, and there were also many and varied branch lines. Some were short, such as the Clevedon branch line; others were much longer such as the Minehead Branch. A few were promoted and built by the GWR to counter competition from other companies, such as the Reading to Basingstoke Line to keep the London and South Western Railway away from . However, many were built by local companies that then sold their railway to their larger neighbour; examples include the Launceston and branches. Further variety came from the traffic carried: holidaymakers (St Ives);. royalty (Windsor); or just goods traffic (Carbis Wharf).


title: Great Western Railway

text: Brunel envisaged the GWR continuing across the Atlantic Ocean and built the to carry the railway's passengers from Bristol to New York. Most traffic for North America soon switched to the larger port of Liverpool (in other railways' territories) but some transatlantic passengers were landed at Plymouth and conveyed to London by special train. Great Western ships linked Great Britain with Ireland, the Channel Islands and France.


title: Great Western Railway

text: The railway's headquarters were established at Paddington station. Its locomotives and rolling stock were built and maintained at Swindon Works but other workshops were acquired as it amalgamated with other railways, including the Shrewsbury companies' Stafford Road works at Wolverhampton, and the South Devon's workshops at Newton Abbot. Worcester Carriage Works was created by flattening land north of Worcester Shrub Hill Station, Reading Signal Works was established in buildings to the north of Reading railway station, and in later years a concrete manufacturing depot was established at where items ranging from track components to bridges were cast.


title: Great Western Railway

text: More than 150 years after its creation, the original main line has been described by historian Steven Brindle as "one of the masterpieces of railway design". Working westwards from Paddington, the line crosses the valley of the River Brent on Wharncliffe Viaduct and the River Thames on Maidenhead Railway Bridge, which at the time of construction was the largest span achieved by a brick arch bridge. The line then continues through Sonning Cutting before reaching Reading after which it crosses the Thames twice more, on Gatehampton and Moulsford bridges. Between Chippenham and Bath is Box Tunnel, the longest railway tunnel driven by that time. Several years later, the railway opened the even longer Severn Tunnel to carry a new line between England and Wales beneath the River Severn.


title: Great Western Railway

text: Some other notable structures were added when smaller companies were amalgamated into the GWR. These include the South Devon Railway sea wall, the Cornwall Railway's Royal Albert Bridge, and Barmouth Bridge on the Cambrian Railways.


title: Great Western Railway

text: In the early years the GWR was managed by two committees, one in Bristol and one in London. They soon combined as a single board of directors which met in offices at Paddington.


title: Great Western Railway

text: The Board was led by a chairman and supported by a Secretary and other "officers". The first Locomotive Superintendent was Daniel Gooch, although from 1915 the title was changed to Chief Mechanical Engineer. The first Goods Manager was appointed in 1850 and from 1857 this position was filled by James Grierson until 1863 when he became the first general manager. In 1864 the post of Superintendent of the Line was created to oversee the running of the trains.


title: Great Western Railway

text: Early trains offered passengers a choice of first- or second-class carriages. In 1840 this choice was extended: passengers could be conveyed by the slow goods trains in what became third-class. The 1844 Railway Regulation Act made it a legal requirement that the GWR, along with all other British railways, had to serve each station with trains which included third-class accommodation at a fare of not more than one penny per mile and a speed of at least . By 1882, third-class carriages were attached to all trains except for the fastest expresses. Another parliamentary order meant that trains began to include smoking carriages from 1868.


title: Great Western Railway

text: Special "excursion" cheap-day tickets were first issued in May 1849 and season tickets in 1851. Until 1869 most revenue came from second-class passengers but the volume of third-class passengers grew to the extent that second-class facilities were withdrawn in 1912. The Cheap Trains Act 1883 resulted in the provision of workmen's trains at special low fares at certain times of the day.


title: Great Western Railway

text: The principal express services were often given nicknames by railwaymen but these names later appeared officially in timetables, on headboards carried on the locomotive, and on roofboards above the windows of the carriages. For instance, the late-morning "Flying Dutchman" express between London and Exeter was named after the winning horse of the Derby and St Leger races in 1849. Although withdrawn at the end of 1867, the name was revived in 1869 – following a request from the Bristol and Exeter Railway – and the train ran through to Plymouth. An afternoon express was instigated on the same route in June 1879 and became known as "The Zulu". A third West Country express was introduced in 1890, running to and from Penzance as "The Cornishman". A new service, the "Cornish Riviera Express" ran between London and Penzance – non-stop to Plymouth – from 1 July 1904, although it ran only in the summer during 1904 and 1905 before becoming a permanent feature of the timetable in 1906.


title: Great Western Railway

text: The "Cheltenham Spa Express" was the fastest train in the world when it was scheduled to cover the between and London at an average of . The train was nicknamed the 'Cheltenham Flyer' and featured in one of the GWR's 'Books for boys of all ages'. Other named trains included "The Bristolian", running between London and Bristol from 1935, and the "Torbay Express", which ran between London and .


title: Great Western Railway

text: Many of these fast expresses included special coaches that could be detached as they passed through stations without stopping, a guard riding in the coach to uncouple it from the main train and bring it to a stop at the correct position. The first such "slip coach" was detached from the "Flying Dutchman" at in 1869. The company's first sleeping cars were operated between Paddington and Plymouth in 1877. Then on 1 October 1892 its first corridor train ran from Paddington to Birkenhead, and the following year saw the first trains heated by steam that was passed through the train in a pipe from the locomotive. May 1896 saw the introduction of first-class restaurant cars and the service was extended to all classes in 1903. Sleeping cars for third-class passengers were available from 1928.


title: Great Western Railway

text: Self-propelled "steam railmotors" were first used on 12 October 1903 between and ; within five years 100 had been constructed. These trains had special retractable steps that could be used at stations with lower platforms than was usual in England. The railmotors proved so successful on many routes that they had to be supplemented by trailer cars with driving controls, the first of which entered service at the end of 1904. From the following year a number of small locomotives were fitted so that they could work with these trailers, the combined sets becoming known as "autotrains" and eventually replacing the steam rail motors. Diesel railcars were introduced in 1934. Some railcars were fully streamlined, some had buffet counters for long-distance services, and others were purely for parcels services.


title: Great Western Railway

text: Passenger traffic was the main source of revenue for the GWR when it first opened but goods were also carried in separate trains. It was not until the coal-mining and industrial districts of Wales and the Midlands were reached that goods traffic became significant; in 1856 the Ruabon Coal Company signed an agreement with the GWR to transport coal to London at special rates which nonetheless was worth at least £40,000 each year to the railway.


title: Great Western Railway

text: As locomotives increased in size so did the length of goods trains, from 40 to as many as 100 four-wheeled wagons, although the gradient of the line often limited this. While typical goods wagons could carry 8, 10 or (later) 12 tons, the load placed into a wagon could be as little as 1 ton. The many smaller consignments were sent to a local transhipment centre where they were re-sorted into larger loads for the main segment of their journey. There were more than 550 "station truck" workings running on timetabled goods trains carrying small consignments to and from specified stations, and 200 "pick up" trucks that collected small loads from groups of stations.


title: Great Western Railway

text: The GWR provided special wagons, handling equipment and storage facilities for its largest traffic flows. For example, the coal mines in Wales sent much of their coal to the docks along the coast, many of which were owned and equipped by the railway, as were some in Cornwall that exported most of the china clay production of that county. The wagons provided for both these traffic flows (both those owned by the GWR and the mining companies) were fitted with end doors that allowed their loads to be tipped straight into the ships' holds using wagon-tipping equipment on the dockside. Special wagons were produced for many other different commodities such as gunpowder, aeroplane propellers, motor cars, fruit and fish.


title: Great Western Railway

text: Heavy traffic was carried from the agricultural and fishing areas in the southwest of England, often in fast "perishables" trains, for instance more than 3,500 cattle were sent from in the 12 months to June 1869, and in 1876 nearly than 17,000 tons of fish was carried from west Cornwall to London. The perishables trains running in the nineteenth century used wagons built to the same standards as passenger coaches, with vacuum brakes and large wheels to allow fast running. Ordinary goods trains on the GWR, as on all other British railways at the time, had wheels close together (around apart), smaller wheels and only hand brakes.


title: Great Western Railway

text: In 1905 the GWR ran its first vacuum-braked general goods train between London and Bristol using newly built goods wagons with small wheels but vacuum brakes. This was followed by other services to create a network of fast trains between the major centres of production and population that were scheduled to run at speeds averaging . Other railway companies also followed the GWR's lead by providing their own vacuum-braked (or "fitted") services.


title: Great Western Railway

text: A number of canals, such as the Kennet and Avon Canal and the Stratford-upon-Avon Canal, became the property of the railway when they were purchased to remove competition or objectors to proposed new lines. Most of these continued to be operated although they were only a small part of the railway company's business: in 1929 the canals took £16,278 of receipts while freight trains earned over £17 million. (£ and £ respectively in ).


title: Great Western Railway

text: The Railways Act 1921 brought most of the large coal-exporting docks in South Wales into the GWR's ownership, such as those at Cardiff, Barry, and Swansea. They were added to a small number of docks along the south coast of England which the company already owned, to make it the largest docks operator in the world.


title: Great Western Railway

text: Powers were granted by Parliament for the GWR to operate ships in 1871. The following year the company took over the ships operated by Ford and Jackson on the route between Neyland in Wales and Waterford in Ireland. The Welsh terminal was relocated to when the railway was opened to there in 1906. Services were also operated between and the Channel Islands from 1889 on the former Weymouth and Channel Islands Steam Packet Company routes. Smaller GWR vessels were also used as tenders at Plymouth Great Western Docks and, until the Severn Tunnel opened, on the River Severn crossing of the Bristol and South Wales Union Railway.


title: Great Western Railway

text: The first railway-operated bus services were started by the GWR between Helston railway station and The Lizard on 17 August 1903. Known by the company as "road motors", these chocolate-and-cream buses operated throughout the company's territory on railway feeder services and excursions until the 1930s when they were transferred to local bus companies (in most of which the GWR held a share).


title: Great Western Railway

text: The GWR inaugurated the first railway air service between Cardiff, Torquay and Plymouth in association with Imperial Airways. This grew to become part of the Railway Air Services.


title: Great Western Railway

text: The GWR's first locomotives were specified by Isambard Kingdom Brunel but proved unsatisfactory. Daniel Gooch, who was just 20 years old, was soon appointed as the railway's Locomotive Superintendent and set about establishing a reliable fleet. He bought two locomotives from Robert Stephenson and Company which proved more successful than Brunel's, and then designed a series of standardised locomotives. From 1846 these could be built at the company's newly established railway workshops at Swindon. He designed several different broad-gauge types for the growing railway, such as the Firefly 2-2-2s and later Iron Duke Class 4-2-2s. In 1864 Gooch was succeeded by Joseph Armstrong who brought his standard-gauge experience to the railway. Some of Armstrong's designs were built as either broad or standard gauge just by fitting different wheels; those needing tenders were given old ones from withdrawn broad-gauge locomotives.


title: Great Western Railway

text: Joseph Armstrong's early death in 1877 meant that the next phase of motive power design was the responsibility of William Dean who developed express 4-4-0 types rather than the single-driver 2-2-2s and 4-2-2s that had hauled fast trains up to that time. Dean retired in 1902 to be replaced by George Jackson Churchward, who introduced the familiar 4-6-0 locomotives. It was during Churchward's tenure that the term "Locomotive Superintendent" was changed to "Chief Mechanical Engineer" (CME). Charles Collett succeeded Churchward in 1921. He was soon responsible for the much larger fleet that the GWR operated following the Railways Act 1921 mergers. He set about replacing the older and less numerous classes, and rebuilding the remainder using as many standardised GWR components as possible. He also produced many new designs using standard parts, such as the Castle and King classes. The final CME was Frederick Hawksworth who took control in 1941, seeing the railway through wartime shortages and producing GWR-design locomotives until after nationalisation.


title: Great Western Railway

text: Brunel and Gooch both gave their locomotives names to identify them, but the standard-gauge companies that became a part of the GWR used numbers. Until 1864 the GWR therefore had named broad-gauge locomotives and numbered standard-gauge ones. From the time of Armstrong's arrival all new locomotives – both broad and standard – were given numbers, including broad-gauge ones that had previously carried names when they were acquired from other railways. Dean introduced a policy in 1895 of giving passenger tender locomotives both numbers and names. Each batch was given names with a distinctive theme, for example kings for the 6000 class and castles for the 4073 class.


title: Great Western Railway

text: The GWR first painted its locomotives a dark holly green but this was changed to middle chrome or Brunswick green for most of its existence. They initially had chocolate brown or Indian red frames but this was changed in the twentieth century to black. Name and number plates were generally of polished brass with a black background, and chimneys often had copper rims or "caps".


title: Great Western Railway

text: GWR passenger coaches were many and varied, ranging from four- and six-wheeled vehicles on the original broad-gauge line of 1838, through to bogie coaches up to long which were in service through to 1947 and beyond. Vacuum brakes, bogies and through-corridors all came into use during the nineteenth century, and in 1900 the first electrically lit coaches were put into service. The 1920s saw some vehicles fitted with automatic couplings and steel bodies.


title: Great Western Railway

text: Early vehicles were built by a number of independent companies, but in 1844 the railway started to build carriages at Swindon railway works, which eventually provided most of the railway's rolling stock. Special vehicles included sleeping cars, restaurant cars and slip coaches. Passengers were also carried in railmotors, autotrains, and diesel railcars. Passenger-rated vans carried parcels, horses, and milk at express speeds.Representative examples of these carriages survive in service today on various Heritage railways up and down the country.


title: Great Western Railway

text: Most coaches were generally painted in variations of a chocolate-brown and cream livery, however they were plain brown or red until 1864 and from 1908 to 1922. Parcels vans and similar vehicles were seldom painted in the two-colour livery, being plain brown or red instead, which caused them to be known as "brown vehicles".


title: Great Western Railway

text: In the early years of the GWR its wagons were painted brown, but this changed to red before the end of the broad gauge. The familiar dark grey livery was introduced about 1904.