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[FANTASY] What if the Great Central hadn't closed?

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AndyW33

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actually, neither Loughborough station is/was well located with regard to the town centre and Leicester Central one was as bad as Sheffield Victoria

In Loughborough the whole town has grown significantly westward since the 3 stations (don't forget that the LNWR had a station in the town too) were built. It couldn't really expand east as the River Soar floodplain (and the operative word here is flood) was in the way. Loughborough Central is at least the nearest of the three to the Market Place.
 

HowardGWR

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I think the point of these interesting discussions is whether, had it not been totally closed and Marylebone not emasculated, would it be open today?

I think we can all agree on the answer to that. That goes for Matlock to Buxton and the East-West, does it not?
 

LNW-GW Joint

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I think the point of these interesting discussions is whether, had it not been totally closed and Marylebone not emasculated, would it be open today?
I think we can all agree on the answer to that. That goes for Matlock to Buxton and the East-West, does it not?

You mean it would have closed, sooner or later?
If not, another set of lines would have been closed instead.
There's no need for 3 lines between Leicester and Sheffield.
On balance, they closed the right line.
 

HowardGWR

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You mean it would have closed, sooner or later?
If not, another set of lines would have been closed instead.
There's no need for 3 lines between Leicester and Sheffield.
On balance, they closed the right line.
No I meant the opposite.
 

bangor-toad

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I think the point of these interesting discussions is whether, had it not been totally closed and Marylebone not emasculated, would it be open today?

I think we can all agree on the answer to that. That goes for Matlock to Buxton and the East-West, does it not?

Would what be open?
There would be one London - Leicester route, one Leicester to Nottingham route, one route north to Sheffield & one route Sheffield to Manchester.

If that had been the GC rather than the MML I don't see why that would have made any difference to Matlock - Buxton or the Varsity East - West link. Those were disposed of independently of which London terminus they used.

As I suggested before, if the GC had been retained I imagine that the Chitern developments of the last 15 odd years wouldn't have happened.

Anyway, looking at my suggested map it seems the MML gives better overall service so I'd suggest that the right devision was made (even though Nottingham would have done better with the GC...)

Cheers
Jason
 

edwin_m

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Hi there,
For a GC (South) to Midland (East) spur there's still the viaduct stub today. This could have been used and a few 100 yards of link built where the recent new buildings are could have been put into place to make the link. Here's a picture of the current stub showing the GC route before the tram and the chord going off to the left:

That's the one I was meaning - it used to go through London Road High Level then alongside the Midland route to Netherfield. It was closed by connecting the Grantham line onto the Midland line at Netherfield Junction - my "other way" would have combined both into the GN line instead, incidentally eliminating a couple of level crossings where the GN had bridges.

Hi there,
I suggested that the old goods sidings which were next to the A52 in Derby could have been used rather than the current alignment. Here's a old map showing them:

That was the original route from Derby towards London, kept until the 1960s as an avoiding line and also to allow Nottingham trains to enter/leave at the north end to avoid reversal.

This implies you would still be using the existing Nottingham-Derby line but there's no easy way to link that into Victoria. My suggestion would be to use the GN's Nottingham-Derby line that went from Victoria northwards then over Bennerley viaduct and through Ilkeston. This crossed the Midland a mile or so north of Derby station, and a new curve there would allow use of the existing Midland route to Birmingham as the GN onwards through Friargate could only get there via several low-speed curves.
 

Greybeard33

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That's the one I was meaning - it used to go through London Road High Level then alongside the Midland route to Netherfield. It was closed by connecting the Grantham line onto the Midland line at Netherfield Junction - my "other way" would have combined both into the GN line instead, incidentally eliminating a couple of level crossings where the GN had bridges.
I believe the Beeching II proposals, if implemented, would have left the GN line to Grantham as the only surviving route from Nottingham to London. Before the GC arrived, the GN Nottingham terminus was London Road Low Level, which was just to the east of the Midland station.
This implies you would still be using the existing Nottingham-Derby line but there's no easy way to link that into Victoria. My suggestion would be to use the GN's Nottingham-Derby line that went from Victoria northwards then over Bennerley viaduct and through Ilkeston.
In fact the original GN Nottingham-Derby line looped northwards from Netherfield through a long tunnel, turning back west through Daybrook. The construction of the chords to the GC at London Road High Level and Basford gave a much shorter route, although the original remained open as a freight line until the 1960s.
 
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I can never quite remember the name of the original company that built the Grantham line - something like Ambergate, Nottingham, Boston and Eastern junction railway but they ran into Midland station first before London Road opened. Famously the first train was 'impounded' by the Midland and was the courts that forced them to give it back. I doubt there is a delay attribution code for that..!
 

LNW-GW Joint

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This would have turned the clock back to before the construction of the Midland. The original GN Nottingham terminus was London Road Low Level, which was just to the east of the Midland station.

The route from Nottingham via Grantham to King's Cross was not opened until 1850, 10 years after the Midland (Counties) route via Rugby to Euston.
Even then it was via Sleaford until the direct route from Grantham to Peterborough was opened in 1852.
 

edwin_m

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Yes the Ambergate and Whatever was later than the Midland and initially joined it at Netherfield Junction just as the Grantham and Lincoln lines do today. It was only when the GNR ran its first through train from London that the Midland cut up rough and impounded it. That resulted in the building of the parallel GNR route from Netherfield to London Road Low Level, later replaced by London Road High Level when it was connected to Victoria. When Victoria was closed it was simply a matter of restoring the original connection at Netherfield.

Nottingham to Kings Cross is only a few minutes slower than St Pancras even today, if you get a decent connection at Grantham. I imagine a through service would slightly improve on today's timings via Leicester, and probably on a modern-day GC timing too. Though of course Nottingham would then have lost its rail links to Leicester and most other places, and we would today be bewailiing the lack of ECML capacity even more than we are already.
 

Mugby

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Nottingham to Grantham is a very antiquated line with a low overall speed. If it could be upgraded to some extent with better signalling and some crossings eliminated, I'm sure it would be a faster route from Nottingham to London than MML, if the capacity was available of course.

The old GN route from Nottingham to Derby has been largely eliminated as far as Bennerley Viaduct but westward from there quite a proportion is still in situ. A police station has been built on the site of Ilkeston station but from there much of the trackbed forms a bridleway cum nature trail as far as Breadsall. Entering Derby would require a few houses to be demolished but it's not insurmountable.
 

edwin_m

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A gov't planning inspector has just approved a housing estate somewhere west of Phoenix Park but only on condition space is left for an extension of the tramway to Kimberley - prompting a "Government approves tramway extension" story on the BBC.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-25651054

I presume if this happened it would use the part of the GN extension, at the very least the bridge under the M1.
 

tbtc

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Nottingham to Kings Cross is only a few minutes slower than St Pancras even today, if you get a decent connection at Grantham. I imagine a through service would slightly improve on today's timings via Leicester, and probably on a modern-day GC timing too. Though of course Nottingham would then have lost its rail links to Leicester and most other places, and we would today be bewailiing the lack of ECML capacity even more than we are already.

Hopefully this is the kind of service that we can have, post-HS2, when there's fewer paths between London and Grantham that are taken up with non-stopping services to Newcastle/ Edinburgh etc.
 

Kettledrum

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You mean it would have closed, sooner or later?
If not, another set of lines would have been closed instead.
There's no need for 3 lines between Leicester and Sheffield.
On balance, they closed the right line.

With the benefit of hindsight, I don't think they should have closed either the GC or the MML or the route from Nottingham through to Oakham. If they were still open today, these routes would be very well used.

The MML would be used for London to Derby to Sheffield
The GC would be used for London to Nottingham to Sheffield
There would also be much better opportunities for people to commute.

We do need for a fast route from Sheffield to Nottingham to London. That's why the HS2 is being built going from Meadowhall (Sheffield) to Toton (Nottingham) to London.

The East Midlands is missing out on economic benefits due to the poor connectivity for commuters from the outlying towns such as Oakham and Melton, and the whole of central Nottinghamshire, to the biggest economic centres in the region which are Nottingham and Sheffield - let alone the inability to commute from these areas to London - unless you live near Newark.

Years ago, it didn't matter, but with the collapse of the mining industry and the centralisation of big business in London, the South East, and to a lesser extent regional cities like Nottingham, it does matter that people can't easily travel these distances to do business.
 

infobleep

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If today's railway ideas were applied in the 1960s, would they still have closed the Great Central line? I suspect not. This is hypothetical of course.
 

james60059

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I know we have a thread about rebuilding/reopening the GC, but I can't find a fantasy thread one about if it NEVER closed

Taking part in a photo charter at the Great Central Railway earlier this week, myself and a couple of photographers started talking what would the Great Central be like IF it never closed and was still a mainline today. The points we came up with were:

  • Palisade fencing along the line.
  • Quorn/Rothley/Belgrave Stations possibly gone, the island platforms removed and lines realigned for fast running - it was easier reopening Syston/Sileby/Barrow in the 1980's, and of course they're in close proximity.
  • Electrification, possibly not the whole route but maybe London to say Brackley/Woodford Halse so you have electrified commuter services to London.
  • IC services Sheffield - London calling at Chesterfield, Nottingham Vic, Loughborough Central, Leicester Central, Rugby etc - Virgin probably running them in the privatisation era.
Of course, one thing you can be certain of, you would not have a tourist line that still runs steam trains and stations that are still prototypical of the halycon days of rail travel.

Anyone else have any input of the what-ifs??.

Cheers

James
 

Andrew Nelson

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I've read that the planned connection with the Continent would have relied upon through trains using what is now part of the Circle Line to access other lines towards the channel - so perhaps not as ambitious as is often thought!
Metropolitan actually.
 
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