"Chris Tolley" wrote in message
...
Peter Masson wrote:

In 1906-07 there was a through train from Paddington to Brighton

Was that a quid pro quo for whatever GWR service ran to London Victoria,
giving rise to the "Great Western Railway" lettering on the front of
that station?

No - the GWR was, with the LCDR, a joint lessee of the Chatham side of
Victoria. Trains, originally broad gauge ran from Southall. IIRC in the 1967
Paddington resignalling Old Oak Common box still called the West London Line
the 'Victoria branch'.

The 1906-07 through train was, I think, a response to congestion in crossing
London, especially by people who did not trust the new-fangled tubes. It was
about the same time that a Broad Street - Birmingham express was put on, and
in the era when a through train from the Kemnt Coast conveyed through
coaches to Manchester by two different routes, splitting at Herne Hill where
one portion ran via the WLL and WCML, and another portion ran via what we
now know as Thameslink, was taken back from Kentish Town into St Pancras,
and attached to a Midland express to Manchester.

Peter