GCR Bridge Project

[torten]

Very nice pictures. It will be nice to see an interconnected Great Central Railway in a year or so time.

What the initial plans for operation? Obviously, you will have the reopening train up to Ruddington, but given
a)The fact the line can't be used weekdays
b)The fact it is single track and has less infrastructure
Will the Great Central continue to operate as two Railways for the next 2-3 years?

 

[Monty]

Very nice pictures. It will be nice to see an interconnected Great Central Railway in a year or so time.

What the initial plans for operation? Obviously, you will have the reopening train up to Ruddington, but given
a)The fact the line can't be used weekdays
b)The fact it is single track and has less infrastructure
Will the Great Central continue to operate as two Railways for the next 2-3 years?

The GCR(N) section is going to need massive amounts of work doing to it if it's to ever be brought up to the same standard as the GCR (Leicester), there's only one station ircc (and it's no more than a halt) and virtually no signalling. I'd argue it's a bigger task than the bridge.

 

[kevjs]

there's only one station ircc (and it's no more than a halt)

There are two - Rushcliffe Halt (original GCR Island Platform) at East Leake and Ruddington Fields.

Aside from Ruddington and East Leake there's nowt but fields north of Loughbourgh for the 16km it runs...

 

[Ploughman]

Any more work on the bridge last night?

 

[nottsnurse]

Doesn't the layout of the GCR(N) make is a little impratical to run through services from Loughborough and beyond?

It's a shame the GCR(N) doesn't have a station at the old Ruddington Station site, rather than having to negotiate that curve back into Ruddington Fields.

 

[duffield]

It's a shame the GCR(N) doesn't have a station at the old Ruddington Station site, rather than having to negotiate that curve back into Ruddington Fields.

I've seen plans to extend north and build a new station near Ruddington Lane tram stop (with a slight diversion from the original trackbed to avoid the Site of Special Scientific Interest)

 

[theageofthetra]

The GCR(N) section is going to need massive amounts of work doing to it if it's to ever be brought up to the same standard as the GCR (Leicester), there's only one station ircc (and it's no more than a halt) and virtually no signalling. I'd argue it's a bigger task than the bridge.

Why can't it be used on weekdays

 

[43096]

Why can't it be used on weekdays

I assume it is a reference to the gypsum traffic to Hotchley Hill.

 

[Mogulb]

Work will resume on the bridge itself on the 23/24 Sept and the three following weekends to install the crossbeams and decking. This is only possible with full line possessions.

 

[Flying Phil]

Well I returned from holiday and caught up with the posts on here. There has been a great coverage of the GC Bridge - many thanks to all the posters for keeping it up to date.
Needless to say I have been over to see the two beams in place and they look stunning. The GC reunification is now truly "future - proofed".

There were only a couple of workers on the North site and no sign of the decking sections - presumably they will only need a smaller crane to get them in position later this month?
As was discussed earlier in this thread, the "Gap Project" may well have a bit of a hiatus once the bridge is finished and blue bricks built round the abutments. The next priority for the GC must be getting the "Main Line" museum built at Leicester North as that will have lottery funding time constraints.

 

[Flying Phil]

On a visit to the bridge site this morning there was no sign of workers, bridge decking or a crane. A couple of mobile lighting units had been moved but that was all - so not sure if there will be any work done overnight as expected?

 

[Mogulb]

Crane and first steelwork on site late Saturday night.

 

[Flying Phil]

Following Mogulb's report I had to go along and have a look at the bridge site today. There are four bridge decking sections visible on the ground. They seem to be about 5m long so they would span half the bridge (37m). I suspect the crane was to unload them from the transporting lorry?
There were three men working on site so I assume the remaining four sections are due soon, then they will need craning over the MML and putting between the two bridge beams during another overnight possession.

 

[XDM]

Following Mogulb's report I had to go along and have a look at the bridge site today. There are four bridge decking sections visible on the ground. They seem to be about 5m long so they would span half the bridge (37m). I suspect the crane was to unload them from the transporting lorry?
There were three men working on site so I assume the remaining four sections are due soon, then they will need craning over the MML and putting between the two bridge beams during another overnight possession.

Thanks for watching the progress. It appears no work was done this weekend. Was there a weekend overnight possession for this non work? I hope not.

 

[AndyW33]

There are two - Rushcliffe Halt (original GCR Island Platform) at East Leake and Ruddington Fields.

Aside from Ruddington and East Leake there's nowt but fields north of Loughbourgh for the 16km it runs...

Rushcliffe Halt is not an original GCR island platform but a later (still GCR) side platform design.
The remains of a genuine island platform do exist at East Leake (a completely separate station from Rushcliffe Halt, both were used up to the 1960s), but the buildings have disappeared, The access was by stairs leading up from the middle of an underbridge and the goods yard has been filled with a modern housing development. This has also had the effect of making the road using the underbridge much busier than when the station was open, so reopening the station would require several problems to be overcome first

 

[Pinza-C55]

Rushcliffe Halt is not an original GCR island platform but a later (still GCR) side platform design.
The remains of a genuine island platform do exist at East Leake (a completely separate station from Rushcliffe Halt, both were used up to the 1960s), but the buildings have disappeared, The access was by stairs leading up from the middle of an underbridge and the goods yard has been filled with a modern housing development. This has also had the effect of making the road using the underbridge much busier than when the station was open, so reopening the station would require several problems to be overcome first

Do the GCR have any tentative plans to reopen East Leake ? I was just looking at it on Google Earth and it would be nice to see that bricked entrance opened up !
Also I am curious as to why the abutments seem to be wide enough for a extra track either side. Was this in case of future quadrupling of the line ?

 

[L+Y]

Also I am curious as to why the abutments seem to be wide enough for a extra track either side. Was this in case of future quadrupling of the line ?

I believe so. Quite a few of the London extension stations had goods loops either side of the station platforms too, so the whole route had a degree of "passive provision" (to use the modern phrase!) for hypothetical quadrupling.

 

[nottsnurse]

Hasn't there been opposition from residents who live in Rope Walk, East Leake to reopening the station?

 

[AndyW33]

Hasn't there been opposition from residents who live in Rope Walk, East Leake to reopening the station?

Sure has, and the staircase leading directly down onto a now-busy but narrow road has been called a potential deathtrap by opponents of reopening. More to the point, this station has remained closed since 1969 and so has no grandfather rights in terms of complying with access for the disabled regulations. I can't think of any way access could be contrived, can someone else?

 

[pmh_74]

I can. Sign at the foot of the stairs saying "ring this number for an accessible taxi to Rushcliffe Halt".


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[mushroomchow]

Sure has, and the staircase leading directly down onto a now-busy but narrow road has been called a potential deathtrap by opponents of reopening. More to the point, this station has remained closed since 1969 and so has no grandfather rights in terms of complying with access for the disabled regulations. I can't think of any way access could be contrived, can someone else?

Plenty of loopholes, not least since, as a heritage station, it could be treated as a "request stop", which I believe would exempt it from access regulations. There isn't really a precedent on the national network to go by in that respect, but I think it is then treated in the same manner as a tram hail stop, which is exempt from current regulations. There's also the point to be made that, as the rolling stock serving the station pre-dates the cut off point for RVAR regulations, the station could be treated as such so long as they accept that it will never be reopened to network passenger traffic. And while pmh_74 may have been tongue-in-cheek in his reply, a taxi service is also a genuine option. The requirement of access legislation is to allow all passengers to be able to board a train if they so wish. They don't necessarily have to catch it at the station they first arrive at, so long as the railway company fulfils their duty to get them on-board somewhere along the line. It happens regularly at Sileby and Barrow on the Ivanhoe Line, for example, with passengers being dropped off at Syston and Loughborough respectively.

As for the road being a "death trap", I don't see the residents of Rothley and Quorn complaining, given that both of their well-used staircase entrances back onto far busier roads and there has never (to my knowledge) been an incident. The closest you get is idiot gricers running across the road to cop a photo of locos arriving or leaving, but even that wouldn't be an issue with an entrance up rather than down to platform level.

It baffles the mind that there would be local opposition to a heritage asset in East Leake, though the place did always strike me as being a bit League of Gentlemen! :roll: Then again, I'm sure that if you asked the community as a whole they would be overwhelmingly in favour of a railway station.

There's more hope for the station reopening than many on here think.

 

[pmh_74]

It was slightly tongue-in-cheek but only slightly; it was also a genuinely viable suggestion. E.L. has far more people living within a 15 minute walk of the station than most of the other stations on the line, and I believe the restrictions currently in the T&WAO were put in to placate about 3 people, and this was many years ago now so who knows if they're even still there. It's not a priority in my opinion but never say never.

Having grown up there I know the place pretty well and I think E.L. station would be a great community asset. It's a great shame that the station yard got built on, maybe if the GCRN had got started 5 years earlier this might not have happened.


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[AndyW33]

From a heritage point of view, East Leake is the last surviving GCR London Extension island platform with access from an underbridge. The actual station buildings had most features in common with Quorn or Rothley, so replicas wouldn't be that difficult to design, even if the original plans don't survive, which they may do. I'd personally love to see it available for trains to call, and it could provide a useful loop in an otherwise single track section.

The opponents view on the stairs is that children may run down the stairs and out into the road, and there's not really enough width under the bridge to install barriers to stop this. Of course the road could be reduced to single lane with traffic lights, and then there would be plenty of room, but that wouldn't suit the complaining residents at all. To be fair, the risk of children running up a long flight of stairs as at Quorn or Rothley is obviously much lower than of them running down.

 

[Flying Phil]

So the situation at East Leake is similar to the mooted - but never built, island station at Swithland?
If children running downstairs is the problem, could the stairway not have two "alternating" barriers at the bottom to prevent a direct run down?

 

[Pinza-C55]

Sure has, and the staircase leading directly down onto a now-busy but narrow road has been called a potential deathtrap by opponents of reopening. More to the point, this station has remained closed since 1969 and so has no grandfather rights in terms of complying with access for the disabled regulations. I can't think of any way access could be contrived, can someone else?

I suppose opponents would do that ?

I only know bits of stuff that I have picked up over the years about grandfather rights but my understanding of it as it relates to platforms for instance is that even if a station is closed and the platform remains intact it can be reused without complying with modern regulations such as a suicide pit ?

 

[pmh_74]

Station Road / West Leake Road is neither as busy nor as narrow as the above quote would have you believe. It's not even important enough to be a B road, and it is wide enough for a car to pass a bus comfortably. Nevertheless the pavement is narrow and would need thinking about.

Pointless train of thought at this time though, the T&WAO prevents it from re-opening without government intervention and the GCR has easily 20 years of development to do just to get the northern section up to any sort of capacity to match the south.


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[mushroomchow]

I would also suggest that the residents claiming the road is "busy" are, for want of a better word, talking out of their arses. I've worked in traffic planning in recent times, and by county standards it's a backwater. Frankly, I don't think I've ever seen a more blatantly wrong claim of a route being "busy" in my life, and we had it a lot from "concerned residents" demanding bypasses and the like despite having no figures to back their pipedreams up. It's NIMBYism at its finest and most ridiculous.

It's not a busy route at all. Even Loughborough Central probably sees more traffic, and that's on a back-street to nowhere in particular.

The cynic in me would also suggest that the geriatric sods making spurious safety complaints won't live to see the station reopened in 10-20 years' time, and that will have nothing to do with the supposedly dangerous road they live beside. :roll:

The only real issue is parking, but that's a bridge to cross when we come to it. There's a possibility of buying some of the land adjacent to the houses south of the bridge, or otherwise the field at the north side of Birch Lea may be a potential site (though at current rates, it will probably have been built on by the time the GCR get around to feasibility work on reopening.)

Nottinghamshire County Council have been supportive of the GCRN and reunification project in the past and will no doubt continue to be so. I'm sure that, provided the funds were raised externally, they would be happy to organise the remodelling of the road below the bridge. The traffic volumes would mean that traffic lights and footpath widening would not be an issue in terms of journey delays, and similarly I don't believe there's enough footfall down there at present to threaten derailing the project on safety grounds anyway. Pun intended.

In fact, so low are the traffic volumes that I'm not convinced traffic lights would even be necessary - a priority system would work just fine with a single carriageway, with precedent for traffic heading into the town to minimise traffic disruption.

Also worth noting the small curb on the opposite side of the road, which could definitely be removed to increase carriageway width by another foot or so. It serves zero purpose.

EDIT - Should point out that the TWA Order process does not specifically force concessions to disabled access. If anything, it would give the railway the powers needed to alter the road layout accordingly subject to public consultation, which as I think I've pointed out would never find in the favour of the handful of old NIMBYs opposed to the reopening. The legislation is available to read here - it hasn't changed in the 4 years since this guidance was published.

 

[Flying Phil]

I was at Loughborough this morning and there was no change at the bridge site - still only the four decking sections and no other work apparent on the abutments/spans.

 

[Cowley]

Thanks for the updates Phil and All.
I was thinking about starting a thread on future plans for the reunified 'Greater Great Central' a while back but much of it has been covered here recently.

 

[Flying Phil]

Thanks for the updates Phil and All.
I was thinking about starting a thread on future plans for the reunified 'Greater Great Central' a while back but much of it has been covered here recently.

I see the older thread on the GCR Museum has been "Closed" so a more general thread on the GGC might well be appropriate and keep the Bridge thread for the bridge and gap infrastructure?