* Wessex Trains, absorbed into First Great Western in April 2006

To provide extra capacity on the services extended to Brighton, from December 2008 seventeen Class 442 Wessex Electrics last used by South West Trains began to enter service.

Wales & West became the Wessex Trains franchise from October 2001.

It then passed on to Wessex Trains, which became part of the Great Western franchise.

Trains on the Great Western Main Line are sometimes diverted from Reading along the Reading to Taunton line, as far as, from where they can use the Wessex Main Line to reach either Chippenham, or Bath Spa.

On 1 April 2006, First Great Western, First Great Western Link and Wessex Trains were combined into the new Greater Western franchise.

Wessex Trains came into being on 14 October 2001 when the former Wales and West and Valley Lines franchises were reorganised.

Wales and West Passenger Trains Ltd took on the trading name of Wessex Trains and the operation of services in southwest England.

Wessex Trains ran the majority of local trains in the South West.

File: Nailsea and Backwell railway station MMB 40 150239 153380. jpg | A First Great Western Class 153 in the new Local Lines livery, worn by former Wessex Trains services.

First Great Western inherited the small fleet of seven two-coach Class 143 Pacer railbuses from Wessex Trains following the franchise merger in April 2006 ( an eighth unit was scrapped after catching fire near in October 2004 ).

The Great Western franchise was extended in 2006 to also include the services of the former Wessex Trains and Thames Trains, and this new franchise was again awarded to First.

* Wessex Trains

This locomotive was previously hired to Wessex Trains to operate trains from Bristol Temple Meads to Brighton and Weymouth, Dorset | Weymouth.

31601 was repainted into Wessex Trains " Heart of Wessex " pink livery.

Booked services ceased in 2004, but Wessex Trains continued to use them for special events and for bank-holiday traffic until 2006.

A Wessex Trains Class 153

Wessex Trains ( legal name Wales & West Passenger Services Limited, company no 3011029 ) was was a train operating company in the United Kingdom owned by National Express that operated the Wessex Trains franchise from October 2001 until March 2006.

Wales & West became Wessex Trains from October 2001.

The Bridport branch line ran from the junction with the Weymouth-Yeovil-Bristol " Heart of Wessex " line at Maiden Newton railway station ; it was usually operated in its final years by a single carriage " Class 122 " diesel train.

* Wessex Trains-hired Class 31s to haul passenger services from Bristol-Weymouth and Bristol-Brighton.

Wessex Trains inherited a fleet of Class 143, Class 150, Class 153 and Class 158s from Wales & West.

Electrification was extended to Weymouth in 1988 and saw the introduction of the new Class 442 5-WES Wessex Electric trains.

The British Rail Class 442 Wessex Electric ( or 5WES ) electrical multiple units were introduced in 1988 on the South Western Main Line from London Waterloo to Southampton Central, Bournemouth, Poole and Weymouth.

The Class 442 Wessex Electric is based on the British Rail Mark 3 carriage bodyshell, and has a number of features which distinguish it from the slam-door units it replaced:

The Class 442 " Wessex Electric " was one of the first types to make extensive use of plastics in construction, earning them the nickname among staff and rail enthusiasts of " Pigs " or " Piggies ".

However in 2004, when the Class 444 " Desiro " trains had been brought into service, the " Wessex Electrics " were again used solely on the Weymouth line.

Wessex Trains painted a Class 150 two-car DMU ( number 150265 ) in coloured pictures promoting the line and named it The Falmouth Flyer.

Wessex Trains gave Class 153 single-car DMU number 153329 a special blue livery with large coloured pictures promoting the line and named it St Ives Bay Line, although this has now been removed by First Great Western who now operate the line.

For many years the passenger services on the line have been provided by Wessex Trains, and since 2006 by First Great Western, using Class 150 or Class 153 diesel multiple units ( DMUs ) either singly or in multiple.

Initially, the Class 444s were used mainly on Portsmouth direct services, allowing the Wessex Electric units to be used on the Weymouth line.

During 2007, the Class 444 units replaced the Wessex Electrics ( Class 442 ) on the Weymouth line.

First Great Western operate services from London Paddington to Gloucester and Cheltenham using HST trains, and local services from Swindon to Gloucester and Cheltenham using the former Wessex Trains Class 150 two carriage sets.

First Great Western operate services from London Paddington to Gloucester and Cheltenham using InterCity 125 trains, and local services from Swindon to Gloucester and Cheltenham using the former Wessex Trains Class 150 two carriage sets.

Alfred the Great (, " elf counsel "; 849 – 26 October 899 ) was King of Wessex from 871 to 899.

Recreating the fyrd into a standing army, ringing Wessex with some thirty garrisoned fortified towns, and constructing new and larger ships for the royal fleet were costly endeavours that provoked resistance from noble and peasant alike.

" He recruited scholars from the Continent and from Britain to aid in the revival of Christian learning in Wessex and to provide the king personal instruction.

" It is unknown when Alfred launched this programme, but it may have been during the 880s when Wessex was enjoying a respite from Viking attacks.

In Alfred Duggan's Conscience of the King, a historical novel about Cerdic, founder of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex, Ambrosius Aurelianus is a Romano-British general who rose independently to military power, forming alliances with various British kings and setting out to drive the invading Saxons from Britain.

Danish tradition has preserved record of two governors of Schleswig, father and son, in their service, Frowinus ( Freawine ) and Wigo ( Wig ), from whom the royal family of Wessex claimed descent.

He lists seven kings of the Anglo-Saxons whom he regards as having held imperium, or overlordship ; only one king of Wessex, Ceawlin, is listed, and none from Mercia, though elsewhere he acknowledges the secular power several of the Mercians held.

The " common law " was the law that emerged as " common " throughout the realm ( as distinct from the various legal codes that preceded it, such as Mercian law, the Danelaw and the law of Wessex ) as the king's judges followed each other's decisions to create a unified common law throughout England.

In the late 800s, Alfred the Great assembled the Doom book ( not to be confused with the more-famous Domesday Book from 200 years later ), which collected the existing laws of Kent, Wessex, and Mercia, and attempted to blend in the Mosaic code, Christian principles, and Germanic customs dating as far as the fifth century.

The Kings of Wessex School seen from the tower of St. Andrew's Church ( looking north-west )

Ultimately, the kingdom of Wessex occupied the southwest of England, but the initial stages in this expansion are not apparent from the sources.

The phrase " in anger he turned back to his own " probably indicates that this annal is drawn from saga material, as perhaps are all of the early Wessex annals.

* Eadwig of England, King from 955 until 957, king of only Wessex and Kingdom of Kent from 957 until his death on 1 October 959.

However, a rising Wessex, and challenges from smaller kingdoms, kept Mercian power in check, and by the early 9th century the " Mercian Supremacy " was over.

Artifacts from this prehistoric civilization bear similarities to the Wessex Culture of southern Britain and may indicate that the first Hilversum residents emigrated from that area.

In 1052, Macbeth was involved indirectly in the strife in the Kingdom of England between Godwin, Earl of Wessex and Edward the Confessor when he received a number of Norman exiles from England in his court, perhaps becoming the first king of Scots to introduce feudalism to Scotland.

In 945, Edmund of Wessex, having expelled Amlaíb Cuaran ( Olaf Sihtricsson ) from Northumbria, devastated Cumbria and blinded two sons of Domnall mac Eógain, king of Strathclyde.

In 726 Gregory had a royal visit from Ine, the former King of Wessex, who had abdicated the throne in order to undertake a pilgrimage to Rome and end his life there.

The system was first used in Wessex from the beginning of Anglo-Saxon settlement, and spread to most of the rest of England in the tenth century, along with West Saxon political control.

During the period of the reigns from Egbert to Alfred the Great, the kings of Wessex emerged as Bretwalda, unifying the country and eventually forging it into the kingdom of England in the face of Viking invasions.

The Germanic gods Woden, Frigg, Tiw, and Thunor, who are attested to in every Germanic tradition, were worshipped in Wessex, Sussex, and Essex, and they are the only ones directly attested to, though the names of the third and fourth months ( March and April ) of the Old English calendar bear the names Hrethmonath and Eosturmonath, meaning " month of Hretha " and " month of Ēostre ", it is presumed from the names of two goddesses who were worshipped around that season.

Aided by the Great Heathen Army ( which had already overrun much of England from its base in Jorvik ), Bagsecg's forces, and Halfdan's forces ( through an alliance ), the combined Viking forces raided much of England until 871, when they planned an invasion of Wessex.