gordonthemoron
Established Member
but reasonably handy for de Montford Hall and Leicester Uni
actually, neither Loughborough station is/was well located with regard to the town centre and Leicester Central one was as bad as Sheffield Victoria
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?
No I meant the opposite.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.
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?
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:
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:
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.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.
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.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 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.
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.
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.
Metropolitan actually.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!