£15m reunification plan announced to connect both Great Central Railways
A new special-purpose company has been jointly-established by the Great Central Railway PLC and Great Central Railway (Nottingham) to drive forward the long-held mutual ambition of reuniting their two railways to create a 17-mile, independently owned East Midlands main line.
The bold scheme has won the enthusiastic support of Loughborough MP Nicky Morgan, who said the GCR reunification project could “unlock significant economic and transport benefits” for Loughborough and the East Midlands. Reinstatement of the 500-metre ‘missing link’ at Loughborough, at a cost of up to £15m, will create a unique, privately-owned main line, connected to Network Rail and linking Nottingham with Leicester.
A reunited GCR could carry heavy main line freight throughout, as well as creating a greatly-enhanced heritage railway as a major tourist attraction for the East Midlands. GCR(N) already carries highly-valued regular heavy freight to the British Gypsum plasterboard plant at East Leake. The reunited GCR would be connected to Network Rail’s London & Continental Main Line at Loughborough, using GCRN’s existing junction. The enhanced GCR would be available to Britain’s rail industry for testing, trials and training.
In 2009, the 30-year ambition to ‘bridge the gap’ was the subject of a detailed £235,000 engineering feasibility and economic impact study, by internationally renowned consultants Atkins, jointly-funded by the East Midlands Development Agency and the Great Central Railway plc. The Atkins findings were published earlier this year.
Atkins not only firmly recommended reconnecting the two railways as the most important potential development for the GCR rail corridor (closed by British Railways as a through route in 1969) but also confirmed that it is both technically feasible and has a healthy Benefit-to-Cost ratio (BCR) of 2.8. This comfortably exceeds the minimum strict BCR of 2.0 normally demanded by the Treasury for national infrastructure projects pursued by Government. This requires that £2 in value is delivered for every £1 spent on a project.
GCR reunification is actively supported by a wide range of local authorities and regional tourism/economic development agencies. These include:
Charnwood Borough Council
Leicestershire County Council
East Midlands Development Agency
Prospect Leicestershire
Leicester Shire Promotions
Loughborough MP Nicky Morgan said: “GCR reunification is so much more than an enhancement to a heritage railway – that’s why this project is so important and deserves support. GCR reunification will create an independent, reconnected Great Central main line, linking two very important regional cities. This could unlock significant economic and transport benefits not only for Loughborough and the East Midands, but also for the wider UK plc, via the Network Rail connection.
Along with the planned associated centre of engineering skills excellence, there will be major benefits for training, apprenticeships and employment. I am fully in support of GCR reunification. I will be doing what I can to help.”
Directors of GCR Development Ltd are drawn from the boards of the two currently operational railways north and south of the 500-metre gap currently separating them. This ‘missing link’ is just south of Loughborough Midland station on Network Rail’s London & Continental Main Line, to St Pancras International. Chairman of the new Great Central Railway Development Ltd is national railway
journalist and 38-year heritage railway veteran Nigel Harris. His new board’s task is to make the vision of a renewed 17-mile GCR main line railway between Nottingham and Leicester, which is also connected to the national network, a reality.
Nigel said “We’re using talent from the boards of both existing railways in our new reunification company, supported by a hand-picked Advisory Group of rail industry, engineering, planning, legal, infrastructure and heritage experts. This is a major joint enterprise and will require the input of a whole range of stakeholders in partnership with the two GCR companies. “We are already pursuing a range of partnering, fund-raising and other support initiatives. After more than 30 years of very hard and successful work by our volunteers in creating two eight-mile operating railways, we believe the time has now come to reunite them, as our founders always intended. The Atkins economic impact and engineering feasibility study independently validates our long-held belief – that the 17-mile reunited GCR can bring major economic benefits to Loughborough, the wider East Midlands and indeed the national economy.
GCR reunification involves reconstructing 500 metres of infrastructure including a new bridge over Network Rail’s four-track main line at Loughborough. Limited preliminary work by an earlier GCR Link company, which investigated, safeguarded and drafted initial proposals, is now complete and has been dissolved. The Atkins study also examined a number of other options for further development of the former GCR main line between Nottingham and Leicester. These include the relocation of the locomotive sheds currently at Loughborough and future extension of the line north of Ruddington, to meet the proposed southern extension of the NET tramway, to Clifton.
30777 and 78019 on Loughborough shed. Picture: Jonathan Webb
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