Tom Ingals, Great Central Railway

The talk at this month’s general meeting was by Tom Ingals on the subject of Reunification of the
Great Central Railway which will eventually form an 18-mile heritage railway line by connecting two
halves of the Great Central Railway, closed to passengers in the 1960s.
Tom, a volunteer for the project, gave a historical perspective of the railway, it having been laid
down in 1847 as a route from Nottingham to London. The Great Central Railway was created in
1897 with the line operational to London in 1899 eventually competing with the Midland main line
route from Sheffield. Following a series of ownership changes (LNER, BR Eastern, BR Midlands), the
line was closed after the Beeching cuts in 1963 considered it to be a duplicate of the Midland Main
Line. The last train ran in 1972 after which a section of track (500 metres) was removed for use
elsewhere and structures demolished. The remaining two separated sections of track became
separate heritage railways.
The reunification project involves the replacement of the 500 metres of track (the ‘Loughborough
Gap’) and several major restorations/reconstruction projects involving bridges over the A60, Railway
Terrace, the Midland Main Line, the Grand Union Canal and the construction of new embankment.
This will eventually form a single heritage rail line from Ruddington to Leicester with links to the
Midland Main Line restored.
Some of these projects are complete, others are still to be started. Fundraising occurs in stages as
each major project is started. The eventual cost is expected to be around £18M of which £15M is for
the reunification projects while £3M is reserved for rail infrastructure.
Tom’s fascinating presentation gave a lot of information on the background to the ambitious project
and detailed the major projects necessary. The whole project relies on extensive fundraising
activities from many sources particularly from the heritage services currently running and from
grants. A lot of progress has been made however there are still major hurdles ahead.