THE MIGHTY GREAT CENTRAL

The Great Central Railway is the country's only double track, main line heritage railway where steam engines can still be seen passing each other at speed. Its five and a half miles of track includes four stations, each restored to a period in the railway's history, the 1950s Loughborough Central, the 1940s Quorn and Woodhouse, the Edwardian-era Rothley and the 1960s Leicester North. But this year it is about to embark on an enormously ambitious project to re-instate a bridge dismantled in 1973 over the Midland MainlIne railway to reconnect the northern part of the Great Central Railway, thus creating 18 miles of heritage track linking Nottingham to Leicester once again. This involves the installation of new bridges and the building of new embankments to close the 500 yard gap left by British Railways destruction under the watchful eye of Beeching. GCR general manager Richard Patching, who has been with the railway since 1969, explains that the bridge design is complete and the other bridges have been donated by Network Rail. “Refurbishment of the bridge over the Grand Union Canal is expected to start this year giving better access to the rebuilding of the missing embankments,” he says. This is a multi-million pound project with the so-called ‘Bridge to the Future’ over the mainline railway costing over £2 million alone. “We have been fortunate to receive a grant from the Leicester and Leicestershire Economic Partnership of £1 million as they see its economic benefit to the whole region. “We have also raised over £1 million from the fantastic support from the public and supporters of the railway who RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: october 2016 :: RMTnews 22 THE MIGHTY GREAT CENTRAL The Great Central Railway is reconnecting Nottingham with Leicester to become among the longest heritage railways in the country LAST TRAIN: The GCR collection of locos includes the BR Standard Class 7 70013 Oliver Cromwell, one of the last steam trains to work on British Railways in August 1968 before the steam ban.