GCR Announces Spectacular New Project

GCR Announces Spectacular New Project | The UK's Only Main Line Heritage Railway

But it wont accept my card details to join online :mmph:, so i have no idea what it may be ??

 

Not a plan to relocate Workington Shed is it?

 

Simply by clicking on the news item it seems that an NRM outpost will be opened at the Southern end of the line.
Its a £10m project, wow!

 

From the BBC
BBC News - Great Central Railway plans museum in Leicester

 

Thats pretty cool, i had heard rumors of the NRM going to the GCR, but i though it was only if the "gap" could be sorted. Turns out i was wrong

 

fantastic news! but what about the "Gap" no news at all since a very long time ? what about the sponsoring by Lafarge ?
regards
Noel

 

It will be interesting to see if the funding for this project also includes money for double-tracking the remainder of the GCR south of Swithland.

 

somewhere to put Butler Henderson. Wouldn't have said Leicester was a particularly "railway" city though, unlike say Crewe or Derby.

 

where is this going on the allotments?

 

Leicester's railway history? Let's start with the Leicester and Swannington Railway. It was the fifth railway in the country to be authorised.

 

At this stage, nobody, if I've interpreted the press release correctly. It is seemingly a schem put together by the interested parties which now needs to have the detail put on it in terms of planning and funding sources. A long way to get yet, methinks.

 

There was a big hoohar about building this on the site of the old steam shed at Bury some years ago, but it went very quite indeed...Looks like the idea must have fallen through by this announcement.

 

Perhaps the Heritage Lottery Fund will be getting involved. It should tick the boxes in respect of public access and education aspects, and it would appear to have the weight of the NRM on its side.
Just going back to TonyMay's comment about Leicester not being a "Railway town", well Leicester has never been a "Derby" or a "Crewe" in purely railway terms, but as std tank implies, it does have a long and interesting railway history, starting with the Leicester and Swannington, and then the Midland Counties, which became part of the Midland, and I am sure there will be an interesting social and commercial story to be told about the impact of the coming of the railway in Victorian times. For instance good rail connections and a central location saw Leicester develop in Victorian times as a distribution centre, particularly shoes, Samuel Oliver moving to Leicester in 1875 to become a shoe distributor, and firms like Stead & Simpson and Freeman Hardy & Willis being founded in Leicester, along with Curry's and Halfords, founded there in 1884 and 1901. There was also considerable mineral movement by rail around the Leicestershire area, ironstone for instance, with the associated rail networks.

I think that Leicester and the County will have a very interesting social commercial and industrial story to tell, and with the GCR arriving late in the day, there is an exceptional photographic archive of the building of the GCR London extension. There is also the written work of Prof. Jack Simmons, for many years based at the University of Leicester. For the future, maybe the County will see the "Eastern" branch of HS2 passing through? who knows, the story continues....

46118

 

Leicester Central Station would make a nice museum - especially if double track linked to the GCR. Think that would blow the £10m budget though!

 

Leicester Central from streetview Leicester LE1 - Google Maps

Unfortunatly at track level there's nothing much left and the bridges and viaducts are long gone from the approx mile and a half to the GCR's Leicester North Station. A complete non-starter.

 

I know it is - doesn't mean it wouldn't be nice :becky: I guess anything that progresses the line south would be positive. Leicester Central was an original target for the GCR but too much has gone since then

 

This museum proposal appears to be just one of the interesting developments that the GCR is doing its best to progress. In the latest Mainline is an article on the proposed four road carriage workshop at Swithland Sidings. There is also a two page update on the Gap Project that suggests that both Lafarge and Network Rail are supporting the idea of running stone trains out of Mountsorrel using a new north facing chord and the GCR tracks to reach the mainline connection at the southern end of the GCR(N) as this would avoid having the existing stone traffic crossing the Midland main line to reach the slow tracks. I would guess that the thinking is that if NR can see some operating benefit in this arrangement, they would be willing to contribute in some way to the cost of reinstating the GCR bridge over the MML. What effect daily stone trains would have on the GCR's heritage activities remains to be seen, but it does make me hope that we might see very occasional use of steam power to work that traffic...
Nobody has mentioned it, but I wonder if the Leicester Museum site would also eventually house the GCR's locomotive workshop facilities as these will certainly have to be relocated before the line can be reopened north of Loughborough Central.

 

I am now wondering if the stored workington shed would be used for the leicester museum ?

 

Looks like the application for funding has gone in
http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/G...-million-new/story-20236635-detail/story.html
Story via Heritage Railway page