Rover (Iron Duke renewal) 4-2-2 locomotive
Prior to its amalgamation with the Great Western Railway in January 1876, the Bristol & Exeter Railway had started to convert some of its branch lines to standard gauge. After the merger, the GWR continued this practise and by the end of the 1880s only the Chard branch remained to be converted. This branch line had been deliberately left until the last to prevent the London & South Western Railway from exercising its running powers into Taunton over the GWR Chard branch from its own station at Chard.
No attempt was made to convert any lines west of Exeter, which became the only area of the country that remained purely broad gauge. Although the mileage of broad gauge track had reduced significantly from its peak in the 1860s, traffic had increased and new "convertible" broad gauge locomotives were being built as late as August 1891, only 7 months before the scheduled end of the broad gauge. The last pure broad gauge locomotive to be built was Tornado (Rover class) in July 1888.
On 15 October 1889, Sir Daniel Gooch, chairman of the Great Western Railway and its original locomotive superintendent died. Gooch was the last surviving member of the original group of men that championed the broad gauge in its early years, and while in his role as chairman he had to sign the broad gauge's "death warrant", it is perhaps fitting he did not have to witness its final demise in 1892.
Broad gauge services out of Paddington had reduced to six trains in each direction by the mid 1880s. While these express trains maintained good speeds, they were not significantly faster than standard gauge trains of the time. Traffic into Devon and Cornwall had increased steadily since the 1870s, and the Cornwall Railway and West Cornwall Railway, over which the GWR provided train services, were gradually recovering from the dire financial straits they had been in since the 1840s. The increased revenue made it possible for the Cornwall Railway to seriously consider the long anticipated conversion of its line to standard gauge. In 1885, the directors of the Cornwall Railway requested the GWR make plans for the conversion of the line between Plymouth and Falmouth, and, as a consequence, all other remaining broad gauge lines.