'Iron Duke' locomotive at Chippenham Station, Wiltshire, c 1850.

This watercolour by Sean Bolan depicts the broad gauge locomotive designed by Sir Daniel Gooch (1816-1889) in 1847. Broad gauge track was invented by Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-1859) to increase the stability and speed of rail travel, and used on his Great Western Railway, for which Gooch built locomotives. The track measured seven feet (2.2 m) acros compared to Stephenson's (1781-1848) standard gauge track of just four feet eight and a half inches (1.55 m). However, it proved unpopular because of the inconvenience of having to transfer pasengers and goods between the two standards of track, and was eventually replaced with standard guage. Gooch designed a total of 340 locomotives, including the 'Iron Duke' and the 'Great Western'.