GWR

GWR are the initials of and number of different organisations and concepts.

Transport

Media

World record

A world record is usually the best global performance ever recorded and officially verified in a specific skill or sport. The book Guinness World Records collates and publishes notable records of all types, from first and best to worst human achievements, to extremes in the natural world and beyond. The website RecordSetter has begun to take on the same territory, but with a more inclusive policy, as users submit videos of record attempts in order to try to receive a world record. The website challengers.guinnessworldrecords.com is similar to RecordSetter, as the record attempts are judged by Guinness World Records adjudicators, but the records to attempt are provided beforehand.

Terminology

In the United States the form World's Record was formerly more common. The term World Best was also briefly in use. The latter term is still used in athletics events, including track and field and road running) to describe good and bad performances not recognized as an official world record: either because the event is a non-qualifying event (e.g. the 150 m run or individual events in a decathlon), or because it does not fulfil other criteria of an otherwise qualifying event (e.g. the Great North Run half-marathon, which has an excessive downhill gradient). The term is also used in video game speedrunning when someone achieves the fastest possible time for the game and category.

Guinness World Records

Guinness World Records, known from its inception in 1955 until 1998 as The Guinness Book of Records and in previous U.S. editions as The Guinness Book of World Records, is a reference book published annually, listing world records, both human achievements and the extremes of the natural world. The book itself holds a world record, as the best-selling copyrighted book of all time. It is one of the most frequently stolen books from public libraries in the United States. As of the 2016 edition, it is now in its 62nd year of publication. The international franchise has extended beyond print to include television series and museums. The popularity of the franchise has resulted in Guinness World Records becoming the primary international authority on the cataloguing and verification of a huge number of world records; the organization employs official record adjudicators authorised to verify the authenticity of the setting and breaking of records.

History

On 10 November 1951, Sir Hugh Beaver, then the managing director of the Guinness Breweries, went on a shooting party in the North Slob, by the River Slaney in County Wexford, Ireland. After missing a shot at a golden plover, he became involved in an argument over which was the fastest game bird in Europe, the golden plover or the red grouse (it is the plover). That evening at Castlebridge House, he realised that it was impossible to confirm in reference books whether or not the golden plover was Europe's fastest game bird. Beaver knew that there must be numerous other questions debated nightly in pubs throughout Ireland and abroad, but there was no book in the world with which to settle arguments about records. He realised then that a book supplying the answers to this sort of question may prove successful.

Great Western

Great Western can refer to:

Great Western Railway

The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the midlands, the south-west and west of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament in 1835 and ran its first trains in 1838. It was engineered by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who chose a broad gauge of 7 ft (2,134 mm) but, from 1854, a series of amalgamations saw it also operate 4 ft 8 ¹⁄₂ in (1,435 mm) standard-gauge trains; the last broad-gauge services were operated in 1892. The GWR was the only company to keep its identity through the Railways Act 1921, which amalgamated it with the remaining independent railways within its territory, and it was finally merged at the end of 1947 when it was nationalised and became the Western Region of British Railways.

The GWR was called by some "God's Wonderful Railway" and by others the "Great Way Round" but it was famed as the "Holiday Line", taking many people to English and Bristol Channel resorts in the West Country as well as the far south-west of England such as Torquay in Devon and Minehead in Somerset and Newquay and St Ives in Cornwall. The company's locomotives, many of which were built in the company's workshops at Swindon, were painted a Brunswick green colour while, for most of its existence, it used a two-tone "chocolate and cream" livery for its passenger coaches. Goods wagons were painted red but this was later changed to mid-grey.