Introducing the Great Central Railway Reunification

Welcome to a new series on the unification of two heritage railways that were once part of the Great Central Railway. The project has been titled Reunification, Bridging the gap.
We’re starting on the established Great Central Heritage Railway at Quorn and Woodhouse station. We’ll be jumping on a steam hauled service to the railways flagship Loughborough station.

We’ll be having a look around Loughborough station and site and telling you a little about the series of joining together this railway and the GCR Nottingham. There are 500 meters of missing railway that is currently being reinstate to join a total of 18 miles of heritage railway.

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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[Music] welcome to a new series on the Great Central Railway now the Great Central Mainline something if you’ve been following my channel for a while we no strangers to I’m at cor and Woodhouse on the Great Central Heritage Railway so this new series um that I’m I’m filming the start off today you probably know if you’re from the area and you know you’re Railways there’s two Heritage Railways in the East Midlands there’s this one um the Great Central Railway this is the longest standing Heritage Railway and there’s one just the other side of lb that’s based at the south of Nottingham we’ll get into that we’ll show you more about that as this series progresses so both sides of lre we’ve still got the tracks down this side um it was saved and turned into a Heritage Railway the other side of lra it’s for a different reason altogether both these Railways are not currently joined up agonizingly close to being joined up probably about half a mile or so would you say um and that’s that’s the purpose of this series we’re going to have a look at the Great Central Railway reunification project so just for some context this section is 8 mil long and the section North between lbrt and Nottingham is 10 mil long so when they do eventually Jo up these two Railways it’s going to be a nice solid 18 plus miles isn’t it and this is your typical Great Central Station isn’t it Sheffield Lincoln and Manchester Railway London extension style station I’m going to have a a good look around the station because all the disu videos we’ve done of all the stations we can pretty much link back or link forward to what we see here all the architecture uh the standard design look at a little way Hut so here’s the entrance at Road level how many dissu stations have we visited uh where this has been the setup over the years this is just brilliant example preserve let’s have a walk onto the stations should we I mean look at I mean first thing that sings to mind is the uh I can’t remember the name of the station now Bur [Applause] oh [Music] the intention to detail um on the stations on this line are just just unbelievable cor and Woodhouse where we’re starting our journey today is he’s got an Old World War II theme spe near I love this it’s underneath the bridge about 15 minutes uh till the train first train Northbound for today so the plan for this series I don’t know why I’m looking at my notes um episode one it’s going to start in here just giving you a bit of an introduction then we’re going to get a TR train rides on a steam train into lbra just have a little poke around lra station see what there is to see there and then I’m going to be filming episode two as well today where we’re going to be focusing on bit that’s missing so that’s the bit as this I suppose that’s the main event for the unification all the bits that they’ve got to do all the work that they’ve done so far and then the next sections me and Jim have already filmed we’ve already um been here in April and filmed the bits north of lra on the exist l in on the North uh side of lra before we do get on the train just a bit of History just a recap on the history we know that this the Great Central Railway open in 1899 Clos in the 1960s in various stages this one was saved this little section between lbo just north of leester was saved for present uh preservation and reopened in the 1970s as a Heritage Railway at the North section that was saved for a different reason that was saved access to an mod number one will be the 1114 diesel rail car service for leer nor um yeah I was saying the the north section um 10 miles to rington stayed open because of the access to the mod facility at ring rington just south of Nottingham yeah it’s good to have a look at places like this because you can piece together things that we do find when we’re doing those issues Railway explores see the steam engine just uh coming up up the straight now especially down here um I love I love a good um example of an old Telegraph pole we’re going to be seeing some more great examples like that in later episodes [Music] you go here yeah [Music] just [Music] nice collection of diesel as well here I know people generally come to these places for the steam don’t they but for someone like me these diesels are more my era that I grew up with [Music] to if you never been to the Great Central but you think it looks familiar at the list of films and TV programs that’s been filmed here so that Train’s getting ready to pull out now um let’s have a walk up the stairs shall we um you see my Rugby video I put out earlier this year I think I claimed in that video but the closest thing that you’ll get to see in that is here that lra it was about the same size [Music] station thank you right to the end like that one it’s accessed from an over Bridge [Music] [Music] just looking for the spot I’ve got an old photo of uh me sat eating as normal uh with my mom 1986 so I had have being five actually it was on that bench wasn’t it it’s not a great view because of that stations it’s 10 years this year since uh some my mom passed away 10 years sorry 10 years next month so nice little memory there on that bench isn’t it [Music] [Music] so that’s the end of part one just to ride up on the train from cor and Woodhouse this is just kind of ticking off uh the southern Great Central Heritage Railway and next up I’m just going to go and film what’s happening in that direction because this is as far as this one goes there’s an engine shed there um and this is what the unification Project’s all about everything North from here just down there so cheers for watching don’t forget to hit the Subscribe button if you’re not subscribed um so you get the notifications as well if you hit the Bell uh when I put out new episodes on this series cheers for watching I’ll see you on the next one [Music] oh [Applause]