Didcot Railway Centre is a railway museum and preservation engineering site in Didcot, Oxfordshire, England. The site was formerly a Great Western Railway engine shed and locomotive stabling point. Background The founders and commercial backers of the Great Western Railway (GWR) supported Isambard Kingdom Brunel's scheme to develop an integrated railway and steamship service which allowed trans-Atlantic passengers and freight quicker passage between London and New York City. However, whilst backing the scheme the railway had to make a profit, and so it took a number of detours and added both mainline and branch line traffic to increase its domestic earnings. This earned the railway the nickname The Great Way Round from its detractors. Whilst the route from London Paddington to Reading was relatively straight, the then obvious most direct route to Bristol would have taken the railway further south, thus avoiding both Didcot and Swindon. However, passenger and freight traffic both to and from Oxford and onwards to the West Midlands in part dictated a more northerly route. Also, Brunel had originally planned to cut through Savernake Forest near Marlborough, Wiltshire to Bristol, but the Marquess of Ailesbury, who owned the land, objected – having previously objected to part of the Kennet and Avon Canal running through his estate (see Bruce Tunnel). With the railway needing to run near to a canal at its midpoint – as it was cheaper to transport coal for trains along canals at this time – and with the need for the branch northwards to Cheltenham via Stroud, Swindon was the next logical choice for the junction (and later railway works), north of the original route. This dictated that the Oxford junction also be moved northwards, and hence via Didcot. The Great Western Railway built the first rail line through Didcot in 1839 and opened its first station in 1844. Construction Due to the technical operational difficulties of running and maintaining a mainline service from London to Bristol, as well as the need for servicing locomotives going to Oxford, Didcot became an obvious midpoint maintenance and stabling point. Having built a timber-framed broad gauge shed on the original site during the railway's development west in the 1800s, in June 1932 a new steel-framed half-brick 4-road through shed (), was completed by the GWR under the Loans and Guarantees Act (1929). With shed code DID, it also included a repair shop (), coaling stage (),