Great Central Main Line
The Great Central Main Line (GCML), also known as the London Extension of the
in London.The GCML was the last main line railway to be built in Britain during the Victorian period. It was built by the railway entrepreneur Edward Watkin with the aim to run as a fast trunk route from the North and the East Midlands to London and the south of England. Initially not a financial success, it recovered under the leadership of Sam Fay. Although initially planned for long-distance passenger services, in practice the line's most important function became to carry goods traffic, notably coal.
In the 1960s, the line was considered by
Parts of the former main line have been preserved as the Great Central Railway between Leicester and Loughborough, and the Great Central Railway (Nottingham) between Loughborough South Junction and Ruddington's former GCR station site.
At the end of the 20th century and in the 21st century, the line has been subject to a range of proposals for its use and reuse.
Route
The GCML was very much a strategic line in concept. It was not intended to duplicate the Midland line by serving a great many centres of population. Instead it was intended to link the MS&LR's system stretching across northern England directly to London at as high a speed as possible and with a minimum of stops and connections: thus much of its route ran through sparsely populated countryside.
The new construction started at Annesley north of Nottingham, running for 92 miles (148 km) in a relatively direct southward route ending at Quainton Road north of Aylesbury. The line left the crowded corridor through Nottingham (and Nottingham Victoria), which was also used by the Great Northern Railway (GNR), then struck off to its new railway station at Leicester Central, passing Loughborough en route, where it crossed the Midland main line. Four railway companies served Leicester: GCR, Midland, GNR, and LNWR. Avoiding Wigston, the GCR served Lutterworth (the only town on the GCR not to be served by another railway company) before reaching the town of Rugby (at Rugby Central), where it crossed at right-angles over, and did not connect with, the LNWR's West Coast Main Line.
It continued southwards to
Partly because of disagreements with the Metropolitan Railway (MetR) over use of their tracks at the southern end of the route, the company built the Great Western and Great Central Joint Railway joint line (1906) from Grendon Underwood to Ashendon Junction, by-passing the greater part of the MetR's tracks.
Apart from a small freight branch to Gotham between Nottingham and Loughborough, and the "Alternative Route" link added later (1906), these were the only branch lines from the London extension. The line crossed several other railways but had few junctions with them.
North of Sheffield, express trains on the London extension made use of the pre-existing MS&LR trans-
History
Reasons for construction
In 1864 Sir
At the time many people questioned the wisdom of building the line, as all the significant population centres which the line traversed were already served by other companies. However, Watkin defended it by arguing that growth in traffic would justify the new line.[2]
Watkin was an ambitious visionary; as well as running an independent trunk route into London, where he was chairman of the
Misconceptions over loading gauge
Although it is frequently claimed (by authors not referencing primary sources) that Watkin's Great Central Main Line was designed to the larger continental European loading gauge with the aim of accommodating mainland rolling stock should the line could be connected via future channel tunnel[9][10][11] this is untrue.[12][13] It was built to the standard Great Central loading gauge of the time,[14] which was in fact slightly more restrictive than some other British railways; and it was certainly not to Berne gauge which is some 8 in. (200 mm) taller and was not agreed and adopted until 1912/13.[15]
The Derbyshire Lines
Prior to the construction of the London Extension proper, the MS&LR had extended its reach southwards from its main trans-Pennine axis. In 1889 the company obtained an Act of Parliament to construct a line from Woodhouse Junction on its original Sheffield to Lincoln main line to Annesley in Nottinghamshire. The 'Derbyshire Lines' also included a loop line passing through Chesterfield. The primary purpose of the Derbyshire Lines was to give the MS&LR access to the collieries of Nottinghamshire, but also served as the first phase in the company's plan to construct an independent route to London. At Annesley the line from Woodhouse ran into the northern end of the marshalling yard built and operated by the Great Northern Railway (GNR) since 1882. This yard was adjacent to Newstead colliery and also had a connection with the Midland Railway. Thus MS&LR trains could run through onto the GNR's Leen Valley line and so southwards onto the rest of the GNR network via Nottingham and Grantham to the terminus of the GNR at King's Cross. This gave the MS&LR a more convenient route to send both freight and passenger traffic (the latter by through-coaches and ticketing agreements with the GNR) to London from its main line. Annesley was also only a little more than 90 miles (140 km) from London.
The Derbyshire Lines opened in 1892 and 1893 and by the time these routes were in full operation the MS&LR was already seeking parliamentary approval for the London Extension. Once the London Extension was opened (and the MS&LR had become the Great Central Railway) the Derbyshire Lines were, for all practical purposes, treated as a continuation of the new main line to London, with the entire route from Sheffield Victoria to London Marylebone (via the original MS&LR main line, the Derbyshire Lines and the London Extension) being considered as the Great Central Main Line.
Construction of the line
In the 1890s the MS&LR
The new line, 92 miles (148 km) long, started at Annesley, being in effect an extension of the newly completed Derbyshire Lines. The new London-bound line started at the northern entrance to the Annesley marshalling yard (this point becoming the new Annesley North Junction) from where it passed to the east of the sidings and the GNR Leen Valley line before bridging over both the GNR and Midland lines at
Construction of the route involved some major engineering works, including three new major city-centre stations (Nottingham Victoria, Leicester Central and Marylebone) along with many smaller ones. A number of new viaducts were constructed for the line including the 21-arch Brackley Viaduct, and viaducts at Braunston, Staverton and Catesby in Northamptonshire, a steel lattice viaduct known as the 'bird cage' bridge carried the GCML over the West Coast Main Line at Rugby, while another viaduct was built over the River Soar, along with two over Swithland Reservoir in Leicestershire, and one over the River Trent near Nottingham. Several tunnels had to be built, the longest of which was the 2,997 yards (2,740 m) Catesby Tunnel. Many miles of cuttings and embankments were also built.[20]
The construction of the railway through Nottingham and the station involved heavy earthworks with 6,750 feet (2,060 m) of tunnelling and almost 1 mile (1.6 km) of viaduct. The site for Nottingham Victoria railway station required the demolition of 1,300 houses, 20 public houses[19]: 132 and the clearing of a cutting from which 600,000 cubic yards (460,000 m3) of sandstone were removed.[19]: 132 The purchase of the land cost £473,000[19]: 132 (equivalent to £58,130,000 in 2021),[21] and the construction of the station brought the sum to over £1,000,000.
The original estimated cost for the construction of the line was £3,132,155, however in the event it cost £11,500,000 (equivalent to £1,377,210,000 in 2021),[21] nearly four times the original estimate.[20]
Features of the line were:
- The line was engineered to very high standards: a ruling gradient of 1 in 176 (5.7 , still in use).
- The standardised design of stations, almost all of which were built to an "island platform" design with one platform between the two tracks instead of two at each side. This would aid any future plans to add extra tracks (as was done in several locations).
The line was formally opened by Charles Ritchie, 1st Baron Ritchie of Dundee, President of the Board of Trade on 9 March 1899.[22] Three special corridor trains, forming part of the new rolling stock constructed for the new line, were run from Manchester, Sheffield and Nottingham to the terminus at Marylebone for the inaugural ceremony. A lunch for nearly 300 guests was provided, and then the trains made the return trip.
Public passenger services began on 15 March 1899,[19]: 132 and for goods traffic on 11 April 1899. Shortly before the opening of the new line, the MS&LR changed its name to the grander-sounding "Great Central Railway" (GCR) to reflect its new-found national ambitions.[23]
The London extension was the last mainline railway line to be built in Britain until section one of High Speed 1 opened in 2003. It was also the shortest-lived intercity railway line.
Traffic on the London extension
Passenger
The London Extension's main competitor was the Midland Railway which had served the route between London, the East Midlands and Sheffield since the 1860s on its Midland Main Line. Traffic was slow to establish itself on the new line, passenger traffic especially so. Enticing customers away from the established lines into London was more difficult than the GCR's builders had hoped. However, there was some success in appealing to higher-class 'business' travellers in providing high-speed luxurious trains, promoted by the jingle 'Rapid Travel in Luxury'. These were in a way the first long-distance commuter trains.
The Great Central also became important for cross-country trains, which took advantage of its connections to other lines.[24] At the height of fast, long-distance passenger steam trains in the 1930s, there were six expresses a day from Marylebone to Sheffield, calling at Leicester and Nottingham, and onto Manchester. Some of these achieved a London–Sheffield timing of 3 hours and 6 minutes in 1939, making them fully competitive with the rival Midland service out of St Pancras in terms of journey time.[25]
Freight
Freight traffic grew healthily and became the lifeblood of the line, the staples being coal, iron ore, steel, and fish and banana trains. The connection with the
The relatively sparse service pattern on the GCML and the line's high engineering standards with near-continuous but gentle rising and falling gradients, made it possible to run these trains at much higher speeds than was normal. Coal trains, consisting of mineral wagons not equipped with brakes that could be controlled by the driver, usually ran at no more than 25 mph (40 km/h) and had to descend steep gradients at little more than walking pace. On the GCML these trains could run at 50 or 60 mph (80 or 97 km/h), continually but slowly accelerating away from Annesley (which kept the couplings between taut and the wagons stable) and being able to run without needing to slow for gradients or for other traffic until they slowed for arrival at Woodford Halse. Originally known as the 'Annesley Runners', these trains became known as the 'Windcutters' in the British Railways era.
Decline and closure
In the 1923 Grouping the Great Central Railway was merged into the London and North Eastern Railway, which in 1948 was nationalised along with the rest of Britain's railway network. The Great Central thrived in the early years of nationalisation. However, from the late 1950s onwards the freight traffic upon which the line relied started to decline, and the GCR route was largely neglected as other railway lines were thought to be more important.
Although a very straight and direct line, it was designated a duplicate of the curvier
In January 1960, express passenger services from London to Sheffield and Manchester were discontinued, leaving only three "semi-fast" London-Nottingham trains per day. In March 1963 local trains on many parts of the route were cancelled and many rural local stations were closed. However, at this time it was still hoped that better use of the route could be made for parcels and goods traffic.[27]
In the 1960s Beeching cuts, Dr Beeching decided that the London to Northern England route was already well served by other lines, to which most of the traffic on the GCR could be diverted. Closure was seen as inevitable.
The sections between Rugby and Aylesbury and between Nottingham and Sheffield were closed in 1966, leaving only an unconnected stub between Rugby and Nottingham, on which a skeleton shuttle service operated. This last stretch was closed to passenger services in May 1969. Goods trains continued to run on the London Extension between Nottingham and East Leake until 1973, and continue to run between Loughborough and East Leake to this day. There is a north branch from the Midland Main Line onto the Great Central tracks at Loughborough.
The closure of the GCR was the largest single closure of the Beeching era, and one of the most controversial. In a letter published in The Daily Telegraph on 28 September 1965, Denis Anthony Brian Butler, 9th Earl of Lanesborough, a peer and railway supporter, wrote:
[Among] the main lines in the process of closure, surely the prize for idiotic policy must go to the destruction of the until recently most profitable railway per ton of freight and per passenger carried in the whole British Railways system, as shown by their own operating statistics. These figures were presented to monthly management meetings until the 1950s, when they were suppressed as "unnecessary", but one suspects really "inconvenient" for those proposing Beeching type policies of unnecessarily severe contraction of services [...] This railway is of course the Great Central [...].[28]
Remaining infrastructure
The trackbed of the 40-mile (64 km) stretch of main line between Calvert and Rugby, closed in 1966, is still intact except for missing viaducts at Brackley and Willoughby. Various proposals for its reopening have been made.[29]
Frequent passenger services operated by
A short extension of Chiltern passenger services to a new Aylesbury Vale Parkway station on the Aylesbury-Bicester main road opened on 14 December 2008.
In November 2011 HM Government allocated funding for reopening of the section between
Currently,[when?] this stretch of route is used for freight consisting of binliner (containerised domestic waste) and spoil trains going to the Calvert Waste Facility (landfill) site at Calvert just south of Calvert station. Four container trains each day use the site, originating from Brentford, Cricklewood and Northolt. There was also a daily train from Bath and Bristol (known as the "Avon Binliner") until April 2011. The containers, each of which contains 14 tonnes of waste, are unloaded at the transfer station onto lorries awaiting alongside which then transport the waste to the landfill site.[34] The site, dating from 1977 and now one of the largest in the country, stretches to 106 hectares (260 acres) and partly reuses the clay pits dug out by Calvert Brickworks which closed in 1991.[35]
The
The section of line between Loughborough South Junction, where the branch is connected to the Midland Mainline, and Ruddington is operated as a heritage railway by the Great Central Railway (Nottingham) (GCRN). The section of GCRN route between Loughborough South Jn and East Leake is maintained to mainline standard and used by trains serving the Gypsum works at East Leake.
North of Ruddington, and as far as Nottingham, sections of the GCML right of way are used by the
Sections of the GCML around
.Reinstatement
Reconstruction of the 500-metre (547 yd) Loughborough Gap is underway which will unite the two surviving preserved sections of the GCR. This will result in an 18-mile (29 km) section of the line from Leicester North station to Ruddington station, south of Nottingham, open for heritage trains. Network Rail were involved in reinstating a bridge taking the Great Central over the Midland Main Line.[40]
Plans and proposals
High Speed 2
In March 2010 the government announced plans for a future high-speed railway between London and
East West Rail
Plans to reopen the section of the Great Central north of Aylesbury Vale Parkway have been submitted by Network Rail as part of phase two of the proposed Oxford – Cambridge East–west rail.[41] This would link Aylesbury with Bletchley and Milton Keynes. With consent granted, work could begin in 2019.
Aylesbury to Rugby
Chiltern Railways had a long-term plan to reopen the Great Central Main Line north of Aylesbury as far as Rugby[29] and onward at a later stage to Leicester. However, in 2013 Chiltern Railways stated that the plan was "no longer active".[42]
In January 2019, advocacy group the Campaign for Better Transport released a report in which they listed the line between Aylesbury and Rugby (and between Marylebone and Leicester) as Priority 2 for reopening. Priority 2 is for those lines which require further development or a change in circumstances (such as housing developments).[43]
Freight and relief line reopening
Central Railway Ltd, a company founded in 1991, proposed to re-open the GCR largely as a freight link following the completion of the Channel Tunnel rail link. These proposals faced financial, environmental and social difficulties and were rejected by Parliament twice.[44]
In 2002 the Labour MP for Luton North,
In August 2017, a voluntary lobby group (the English Regional Transport Association) proposed that the line between Calvert and Rugby be reopened using the European standard loading gauge. The proposal includes a new stretch bypassing the western side of Rugby and would join the West Coast Main Line.[47] A petition online by ERTA has proposed the line should be reopened all the way to Manchester as it would increase capacity on the network with a loop at Buckingham and new stations at Daventry and Brackley with a link to the East West Rail at Claydon. New sections of track will be required in some areas if this does happen.[48] In October 2017, the group proposed that the line be reopened between Calvert and Rugby for a new relief route from the West Coast Main Line with a new link to Nuneaton.[49]
These proposals have no official recognition and are unfunded.
Restoring Your Railway Fund bids
In March 2021, two bids were submitted to restore the line from Leicester to Ruddington via East Leake and the line between Rugby and Leicester via Lutterworth, as part of the third round of the Restoring Your Railway fund.[50][51][52]
References
- ^ Healy 1987, pp. 24–25.
- ^ a b Healy 1987, p. 27.
- ISBN 9781845191283. Retrieved 28 August 2013.
- ISBN 9781442205468.
- ISBN 1-898937-49-4.
- ISBN 0-7153-8839-8.
- ISBN 0-906520-85-1.
- ^ Dow, George (1962). Great Central. Volume 2: Domination of Watkin, 1864–1899. Shepperton: Ian Allan.
- ISBN 9781845630904. Retrieved 17 October 2015.
- ISBN 9780954558741. Retrieved 17 October 2015.
- ISBN 9780752462301. Retrieved 17 October 2015.
- ^ West, Anthony (September 1996). "A gauge of opinion". Forward (108). Great Central Railway Society: 8–12.
- ^ Boyes, Grahame (December 2007). "The origins of a modern myth: the loading gauge of the GCR London Extension". Journal of the Railway and Canal Historical Society. 35 (10): 780–2.
- ^ "Clearance Diagram". M.S.& L.Ry. 1895.
- ^ Hafter, Gordon (April 1992). "Berne and all that". Modern Railways. Retrieved 2 August 2019.
- ^ "Doings of Parliament. House of Lords". Shields Daily Gazette. 29 March 1893. Retrieved 23 July 2016 – via British Newspaper Archive.
- ^ a b c "The Manchester, Sheffield, And Lincolnshire Extension. London's New Terminus". Bucks Herald. 24 November 1894. Retrieved 23 July 2016 – via British Newspaper Archive.
- ^ "The New Line to London. Cutting the First Sod". Nottingham Evening Post. 14 November 1894. Retrieved 23 July 2016 – via British Newspaper Archive.
- ^ ISBN 0715371657.
- ^ a b Healy 1987, pp. 24–53.
- ^ a b UK Retail Price Index inflation figures are based on data from Clark, Gregory (2017). "The Annual RPI and Average Earnings for Britain, 1209 to Present (New Series)". MeasuringWorth. Retrieved 11 June 2022.
- ^ "Opening of the London Extension. Speech by Mr. C. T. Ritchie". Sheffield Daily Telegraph. 10 March 1899. Retrieved 23 July 2016 – via British Newspaper Archive.
- ^ Healy 1987, pp. 54–55.
- ^ Healy 1987, pp. 78–86.
- ^ Cook's Continental Time-Table, London, August 1939, pp. 90, 108.
- ^ Healy 1987, pp. 90–105.
- ^ "The Great Central", Trains Illustrated, London, February 1960, p. 68.
- ^ The Daily Telegraph, London, 28 September 1965; Quoted in: Buckman, J., "The Steyning Line and its closure", S.B. Publications, 2002, p. 7.
- ^ a b "Bid To Reopen Central Railway To Passengers". 10 August 2000.
- ^ "Aylesbury Vale Parkway fully open in June". The Bucks Herald. Aylesbury. 14 April 2009. Retrieved 12 May 2009.
- ^ "Autumn statement backs investment in east west rail". East West Rail Consortium. Archived from the original on 2 September 2013. Retrieved 30 January 2012.
- ^ "Aylesbury plans reviewed as East West Rail project phasing revised". Railway Gazette. 25 January 2021.
- ^ Martin Whitehead (1 October 2019). Network Rail (East West Rail Bicester to Bedford improvements) order 201[ ]; application for deemed planning permission; applications for listed building consent (PDF) (Report). Department for Transport (published 3 February 2020). p. 26. Retrieved 19 February 2020. (Inspector's report)
- ^ Calvert waste transfer station
- ^ Calvert Landfill Site
- ^ Main Line No. 11, published by Main Line Steam Trust Limited
- ISBN 978-0-948106-49-1.
- ^ Shannon, Paul (September 2014). "British Freight Today – Metals". The Railway Magazine. Vol. 161, no. 1362. p. 24.
- ISSN 0953-4563.
- ^ "Reinstating Great Central's bridge over the Midland Main Line". RailEngineer. 13 October 2017. Archived from the original on 7 January 2018.
- ^ "East West Rail link second phase plans submitted". BBC News. 27 July 2018. Retrieved 5 October 2018.
- ^ "Chiltern Railways Twitter Feed". 25 February 2013.
- ^ "The case for expanding the rail network" (PDF). February 2019. p. 42. Retrieved 22 April 2019.
- ^ "Resources". Central Railway Ltd. 2006. Archived from the original on 10 May 2010.
- ^ "Hansard 11 Jun 2002 : Column 185WH Central Railway". 11 June 2002.
- ^ Ross, Tim; Gilligan, Andrew (27 October 2013). "HS2: Labour to examine cheaper rival plan". The Sunday Telegraph. London.
- ^ Rail. No. 832. p. 37.
{{cite magazine}}
: Missing or empty|title=
(help) - ^ "Calls for Great Central reopening". Rail. Peterborough. 21 June 2017. Retrieved 11 August 2017 – via Press Reader.
- ^ Rail. No. 838. October 2017. p. 37.
{{cite magazine}}
: Missing or empty|title=
(help) - ^ "Bid to reopen Ruddington rail link to Loughborough and Leicester supported by MP". West Bridgford Wire. 8 March 2021.
- ^ "In full: The 85 abandoned rail schemes vying for restoration funding". New Civil Engineer. London. 16 March 2021.
- ^ "Campaigners back proposal to bring back Rugby – Leicester railway line that was axed during 1960s Beeching cuts". Rugby Advertiser. 15 March 2021.
Sources
- Dow, George (1962). Great Central. Vol. 2: Domination of Watkin, 1864–1899. Shepperton: OCLC 655514941.
- Healy, John (1987). Echoes of the Great Central. Greenwich Editions. ISBN 0-86288-076-9.
External links
- "The Last Main Line". Railway Archive. Transport Archive.