 However, his assumption proved incorrect, and when railways of a different gauge met, the inconvenience led to an officiating organization looking into the matter.Their conclusion was that Stephenson's "narrow gauge" should be adopted as Britain's standard gauge, and Parliament passed the 1846 Gauge of Railways Act which stipulated the standard gauge of .The undaunted GWR pressed ahead into the West Midlands, in hard-fought competition with the London and North Western Railway.