Editing Great Western Railway (section)

===Into the 20th century===
[[File:GWR 4038 on Cornish Riviera Express.jpg|thumb|right|alt=A black and white picture of four railway lines in a shallow cutting, a large steam engine leads a train of coaches from middle-left to right-foreground|New corridor coaches on the Cornish Riviera Express]]
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:{{sfn|MacDermot|1931|at=Chapter 11}}
* 1900: [[Stert and Westbury Railway|Stert and Westbury]] linking the Berks and Hants line with {{Stnlnk|Westbury}} to create a shorter route to {{Stnlnk|Weymouth}} for the [[Channel Islands]] traffic.
* 1903: the [[South Wales Main Line|South Wales and Bristol Direct Railway]] from [[Wootton Bassett Junction railway station|Wootton Bassett Junction]] to link up with the Severn Tunnel.
* 1904: a diversion of the [[Cornish Main Line]] between {{Stnlnk|Saltash}} and {{Stnlnk|St Germans}}, eliminating the last [[Cornwall Railway viaducts|wooden viaducts on the main line]].
* 1906: the [[Langport and Castle Cary Railway]] to shorten the journey from London to {{stnlnk|Penzance}} between {{Stnlnk|Reading}} and {{Stnlnk|Taunton}}.
* 1908: the [[North Warwickshire Line|Birmingham and North Warwickshire]] which, combined with the Cheltenham and Honeybourne of 1906, offered a new route from Birmingham via {{Stnlnk|Stratford-upon-Avon}} to south Wales.
* 1910: the Birmingham Direct Line built jointly with the [[Great Central Railway]] to give a shorter route from London to {{Stnlnk|Aynho}} and the North.
* 1913: the Swansea District Lines which allowed trains to {{Stnlnk|Fishguard Harbour}} to avoid {{Stnlnk|Swansea}}. Fishguard had been opened in an attempt to attract transatlantic liner traffic and provided a better facility for the Anglo-Irish ferries than that at Neyland.

The generally conservative GWR made other improvements in the years before [[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 [[GWR road motor services|road motor services]] as an alternative to building new lines in rural areas, and started using [[GWR steam rail motors|steam rail motors]] to bring cheaper operation to existing branch lines.{{sfn|MacDermot|1931|at=Chapter 11}}