The end of broad gauge, 1892. Work in progress at Plymouth station, Devonshire, to change from broad gauge to standard gauge railway track. Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-1859) favoured broad gauge 7ft 1/4inch (2.2m) and designed the Great Westerrn Railway accordingly. However, in the Gauge Act of 1846 Parliament declared that all future railway track should be of the standard 4ft 8 1/2inch (1.44m) gauge introduced by George Stephenson (1781-1848) on the Liverpool & Manchester Railway. It was not until 1892 that the last broad gauge track was lifted. From The Romance of Engineering by Henry Frith. (London, 1892).