Bridging the Gap - The Great Central Railway Reunification
Welcome back to my Great Central Railway Reunification series. We're picking up again at Loughborough station. In the last episode I had a look at the Great Central heritage railway and a look around the station. We had a ride behind a steam locomotive from Quorn too.
Looking north from Loughborough Central station, the once through running lines now run into the railways main engine shed. This will be the first obstacle. Everything we will see in this video is part of bridging the gap section of the reunification. There are a number of engineering challenges - some of which have alreayd been dealt with. Straight after leaving the loco shed, the line crosses the Grand Union Canal. This bridge was renovated for double track in 2020.
After crossing the canal we see a length of embankment, followed by a new viaduct before the line crosses Railway Terrace. This is where lots of the forthcoming work will be focussed. After railway terrace we can see the new bridge installed in 2018 crossing the 4 tracks of the Midland Mainline.
After here, more missing embankment before a link line with the Midland railway.
It is here we technically join the northern heritage railway - Great Central Railway Nottingham. The A60 bridge had a new deck in late 2022 and therefore is the newest bridge on GCR.
Great Central Mainline was built as the London Extension of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire railway. Opening in 1899, it was designed to be as straight as possible with as little gradient as possible. Speed was the aim and express trains travelled between London Marylebone, Leicester, Nottingham, Sheffield and Manchester. It was the last UK mainline to be built before HS1 over a century later. It thrived initially, however with a lack of upkeep, neglect and dwindling usage, it was mothballed during the great railway rationalisation of Dr Beeching in the 1960s - known as the Beeching Axe.
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the team organising the reunification say that they are taking the shed down and be relocated. Caroline
The British way of knocking down the infrastructure is almost unique to BR (as it were). In the USA lines no longer in use are left for the simple reason that another company may wish to reopen it so instead if having to deal with the nightmares of new structures on the trackbed such as at Tavistock North and the cost of demolition and re-siting these buildings, the line is ready to go. Perhaps desperation for cash from selling of the sites and the metal, in fact anything which would make moneyfor BR (and the Treasury) has added heavily in this country to the cost of re-opening closed lines.
Bridge strike already??? Honestly some of these truck drivers need to lose their licence
Plenty of work to still do but if they can pull it off then this could be one of the best heritage railways around
Great video but wrong Music sorry to say. I hope they join the two great preserved railways Regards Alan :o)
I love this series of videos and look forward very much to the next one. It’s so good to see the bigger picture within the geographical and historical contexts. After watching your masterful videos, one can watch the Official GCR videos, which focus more on the financial and technical details and implications of this amazing project. If only BR/Railtrack/Network Rail and HMG worked with so much foresight and thoughtfulness.
Enjoying this little mini-series a lot, thanks. If I remember rightly, the new single-track bridge over the Midland mainline is slightly further to the south-east than the original bridge to go round Preci-Spark's car-park. On the original alignment this was one of the fastest stretches of the London Extension, speeds being well into the 80mph region as trains left the Loughborough dip northwards to climb into the Stanford/Normanton hills. Talking of the new bridge, it's got graffiti already, I see! Stanford viaduct is plastered too. Makes one wonder what the concrete viaduct idea will look like months after completion, an absolute eyesore, no doubt.
I found this very interesting for mainly nostalgic reasons. I lived in East Leake from about 1955 to 1958 and started school there. We travelled by train a lot to Nottingham and Loughborough. I would ride on the back of mum's bike to East Leake station. On a trip to the UK ten years ago, one of the first things I did was to make a bee line for the GCR's steam gala. How strange it was to go down the steps to the platform and see everything as I remembered it back in 1956! Very nicely done videos, no annoying music, and down to earth. Thanks. Am now subbed.
That was really informative, next time I'm at Loughborough competing I must get to those bridges for some photos. Part three sounds like it's where all the action starts🤣!!!!
The fact that I work on the railway on this patch, cruise the canal near this patch and the GCR is going that little bit more north, makes it even more exciting.
A very useful update - thank you for your dedication.
Brilliant again Paul be great when its all linked up some work to be done but will be well worth it.
Interesting video, nice to learn more about the reunification of the line. Many thanks.
Thanks for another excellent informative video Paul. I'm very much looking forward to Part 3.
Hi, many thanks for sharing this informative video of an important reunification of an equally important line of route. Good to see it coming together.
Paul, It was really interesting and enjoyable to watch your "Members Only," "Behind the Scenes" video before watching this, as the pieces from the two different videos fall together watching this one. Cheers!
Thanks for the update on reunification.Your report is so detailed and informative that I think yours is a better and more fully informed description than the actual report from the GCR. Great work.
Thanks for bringing us this series, it puts into context everything they are trying to do with this railway to see the route from the ground and above. It said on one of their videos that i watched that the railway shed was life expired and that they were going to demolish it and build a new one in a different location as at the moment like you said it is blocking the route of the reunified railway. This project seems to be steaming away at an amazing pace and i do not think it will be long before we see this reunification completed. It will be one of the best Heritage lines in the country when it is.
Nice one Paul, love blue brick bridges! ❤😊👍
Great work.