Once the UK's WORST Operator - First Great Western!? | Western Operators #1 - FGW

Hello & welcome to the first episode of my Western rail operators mini-series where I look at the operators of Western England. Today we look at the origins of the Intercity Gret Western and Greater Western franchises under Great Western Trains and then First Great Western up until their rebrand to GWR in 2015! In later episodes I'll be looking at the other operators in the West of England rounding off with GWR.

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This video is in no way blaming the staff, past or present, of FGW/GWR as they are not to blame at all for the mismanagement and issues with the company. Staff will always trying their best to make passengers journeys as comfortable as possible and this video is in no way trying to undermine the effort they put in to their jobs.

Any content featured in this video has been accredited to the correct author, where possible, with permission. However, I may sometimes mistakenly miscredit content (or label it as 'unknown' if I can't find the author), so please let me know if I have got credits wrong for authors of content featured in this video.

A huge thanks to those who have allowed me to use their footage for todays video - whom without this video would not be possible to make;
antman09ful1: https://www.youtube.com/@antman09ful1
fmnut: https://www.youtube.com/@fmnut
Mark Appleby: https://www.youtube.com/@markappleby3282
Tony: https://www.youtube.com/@Tonysrailvideos

Any views mentioned in this video are of my opinion and my opinion only. I am impartial and will never be swayed by a company to not tell the truth, however will sometimes speak from my own viewpoint. I always attempt to use sources that are from sites that I personally trust; BBC, Sky News etc. and I will always attempt to portray the whole picture of the subject in my videos. If you feel I haven't, or if I've mistakenly missed something - do let me know in the comments, on my Discord or my Twitter/Instagram & I'll be sure to look into it! Thanks for watching!

References (including accredited sources):
Wikipedia
BBC
First website
RMT
The Guardian
Railway People
The Telegraph
Railhub
Wales Online
Business Traveller

Thumbnail Image Credit: 43 010 First Great Western, Par Station, Cornwall - UK, November 11 2012. (8191791847), Andrew Thomas from Shrewsbury, UK, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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