The first Great Western Railway (GWR) locomotive engine to be heard in Berkshire arrived in 1838, but a construction clause forbade the line to be any nearer than three miles from Eton College.

Slough Station then opened in 1840 (it will celebrate its 180th birthday this year), previously tickets had to be bought from the nearby Crown Inn and trains did not travel any further than Maidenhead’s Riverside station.

Reading Station also opened the same year, which eased travel westwards and meant that passengers did not have to get off at Twyford and continue their journey by coach.

For many owners of coaching inns on the A4 Bath Road it was the beginning of the end for their trade, even though some train passengers literally froze to death in open air carriages.

By 1842, Queen Victoria was using the service and she later remarked:” We arrived here by railroad in half an hour, free from dust and crowds and I am quite charmed by it.”

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Slough temporarily became ‘the Royal Station’, but a branch line to Windsor soon cut down her majesty’s travel time.

Windsor & Eton Central and Riverside stations both opened in 1849, despite more opposition from Eton College.

Headmaster, Dr. John Keate, was exasperated by the new railways and was quoted as saying:” (this) will interfere with the discipline of the school, the studies and amusements of the boys, affecting the healthiness of the place, and even endangering even the lives of the boys.”

It was a time of wars, poverty, riots and reforms at the dawn of the industrial revolution, when most of Berkshire was still under the plough and most of the population worked on the land.

The average life expectancy was very low, child mortality was horrendously high, it was not unknown for a family to lose all its children to scarlet fever or cholera.

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The early history of GWR was not without horrendous accidents, in 1855 two trains were sent down the same line towards Reading, resulting in an horrific head on crash, killing four.

An electric telegraph messaging service was installed between Slough and Paddington in 1843 and was used to apprehend murder suspect, John Tawell.

Despite police giving chase, Tawell, who had murdered his lover Sarah Hart, jumped on a train to London, but a message was sent to his destination and was arrested on his arrival.

At a trial in Aylesbury in March 1845 he was found guilty of murder and subsequently executed for his crime.

The official statistics for 2017/18 show that Slough Station had over 5million users, making it the 88th busiest in the United Kingdom.