So why do we still have variations in track today? The end of the line for Brunel’s broad gauge Paddington to Penzance, the weekend of 20 to 23 May, 1892. Railway workers rip up the last stretch of Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s broad gauge track. They convert 213 track miles to the standard gauge for the South Wales Railway, closing one of the railway’s most divisive and controversial chapters. Pioneering engineers Brunel and George Stephenson had been at war over their attempts to each establish a standard distance between the rails on Britain’s railway. Isambard Kingdom Brunel A standard would create a national network of railway lines and enable trains to run uninterrupted by changes in the infrastructure for the first time.