The Great Western Railway opened in Slough in June 1838. Initially, opposition from Eton College prevented the construction of a station and trains 'happened' to be held at Slough allowing passengers to board: tickets were sold from the Crown coaching inn and subsequently from the newly built North Star Inn. However, a station was built and opened by June 1840, and Queen Victoria made her first ever railway journey, from Slough station to Bishop's Bridge near Paddington, on 13 June 1842 - some three years after her husband Prince Albert who had first travelled from the trackside at Slough to Paddington on 14 November 1839.