On 18 Dec, 21:42, (Mark Brader) wrote:
Peter Masson:

Yes. The Met was built as mixed gauge from Paddington (Bishop's Road) at
least to Farringdon and AFAIK to Moorgate, and was initially (Jan - Aug
1863) worked between Bishop's Road and Farringdon by the GWR using broad
gauge stock. The Met fell out with the GWR, who gave 9 days notice that they
would cease to work the line after 10 August 1863, but by then the
connection with the GNR at Kings Cross had been completed, so the Met began
operating the service themselves, using standard gauge stock obtained from
the GNR. It's not clear how much the broad gauge was used after this (GWR
meat trains to Smithfield, perhaps)...

After the Met outfoxed the GWR as Peter describes, the two companies
came to terms. *Broad-gauge suburban passenger trains began running
through from the GWR onto the Met to Farringdon and then Moorgate.
They last operated in 1869. *Here's a famous painting of one:

* *http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...opolitan_Railw...

This is Praed St. Junction, between Edgware Road and Paddington,
where today's District and Circle Lines tracks (foreground) diverge
from today's Hammersmith & City and Circle Lines tracks. *The former
tracks were the Met's original route, so this train cannot be a Met
train from before the Met/GWR dispute unless it's going out of service,
and then there wouldn't be passengers on board. *Unless the artist
goofed, it must be a GWR train.

The through services continued with standard-gauge trains until 1939.

Was not the Hammersmith Branch a joint operations from the start?

"77002" wrote

Was not the Hammersmith Branch a joint operations from the start?

The Hammersmith branch was built by the GWR and initially provided with
mixed gauge. It was opened on 13 June 1864 (i.e the year after the Met had
taken over operation of its own line). The GWR ran through, initially broad
gauge) trains to the City. Improved relations with the Met led to the
Hammersmith branch being vested jointly in the Met and GWR from 15 July
1867, after which the Met provided the basic service. When the line was
electrified in 1906 the stock was jointly owned.

Peter