page_title: Bristol Temple Meads railway station
section_title: Brunel's station
hierarchical_section_title: Bristol Temple Meads railway station / History / Brunel's station
caption_attribution_description: English: Engraving print of the inside of Isambard Kingdom Brunel's train-shed at Bristol Temple Meads railway station in the UK. Image shows a Great Western Railway 2-2-2 locomotive waiting by the platform.
context_page_description: Bristol Temple Meads is the oldest and largest railway station in Bristol, England. It is an important transport hub for public transport in the city. In addition to the train services there are bus services to many parts of the city and surrounding districts, and a ferry to the city centre. Bristol's other major station, Bristol Parkway, is on the northern outskirts of the conurbation.
  Temple Meads was opened on 31 August 1840 as the western terminus of the Great Western Railway from London Paddington, 116 miles 31 chains from Paddington. The railway was the first to be designed by the British engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Soon the station was also used by the Bristol and Exeter Railway, the Bristol and Gloucester Railway, the Bristol Harbour Railway and the Bristol and South Wales Union Railway. To accommodate the increasing number of trains, the station was expanded in the 1870s by Francis Fox and again between 1930 and 1935 by Percy Emerson Culverhouse. Brunel's terminus is no longer part of the operational station. The historical significance of the station has been noted, and most of the site is Grade I listed.
context_section_description: The original terminus was built in 1839–41 for the Great Western Railway (GWR), the first passenger railway in Bristol, and was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the railway's engineer. It was built to accommodate Brunel's 7 ft (2,134 mm) broad gauge. The station was on a viaduct to raise it above the level of the Floating Harbour and River Avon, the latter being crossed via the grade I listed Avon Bridge. The station was covered by a 200-foot (60 m) train shed, extended beyond the platforms by 155 feet (47 m) into a storage area and engine shed, fronted by an office building in the Tudor style. Train services to Bath commenced on 31 August 1840 and were extended to Paddington on 30 June 1841 following the completion of Box Tunnel.
  A few weeks before the start of the services to Paddington the Bristol and Exeter Railway (B&ER) had opened, on 14 June 1841, its trains reversing in and out of the GWR station. The third railway at Temple Meads was the Bristol and Gloucester Railway, which opened on 8 July 1844 and was taken over by the Midland Railway (MR) on 1 July 1845. This used the GWR platforms, diverging onto its own line on the far side of the bridge over the Floating Harbour. Both these new railways were engineered by Brunel and were initially broad gauge. Brunel also designed the Bristol and South Wales Union Railway, but this was not opened until 25 August 1863, nearly four years after his death. It terminated at Temple Meads.
caption: Engraving of interior of Brunel's train-shed from c1843, by John Cooke Bourne
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