Paddington to Birkenhead The Great Western's North West FrontierPaddington to Birkenhead The Great Western's North West Frontier 25. 00 One of the most diverse, complex and thus most interesting railway routes in the land. It set out as part of Brunels Great Western Railway plan to cover the country in Broad Gauge tracks but, faced with competition from its great rival, the London and North Western Railway, the Broad Gauge never got beyond Wolverhampton and eventually succumbed to the four feet, eight and a half