Why such a Rush to Destroy this Railway? The Great Central Railway in Nottingham
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- Опубликовано: 20 апр 2024
- Why such a Rush to Destroy this Railway? The Great Central Railway in Nottingham
The Great Central Railway, closed since the 1960s. Whilst walking todays video it dawned on me...
Why was the government in such a rush to get rid of and bury this railway?
Unlike other lines, Midland, Great Northern that have many closed but accessable lengths still around, the GCR just seemed to get flattened, built on, Decimated immediatly!
In this video i walk a section from Linby in Nottinghamshire via Hucknall and onto Bulwell.
Sadly this route is all chopped up, in some instances entire embankments hava vanished!
Join me as i follow a section of the Great Central Railway Mainline in Nottingham
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#great #central #railway #nottingham #mainline #closed 
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Excellent video Ant!
The way the GCR was hastily closed, and the demolition of most of it's infrastructure was one of the most disgraceful episodes in British railway history.
Especially the demolition of Nottingham Victoria station.👍🙂
Thanks for watching Ian. It just struck me halfway through walking it how it was so quickly obliterated. Yet similar lines closed at the same time were left
Hi,
you are 100% correct, straightest and flattest line in the UK, Could be part of HS" at a fraction of the cost!1
Same happened to the Waverley route. Destroyed borders businesses at a stroke and the infrastructure destroyed mainly due to BR petulance. Now restored as far as Tweedbank, but Scottish Government lack of forward thinking delaying further extension to Hawick and beyond to Carlisle. They even tried to remove trackbed protection a short while ago!
I think a lot of it is the Central went through some very desirable property in the bigger towns and cities of the Midlands, and so developers were very keen to get their hands on it and the cash-strapped BR of the 1970s and 1980s was keen to sell it, partly to protect what was left of their network after Beeching.
The question you ask in the title is one that many have asked since the 1960s. At that time it was government policy to build motorways and rail was seen as the past. There was a mad rush to rip out the track so that the land could be reused as roads where possible and any metal was sent for scrap to offset the cost of running the remaining railways. So short sighted that it beggars belief. The GCR route duplicated other routes and apart from Nottingham and Leicester it did not serve any large cities. It is sad because it was built to a larger loading gauge than other lines often quoted as Continental gauge though it was built many years before Berne gauge was adopted in mainland Europe with the intent of it joining a channel tunnel and joining the French Nord line. The government of the day stopped the tunnel almost as soon as it was begun. Part of the original tunnel I am told to was used in the construction of the Channel Tunnel 100 years later and forms part of one of the emergency tunnels.
The continental loading gauge is a myth. Even if it was - that is not a reason to keep the line open given as you say it served fewer population centres. The government of the day was building motorways but in response to a huge increase in the number of private motor cars.
The London extension of the GCR was built to a loading gauge of 13ft 4in high and 9ft 3in wide and opened around 15 years before the Berne Gauge was adopted.
Are Sheffield, Manchester and especially London not large cities?
Are Sheffield, Manchester and especially London not large cities?
@@andrewlong6438 This is very much a political choice... The state decided roads were the priority, and let rail crumble and eventually close.
There is a bigger question of whether government should respond (cars are popular, let's build roads) or whether it should encourage behaviour... (Invest in rail, tax cars)
For me, we absolutely should have focused on rail. We still should. We have the money, National Highways spends most of our transport budget on roads.
HS2 is required for capacity, yet the GCR which could have handled that capacity was scrapped.
I know I am probably preaching to the converted, sorry. You almost certainly wouldn't be watching and commenting here if you weren't largely pro rail.
I have been saying this for decades they were on a mission almost to destroy anything GC related , this main line should have been HS2 ,look also at the woodhead line also GC ,plus dozens of other lines closed .Both the lines i mantion would today be perfect for freight to take the pressure from the ECML/WCML , i could go on but it would take a week to type lol
No. HS2 needs to be a straight as possible in order to do the job. The GC is just another twisty turny Victorian railway and wouldn’t have given any greater increase in speed compared to the other lines.
@@22pcirishnot true most of the gcr is the south was straight as a die
@@damiendye6623 True, but the infrastructure is over 100 years old and not really suitable for creating a 200mph HS line.
@@22pcirish while true it would have been quicker to fix up than building hs2 as is because there is a bridge near southam that just been pillars for 6 months and no progress on it at all. And the M42 M6 junction has only just had one HS2 bridge installed after 18months. It's going at a really unreasonable snails pace
@@damiendye6623 bridges are done as standalone projects on large infrastructure builds to lessen impact on that particular locality. The in between bits follow on. Old Oak Common and the masses of tunnelling take up the majority of time. But the GCR still wouldn’t be acceptable (it was looked at as part of HS2 and dumped). It relives the pressure on the WCML and (if built in full) would allow more paths for more trains. This won’t happen unless an incoming labour govt decide to reverse the axing of the most important bits!
Its such a shame there is hardly anything left of the GCR. All that graft by the navvies just to be bulldozed & ripped up in no time at all. Madhess what happened to our railways & infrastructure. 😢 thank Ant. 😊👍
I like how the stations were of a particular design, central and accessed from a bridge, and I believe wide enough to add another line per side. All that work by hand quickly bulldozed by machine without a thought.
Thanks for that, Ant. Yes I did enjoy that. I remember the old great central at Marylebone, black 5s. And being chased by a black 5 near harrow on the hill, whilst sitting in an A 60 underground train!
I’m a Lutterworth lad and always loved walking the GCR route from Lutterworth through Shawell to the A5 north of Newton near Rugby. I love stories of all disused lines but the GCR is my personal favourite. I had family who worked the line back in the day. Thanks for sharing this video. Great work 👍👍👍
Really enjoy seeing the old black and white photographs.
I'm quite surprised I got so many for this one. Thanks for watching ☺️
Great walk, thanks Ant, no land should be sold of for at least 50 years after lines closed, just in case. they are needed in the future.
I remember the GCR at Victoria, still amazes me that it was ripped out so disgustingly!
would have been far better for HS2 than the proposal of dropping people off in Toton.
Apart from the fact that the Great Central didn't go anywhere near Birmingham, and was squeezed into a tiny inconvenient terminus at Marylebone which would be impossible to expand? South of Aylesbury most GC trains also had to share tracks with the Metropolitan line of the Underground.
@@kevinfowkes2327 the other proposed leg would have had a line stretch north from st pancras to leeds. Only everyone here in the East Mids and especially in my Native Derbyshire was opposed from the start. Due to the fact it was a massive white elephant that wound benefit none of us.
Another very interesting walk Ant such a shame about the Great Central and the way it seems to have been almost totally removed from view in so many places.
Wow. someone that can actually pronounce Bulwell correctly. Well done! A day out for me as a locospotter in 1963 was to make my way to Nottingham and bunk Annesley, Kirkby - in - Ashfield,( where unusually they sound both "k's",) or Langwith junction sheds. The timetable on the Nottingham - Worksop route was such that I could perm any two from three. Memory fades with time but I can remember Linby with it's staggered platforms , the Great Northern station and level crossing to the right and the Great Central crossing on a bridge to the front.
Upon return to Nottingham I would visit Nottingham Midland Shed. An area that I don't think I would dare visit today.
In 2003 I took a 40 year anniversary sentimental journey along the re - opened Robin Hood line but I hardly recognized anything apart from Shirebrook West which had changed very little.
Upon closure of rail routes the government sold off the right of way piecemeal so that a railway could never return. They really did'nt like railways.
There's a fantastic old pic on there of my house in the 50s brilliant video as always Ant 👍🏽
Ha that's pretty cool. Thanks for watching ☺️
Great video Ant as always. It’s surprising that how well the GC was engineered there is so little of its remains left compared to other lost lines
Thanks Gary. It's so unbelievable really
the great reconnection is taking place which will be the most saved section of the GCR and it will connect the nottingham and leicester sections
Looking forward to it. Thanks for watching
Fascinating vid Ant , do love anything to do with the GCR , Luckily you are in a good area for for what was its biggest asset moving of coal from the many mines around that area . Almost all of which has almost been wiped from the landscape .
The cynic in me thinks the government were desperate to make sure the GCR could never be re-opened so sold off and obliterated large sections to ensure this was the case .
Thank you, you have evoked fond memories of an enthusiast railtour of some 30 years ago, which visited colliery sites in the area, plus High Marnham Power Station, before climbing over the hill via Clowne & Barlborough - exciting to see the fresh perspective from the route we weren't able to use. Subbed with bells on \m/
Love your videos. The aerial shots are beautiful. The Great Central Line is where HS2 should have been built. Sounds so obvious. even more so when you mentioned the GCR wanted to get to Paris.
Look forward to your next one.
Thank you for the walking tour this day. Always an interesting trek to be sure of. Enjoy the week ahead, and see you on the next. Cheers Ant! 🇬🇧🙂👍🇺🇸
Glad you enjoyed it Martin thank you
Hi Ant. A big thanks for this video. The GC has always been a big obsession for me ever since being bought Colin Walkers superb book Mainline Lament (highly recommended) I first made a visit to walk sections in 1982. I did Catesby Tunnel , viaduct and the site of Charwelton Station. Later I tried the area your video covers going to Annesley and surrounding lines. Since then I have visited many sections favourites being Finnmere and Helmdon. I hope you do more GC and I am so glad you did this its brilliant.
In 1971, I cycled along the bulldozer tracks of the newly removed GCR track through Catesby Tunnel to Charwelton, Woodford Halse, Helmdon, Brackley as far as Twyford (Buckinghamshire) where the operating Bicester to Bletchley line stopped me from going any further. I had to make a few diversions as one or two bits were already fenced off (or maybe some bridges had been removed, I'm not sure after 53 years!) but it was mostly along freshly track-removed sections. I remember the odd brick junction station complex at Woodford Halse as I had a picnic lunch on one of the platforms. One oddity just south of Brackley was an old (1950s boxy shaped) Bo-Bo diesel locomotive on a short piece of isolated track that had been turned into some sort of weather or air monitoring station.
A great video. I live nearby and have spent some time exploring the local railway lines on foot, bike and drone. At Linby the GNR and LMS station houses remain as does the retaining wall for the LMS platform north of the level crossing. Unusually its platforms were on opposite side of the road. The gap in the GCR embankment near Bulwell was orinally a bridge according to old maps. The GCR depot at Annesley is buried under a pit tip but nearby are some remains of a signal box and tunnel ventilation shaft.
I loved the GC, watching the Class 5s pass my school in Rickmansworth and using the line often up to Woodhead. I was on the last up special behind Elder Dempster Lines and will never forget it. I feel so weird when the tram follows the route from Wilford over the GC bridge and to Lace Mkt. I once did the GN connection from the Grantham line and the old GN station round the curve into Victoria. Father was a leicester man and I loved Central station too.
Great video,Ant....you've covered a section of the GCR I will get to.investigate, once I've satisfied my infatuation with the route South from the tunnel around Annesley towards Linby ( in progress, but not yet complete,lol).....I didn't realise how much you could still walk down!!
Very enjoyable and interesting video. It was a terrible mistake to close the Great Central railway and quickly destroy the infrastructure. Built as straight and level as possible to enable high speed running and with a vision that one day trains would go through a channel tunnel to France. If it still existed we wouldn't need to be spending billions of pounds on HS2....
Super video. I have always thought that this closure was the greatest mistake ever made by British Railways. A line without steep gradients or big curves, which at least should have been used for HS2. Made me sad when I visited Nottingham Victoria - now a shopping centre!
As far as I’m aware the GCR was ripped out as quickly as possible to make reinstatement deliberately more difficult out of spite. Beeching and Marples didn’t give a 💩 about it. If only they could’ve been cancelled!
It cost too much to keep open
@@ramblingrob4693 So does every railway. Just need to buck up and pay what’s needed.
Hello Ant, great video thankyou... enjoyed it!!
At least the GCR is being reinstated with Notts section, giving people a 18 mile heritage railway to enjoy old steam and diesel era 👍
The answer to your question is very simple. It's because the closure was one of many instigated by then transport minister Ernest Marples, so that people would have to buy cars to get around, and his family company Marples Ridgway could get the contract to build the new motorways needed to carry all these new cars. The speed and severity of the demolition, which cost a lot of taxpayers' money, was to make certain it would never be economic to put the railways back.
Of course Marples appointed Beeching as the fall guy, to do the dirty work in terms of carrying out a survey of profitability of various parts of the railway network, based on a narrow brief that took the data in the quietest week of the year, and precluded any consideration of reducing the horrendous over-manning and new, less costly technologies (eg DMUs instead of steam trains). The outcome, Beeching's "Reshaping of British Railways" that recommending pruning a third of the network, was a foregone conclusion but gave Marples' corrupt scam a veil of respectability. Marples ignored Beeching's other key recommendations, regarding heavy investment into trunk routes, because it didn't suit his purpose. (Beeching, incidentally, introduced a number of other good innovations, including containerisation).
Marples then did a "moonlight flit" to Monaco to avoid paying tax on his ill-gotten gains, leaving the nation with a crippled infrastructure whose inadequacy is now ever more acute. And it DID NOT reduce the losses incurred by the railway system!
The GCR was an obvious candidate for closure because it duplicated other busier routes from London to the North but served fewer intermediate stops. It was the HS2 of its day.
Possibly the biggest lost opportunity was not considering re-opening the GCR instead of building HS2, as so much of the GCR trackbed remains untouched. We are always told "HS2 is not about speed, it's about capacity" and the GCR would have suited that need. But capacity at Marylebone would have been a problem and it would have been seriously bad news for the GCR and GCR (N) heritage railways. Even so, overcoming those and other objections would probably have been cheaper than the challenges of HS2.
About 20 years ago a private company, Central Railway, wanted to reopen much of the GCR route for freight, but the NIMBYS stood in the way and the Labour government stopped it.
Marion
Not disputing that Marples was a bad 'un but Beeching's report was published in 1963 and Labour came into power in 1964. The GCR was closed in 1966 long after Marples' exit. In fact most of the closures took part under Labour.
@@thewriter6546 Yes, it's absolutely true that most of the closures took place under Labour, because of the time it took to enact Beeching. Marples set up the scam for his own benefit, and the Labour government did nothing to change the direction. I believe that was because they were simply taken in by the narrative that Marples had created that "road transport is the future, rail should be be run down"'. There were one or two areas where Labour didn't implement Beeching's recommendations, but by and large they swallowed the Marples kool-aid, and continued to be complicit with his scam. Labour awarded many contracts to Marples Ridgway for new motorways, so he continued to benefit long after he left office!
Marion
When campaigning for the '64 election Labour promised to pause and review the Beeching closures. They won. Guess what, they neither paused or reviewed the report. On the same campaign trail Harold Wilson stood in Pickering and claimed that if Labour were elected the York Pickering Whitby service would not be withdrawn. Guess what, it was withdrawn. That is when I learned to dislike politicians. ( I learned to hate them three years later when they forced closure of the best radio station there ever was or ever will be. Wonderful Big L.)
@@davidhartwell4826 Yes, that's par for the course. Labour, Tories, they're all the same - tell you what you want to hear so they get your vote, then once they're in they follow only what's good for them. Whoever you vote for, the government always gets in! Seriously I think the only politician who ever stood up for a railway was Michael Portillo, who stepped in and stopped the closure of the Settle to Carlisle. Why did he do that? Because he's a railway buff!
Marion XX
I love finding stretches of the old GCR to walk, my favourite, and a descent 17 miles is from Penistone to Hadfield. Dramatic and beautiful. Thanks for this video, I have walked that section many times and it is one of my favourites.
Loving your videos. Keep up the good work. 👍🏼 David - Brisbane 🇦🇺
Quality as always top man keep them coming always a great watch 👍👍
Welcome back to Nottingham, especially my home town of Hucknall. Great Vlog very interesting. Would welcome more around the area. maybe the GNR from Linby through Hucknall to Bestwood.
I was at school when the underground A Stock came out between Finchley Road and Harrow on the Hill it was a race track between the Marlabone Main line and the Metropolitan Line A Stock for years.
Fasanateing that one Ant l have done the hole length of the great central line on google earth and lots has been built on but as we all no there was lot of similar lines and the great central was a spare line really, thanks for sharing and these walks remain my favourite that you do. Big 👍
Good orientation, commentary and plan-work. Still amazing how vegetation obliterates so quickly.
As a schoolboy in the mid 1970s, our cross country route used to follow the cutting along the edge of Bulwell Forest golf course. This is south of the area your video covered. The railway used to run between St Alban's Road and the golf course. I remember a bridge in situ to allow us to cross the old railway from St Alban's Road to the golf course. This has long gone as I also remember houses being built in the early 80's and the cutting being filled in as part of the development.
Just like Leicester. I'm amazed Leciester Central Station building survived.
Thank You So Much For The Time And Research You Have Put Into This Video.
Thanks very much for your kind words 😊
Apart from that bit of ballast you found, there was nothing else left. Unlike your other video's where at least you would find a bit of track or some sleepers. Loved the archive footage and pics., All the best.
Yes the archive photos saved the day with this one. It's extraordinary it's pretty much untracable
Your a greatt historian Ant. Love your videos and the effort you put in to each episode. Alwwaays look forward to the next one.
Very kind thank you. It's no nice to do another near home
Another very enjoyable video - thank you again.
Thanks very much Steve ☺️
Such a shame that they destroyed this line and the biggest disappointment was when they knocked down the Bulwell viaduct as it was a iconic landmark, at least they left two parts of blue brick wall where it started and ended. Great video as usual Ant 👏👏👏👍
Another really interesting explore. So sad so much missing of the track bed. But the old photos were great helping us to see what used to be there. Excellent filming. Well done. Thank you Ant.
You can see the remains of the bridges at Bestwood Road, a bit of embankment at Arnold Road, a bit of wall at Valley Road
There's definitely more to do around there
@@TrekkingExploration There is a section of the GC by Bulwell Common golf course, complete with fence posts! It was a fascinating area near Basford North Station, where the back line intersected with the GC/GN via the infamous 'Rat Hole.'
As always interesting, in your videos, we see many examples of Deltic locomotives. In 1961 I saw the original test loco in the light blue livery with the arrow tyre design . I'm not sure where it is now it has moved several times
Ever since I got a copy of a Mac Hawkins book on the GCR I've loved past videos on the railway
It's a very interesting route. Thank you for watching 😊
There was a surprising lack of discussion at the time on how to save the railways, only on how to close and dismantle them. Only a few examples here and there happened as a result of local campaigns (which was the origin of several current heritage and metro lines).
They expected to be able to shut down the existing network we have now in time but, as ever with government policy, reality set in and we re-realised the importance of rail again in the past couple of decades.
Roads where never actually going to fully replace railways, as railways were already designed to bypass roads in the first place.
Improved road vehicles such as cars, replacing stagecoaches and donkey wagons, and replacing road infrastructure (motorways and tarmac road in over dirt tracks) only caused a brief rapid catchup and overtake of rail, then it would quickly reach it's capacity again (as Victorian engineers originally predicted when justifying the railways in their day). In the 50's and 60's Politicians in both parties exploited general misunderstanding of this for personal gain (such as road contracts to "mates" in the construction industry) and utilised the national media to reinforce the narrative apparently favourable to their pockets. This is how the public was "won over" on the idea of the railways being a thing of the past and needing to close.
However today, we actually need road and rail to compliment each other, rather than "compete".
I still feel like we still have someway to go before we have a government in place that will actually start repairing the infrastructure damage of the late 20th century, unfortunately.
"Road contracts to mates" - are you for real? The transport minister Ernest Marples took the contracts for his own family firm, Marples Ridgway - there were no mates involved. It was more brazen than you could describe. You might have thought they would at least have changed the name of the firm. But no, everywhere you went you saw boards up by new roads proudly proclaiming the builder's name, even whilst Marples was still in power! Nothing was hidden, the government and the entire nation saw what was going on in broad daylight, and nobody on any side of the political spectrum lifted a finger, they just gifted him our money. And he never even paid the tax on it, due to his moonlight flit to Monaco.
When Marples became Minister of Tansport he was required to sell his shares in MarplesRidgway to avoid conflict of interest. He sold the shares to his wife with the option to buy them back at the original selling price when he left office. He may not have got away with that today.
Many politicians are still anti - rail hence Sunaks decision to cancel HS2 and his statement that most people use cars. Perhaps less would do so if they had a decent reliable alternative. For all his faults Boris Johnson was more of a friend to rail. He supported HS2 and introduced a programme of rail restorations. I imagine after completion of the Ashington route in Nortumberland that programme will be quietly laid to rest.
Lovely walk. So very beautiful area. Really enjoying these walks and seeing the changes. Thanks for taking me along. Please take care
Hi I love your videos have you considered doing the walk from Calverton colliery along the track bed to Bulwell I believe there is a point lever frame still in at the best wood end of the line.
its a shame but as they say the train is almost a thing of the past and now they are going to electrify everything nice walk though the use of the photos of what it looked like back then is amazing well done
This was a case of making a video out of nothing. I'm glad I could bring it to life a little bit
Keep em coming Ant,excellent work
At least South of Nottingham, The Trackbed still exists, but is partly used by the Nottingham Tram Network & the GCR At RUDDINGTON.
I believe where this line went through Nottingham - there used to be Victoria Station - now knocked down & now is a Shopping Centre!!! @ 7:50 - If you look really closely on the Monsal Trail (Which Closed in 1968) you can also find bits of coal!!! 😊🚂🚂🚂
I used to work in Bulwell & used to have my lunch near Bulwell Halt . Also check out the remains of the viaduct on Hucknall Lane beside Naomi crescent. Also its a shame about the Rathole in Basford where the BT site is.
Im currently looking at maps around that area it would be nice to make something
Really great video. I grew up in Hucknall just up Wood Lane from the point where you asked was there a bridge. Yes there was, as a child i remember the railway being filled in and the stretch north from that bridge being sold to houses either side to extend gardens. Another bridge gone at Garden Road too. You asked about the missing embankments behind Annesley Road - they were all landscaped late 80’s early 90’s to create the country park it is now. Lovely to see Linby Colliery - my grandfather was manager there in the 60’s/70’s. I remember lots of the line was obliterated. A great memory is the old viaduct that went over the road near Morrisons in Bulwell and seeing that coming down was a massive piece of work to remove. Coincidentally later in life I lived further south at Whetstone on the GCR where lots has been lost too. Never understood the loss of this line really.
very local to me, enjoyed the video thanks
Thanks very much Ian
how many miles do you reckon you walk each year doing these videos? some great photos in this one.
It's a tough question... I think this was around 4 miles
I love this history but it's incredbly sad that it was all ripped up when clearly we really need it again. Marple's treachery lives on. I've had a proper thing for Nottingham Victoria, along with the Weekday Cross junction ever since I first saw a pic of 'Peak' D4 going into the tunnel to get to the station from the junction..
Thanks for sharing Tony. Good idea using tea for soil. Hope you used a old tea bag . No good waiting a good tea 😂 . Look forward to seeing your next video.👍😄
Excellent video Ant as always...
Very interesting mate, love any info on the GCR London extension.
I believe Nottingham Victoria station site was sold before the buildings were even demolished, I imagine as soon as the government recommended closure, BR were looking for buyers for the land that their infrasture was built on and the big businessmen were hastily pulling out their chequebooks.
The station site was certainly sold for less than its market value, and the same could be said for almost all railway land sold at the time. Nottingham City Council intended in 1964 to purchase the station site, even when there was still a fair amount of traffic, albeit reduced compared to, say, 1958-60.
Great vid, look forward to seeing you getting close to the Victoria centre. We used to run over the old Wilford Bridge for cross country when I was at Mundella Grammar down in the Meadows. I think the tram uses it now. Look forward to seeing it in future videos
Excellent. Thank you :)
Thanks very much Angela xx
Thanks Ant.
Thanks for watching ☺️
In the late nineteenth century, the citizens of Nottingham and its councillors complained that Nottingham lacked a centrally sited station, so they were all in favour of Victoria being built. It also led to the clearance of several slums. There were great ceremonies when Victoria opened. Who could have believed that the station would only last 68 years, and would be in decline for about a third of them. Referring to another comment about pubs being for either LNER or LMS enginemen, another clash occurred in 1966 when Colwick shed was transferred from the Eastern to the London Midland Region and its loco stock was replaced by (mostly) Stanier 8Fs. Enginemen were not pleased by this move; at the time there would have been many former LNER employees. I presume something similar occurred a few years earlier when Annesley was likewise transferred.
Very short sighted. Contrast this to Ireland, where there are a lot of disused lines with the track and infrastructure still in place.
Would love to know where Bagthorpe junction was ?
Great video, most enjoyable thanks
One of the big defects with the Beeching Report is that it made reference to "what" should be closed but was totally silent on "how" such assets should be closed. Contrast with France where owing to Napoleonic Decennial Law, any line that is closed has to remain intact and mothballed for a 10-year period before any work to dismantle is carried out. Over here, with no such regulation on place or any agreed strategy implemented, then in many instances (SDJR as well as the GCR) there was an unholy rush to dismantle in such a fashion that they would be placed beyond being re-opened. Whatever the cost of dismantling (levelling embankments or infilling cuttings for example), it would be a tenth of reinstatement. To my mind, the action taken over the GCR closure in 1966-69 represents one of the biggest squandering's of a publicly owned asset.
Another cracking video Ant! That cut out section in Bulwell Hall park was once a farm access bridge but in classic GCR style it was completely removed and left like you saw, although it's been cleared recently on the banks!
The post that you found just after I've done a bit of research on myself as it's got feet markings on from 1 to 4 and it coincides with a marker point on the historic maps - other than that I've not been able to find anything about it sadly!
An excellent video Ant.
You asked for ideas for future explores:
The Green Line in West Bridgford. The GCR through Leicester. When you're next in Norfolk the railways around Fakenham and over in Suffolk the former narrow gauge line from Halesworth to Southwold
The animosity between the 'Midland' men and the Central crews in Nottingham was present. There were certain pubs, even in the late '60's and early 70's that the rivals wouldn't enter.
The Midland had a commanding authority on the BR board and couldn't wait to close the GC down. It was, of course a railway that duplicated other company routes from Leicester northwards and was an easy target for the Beeching mentality. Put on old locos, make the timetable inconvenient and make a case for high maintenance costs by a lot of inefficient trackwork.
A few years back, you would have been able to walk almost most of the Great Central line from Grendon Underwood Junction to Ashendon Junction, where the Great Central met the Great Western. But now a lot of line has a access road on it. I may be wrong, but you can walk most of the Great Central from Charwelton to Culworth Junction and Culworth Junction to Banbury Junction. Till a few years ago, you could walk from Calvert on the Great Central to near Finmere or near Brackley if you got permission from the Heritage Railway people at Finmere to walk through the Finmere station area. You may be able to walk most of the Great Central from somewhere just north of Catsby tunnel to wards where the line meets the M1 motorway. You maybe able to walk the line south from Culworth Junction to a bit north of Brackley, but when you get close to Culworth Station, you will have to go around it as its used as a farm now. The bridge at Helmdon is filled in so you have to follow a unofficial path to the road and walk up the bridge filled in bridge or just climb the bank to the road and climb over the fence by bridge and go down the bank to the track bed. Helmdon Station still has its island platform.
Maybe you should read the 'Great Rest' by K Schwab
I heard a rumour that Nottingham City were encouraged to remove the GCR viaducts through Nottingham with an 'offer' of new buses.
A great vid Ant, thankyou. Was there another viaduct further on from the Halt? Where the leisure centre is at the junction of the A6002 and Hucknal lane? I recall another vid of the GC into Nottingham, but not the area where you were. Cheers, Gary
One reason was Beaching could see big money for himself in road construction.
Thank you for the video Ant👍
Thanks very much for watching 😁
My understanding was that it was railway management "politics" that were responsible for the demise of the GCR route in the 1960's. The same "politics" and methods that led to the closure of the Southern Railway routes in Devon and North Cornwall, following their transfer to the Western Region and the demise of the Somerset & Dorset Railway route across south west England.
The GCR became a constituent company of the London North Eastern Railway at the grouping in 1923 and passed to the Eastern Region of British Railways on Nationalisation in 1948. The geographical re-organisation in the mid 1950's saw management of the the GCR route pass form the Eastern Region to the London Midland Region. The new management wasted no time in withdrawing the fast through services between Sheffield and London running the whole route down by using slow and inconvenient train timings to discourage use.
Ironically, if the GCR route had survived, we as a nation would not now be needing to spend billions in tax payers money to fund the construction of HS2!
It's a shame all those old lines were destroyed as in today's environment they would have been a big asset.
Er ... the Tory Minister for Transport was hier to a fortune based on road building; go figure
Ok
Yep Check out Ernest Marples. The root of the problem. His bio on wiki is very interesting reading.
Except you forget to understand that the old GCR was closed by a Labour government in 1966 and 1969!
So you think that politicians always operate for the greater good, do you? That's really interesting.
A question I've been pondering for as long as I've known about the GCML, which is shamefully not very long, as no-one I knew, even those old enough to have probably travelled on it, ever mentioned it. The more I learn of Marples, Beeching, and the road lobby, and now in a comment below, seeing there was a chance to reopen under a company called Central Railway and private monies, but was turned down twice by then Labour govt...fast forward to the unholy HS2 mess we have now. Always it's all down to how MPs and lobbyists can line their pockets, while destroying as much as they can. The names and dates change but the same crap happens over and over. Well made video as always, which left me sad and angry allover again, at the loss of this superbly engineered line, and the wanton vandalism of stunning structures, and our industrial heritage. If only it had been mothballed for future reuse...
For more info on 1980's plan to reopen the GC as a freight route seach Wikipedia for Great Central(UK)
@@davidhartwell4826 Thanks David, I came across that yesterday after a Google.
Brilliant I enjoyed that thanks
Thanks very much indeed 😃
The Railway mania meant that lines were built that had no future. Beeching also had an interest in building motorways.
The G CR did have a future, it should have become the high speed link to Europe as was originally intended by Mr Watkin, unfortunately the politicians where and still are so shortsighted they can't see beyond the next election, railways have always been a long term plan that requires a bit of vision to the future, we have lost that skill along with others to countries who now build and sell their products to this country and we are daft enough to pay for it.
It was Marples (through a Civil Engineering Company he originally set up, Marples Ridgeway) who had the vested interest in Motorway Construction. By the time the closures started in earnest, Beeching had completed his 5-year Secondment with BR and had returned to ICI.
After the viaduct the line went to Bulwell Common then down to Basford.
Definitely a few bits to go back for in the area
Great vid ❤
Government of all parties,has always displayed a complete lack of joined up thinking on just about everything they touch. Incompetence on a grand scale.
Slightly unusual for a colliery to have a working life beyond 100 years, most of them them 'run out of coal' (they become uneconomical around 90-100 yrs). Obvs, they never actually run out of coal, just becomes too expensive to mine. 👍
This line was destroyed for the same reason the Somerset and Dorset and so many others were. Government policy and in particular the transport minister from 1959 to 1964 was for roads, roads and ever more roads.
Not sure if anyones said but the few concrete posts you’ve found could have been for gradient boards
It might not be a welcome viewpoint, but a lot of enthusiasts do gloss over the fact that the GCR was a later attempt to steal passengers from the existing main line railways into London. In Rugby, Leicester, Loughborough and Nottingham it was almost isolated from other companies and as such of no use to being used for connections and diversions. This made it much easier for a duplicate closure argument to be made by Beeching because six decades later the MML is still not operating to capacity. By the 1970s the remaining lines were perfectly sufficient for remaining coal traffic towards London. Personally I would have liked to see the GCR remain as a downgraded secondary route from Calvert northwards to the outskirts of Leicester, but had it done so I suspect the route would only justify an hourly Marylebone to Leicester 3-car DMU.
In the last years GC enginemen used to work the Royal Scot class locos in a brisk manner in the hope of competing with the then new diesels. But the decision to shut and rip out the GC had already been made so it was all in vain. The Royal Scot locos weren't long for the GC and neither were the diesels.
Sadly, the Royal Scots were rather run down by then. They were mostly based at Annesley, which had very few passenger workings, and possibly none till 1960. Its engines were almost always extremely scruffy, which did nothing to improve the image of the GC once the London Midland Region had control of the line. Whatever has been said before, the GC was breaking even as long as the Eastern Region managed it, which it did until early 1958. It was not entirely a duplicate main line; it was the only North to South railway through Aylesbury. On a journey from London to Sheffield, the GC served both Leicester and Nottingham; the Midland served one or the other, but not both. Other towns now railless since the closure of the GC have expanded since 1966, and could do with a railway. One final point; British Rail have to maintain the three tunnels at Nottingham, and possibly others as well.
i think its all down to beechings boss who was anti railways and some rumours i heard suggest she was a paid off politician some up and coming car companies but in my opinion GCR was heavily destroyed out of pure malice, greed and potentially corruption. also another rumour i heard suggests Beeching opposed the closure of the GCR and actively opposed it but was overruled by his boss.
Ant, who was worse for the railroads; Ernest Marples or Dr. Richard Beeching?
Richard was the Ax Man, but Ernest was quite the tax cheat.
If sectorization had happened in the 1950s instead of the 1980s, I don't think they'd gotten remotely close to closing down the Central. It was entirely the politics of the uncalled for transfer from Eastern Region to London Midland.
Instead of wasting all that money on HS2 ,money could have been spent on existing railways to bring them up to date.Beeching had a lot to answer for now we have clogged up roads,especially here in Norfolk around kings Lynn,we did have two stations a thriving docks terminus not now.
Thet could have used quite a lot of this infastructure for the dreaded HS2 instead of ripping up the countryside!
The great central railway was staved of investment deliberately by the London midland railway,they let go the stations and the tracks,it was a major railway direct routes,it was a scandal, it had bigger bridges ready made for the channel tunnel,it was nothing to do with the government,at the time,I live in Rugby Warwickshire and we have some nice bridges and a nice walk along the old track bed
The top management were all ex LMS and there was no way they would do anything to jeopardise "their" route. The Great Central (and let's not forget the route did have major issues with population density south of Leicester) was always going to be the preferred option for closure.
Why, because the motor car was the new freedom for everyone not just the rich, because corrupt Civil Servants accepted free - (often overseas), holidays, new cars, etc. Because a certain Minister of Transport saw an opportunity to 'invest' in motorways through an undeclared interest in the proposal. Plus a million and one other rrasons.
I understand all that my question was why were they so quick to rip it up and build on it, destroy it so quickly compared to other closed lines not why it was closed
Easy to blame Labour for everything with the closure of the railways but the Tories have been in government for more years and have hardly done a better job of encouraging the use of trains and dont expect any other party to be pro railway either.