GCR Bridge Project

[mushroomchow]

Do the above plans mean no future use for the old Workington shed then I guess?
I suppose this is the cheaper option at the moment.
Where are the parts for Workington shed nowadays?

The Workington shed is sitting in pieces in a warehouse somewhere. There may be scope to incorporate the brickwork into the extended shed - the plans include a frontispiece to the existing entrance that bears notable similarities to it. However, the plans for a shed elsewhere are dead in the water - the GCR note increasingly stringent planning laws and environmental constraints as the main barrier. The "existing use" loophole lets them continue to use the current shed while expanding it.

I think the shed and loco dept generally, already in a pretty constrained site, will struggle to function effectively with even more constraints on its operation - no car parking (and very limited parking on surrounding streets!), limited access for deliveries (presumably by a key-locked level crossing leading straight onto the shed front 'apron'), loss of storage space - let alone expand the engineering function to take advantage of the main line connection. It's positive to see the benefit recognised of extending the double track as far north as possible though!

The plans include a 40+ space car park with access from Holbein Close, which will replace the existing access and sit north of the extended shed with no need to cross running lines. If anything, it will make the site more accessible.

 

[Flying Phil]

You are quite right Andy about the amount of "Junk" around the shed - and there are signs that it is being slowly cleared - but again that is a very low cost way of making visible progress on the project - which is so important to maintain interest/publicity/funding (Says he, yet again "banging on!"). .....or is that speculating?

 

[Tomnick]

The Workington shed is sitting in pieces in a warehouse somewhere. There may be scope to incorporate the brickwork into the extended shed - the plans include a frontispiece to the existing entrance that bears notable similarities to it. However, the plans for a shed elsewhere are dead in the water - the GCR note increasingly stringent planning laws and environmental constraints as the main barrier. The "existing use" loophole lets them continue to use the current shed while expanding it.

Workington shed was little more than scrap when it arrived at the GCR (it wasn't dismantled in a sympathetic manner!), and has been exposed to the elements since.

The plans include a 40+ space car park with access from Holbein Close, which will replace the existing access and sit north of the extended shed with no need to cross running lines. If anything, it will make the site more accessible.

Thanks, that's the bit that I'd missed. Is it proposed to use this route for deliveries too?

 

[AndyY1951]

I hope that is acceptable to the inhabitants of Holbein Close and not just a pipedream!
Looking at Google Earth, it looks as though there is residential property between Holbein Close and the GCR boundary, with no access unless the railway can buy the properties at the end of the road. Also the house-owners might not be happy with their cul-de-sac becoming somewhat busier!

 

[Flying Phil]

Looking at the Main Line article, it looks to be a level crossing across the running lines in front of the shed and a road alongside the Eastern wall of the shed, leading to car parking at the North end of the shed. The railway is on an embankment there, so access from Holbien Close would involve a steep ramp.

 

[Flying Phil]

I popped along to L'bro today and the two container/offices/stores on the North abutment site have been removed so presumably the contractors(MPB) have finished. However there is still scaffolding up around the North abutment and the East side top railing is not yet in place. There has been no work on moving the spoil pile.

 

[Kell G Nielsen]

Hello,
I´m Danish, living in Aarhus In Jutland.
Many years ago I worked in London and fell in love with the special atmosphere of railway travel in Britain which felt so typically English in the good way.
During spring and summer of 1966 I often went to Marylebone Station to get a train (a green DMU) to go and visit friends.
Little did I realize, what would be happening in a very near future to trains with black steam locos with maroon coaches, which I saw coming into or going out of Marylebone to distant places like Leicester and Nottingham.
The reason was that I knew almost nothing about British railway history.
That changed over the years, where I learned that I would never be able to go from Marylebone to either Leicester Central or
Nottingham Victoria. Very sad.
For along the way The Great Central became a favorite of mine.
I have therefor followed with interest the work and enthusiasm to bring back to life as much as possible of that incredible atmosphere
of the yesteryear railway I knew.
As a member of Friends of The GCR I get Mainline magazine and I go to the GCR homepage to get the latest news on particularly the reinstatement of the missing link between the two halves of GCR lines in Loughborough. The latest news on the homepage on the
Midland Mainline Bridge is from late november.
I really wanted some more recent news!
And this is where this forum comes in.
A huge thank you to everybody here, for giving me the opportunity to se, where almost day by day the building process has come to,
and all the interesting reading on how many of the problems with engine shed and running lines north of Loughborough Central to connect the two lines can be solved taking into consideration always to keep progress ongoing to keep interest and donations coming in.
Cheers
Kell

 

[AndyY1951]

Hello Kell, welcome!
There are also a number of Facebook Groups which will give you up-to-date news, just search for Great Central Railway.
Andy

 

[Kell G Nielsen]

Thanks Andy, I´ll do that

 

[martinr1]

Hi Kell

I was a traveller from Marylebone in those far off days as I worked at St. Pancras and went home most weekends to Borrowash (near Derby) requiring a sprint from Nottingham Victoria to Midland. This may bring some of it back for you:-

 

[Kell G Nielsen]

Hi martin,
Thanks for your comment and the video.
Unfortunately My friends lived in the outer suburbs near Chesham, so I never really went very far north. I wish I had done.
The video, which I do remember having seen before, does however bring back fond memories, so thanks for reminding me of it´s
existense.
Somehow I feel I do know the line further north than I traveled in those distant days. I have been to both Quainton Rd. and Loughborough, though this is also many years ago now. And I have a load of books on the Great Central which have provided hundrets og hours of reading and studying. And then ofcourse the internet!
Kell

 

[Flying Phil]

Welcome Kell and thanks for those kind words - it may be a while until some more happens on the Gap project (- there was no change today).

 

[Kell G Nielsen]

Thank you Phil,
I think you are quite right about the next months being a lot more quiet than especially the latter part of 2017 when it comes to the gap.
But we supporters of The GCR are used to being patient. We waited years and years for the reinstatement of "The Bridge", and now it has happened. I am sure the rest of the gap will happen too, provided money is still rolling in. And how I also look forward to the first locomotive/train to run across the new connection.

 

[Flying Phil]

Hi Kell
Re the first train across the "Gap", I suspect there will be a strong desire to have a "celebrity" engine such as Flying Scotsman or Tornado to have that honour.....But I have long been a supporter of Boscastle and it was the first "big" engine on the GCR in 1973, and has been there ever since, (Apart from a short stint on the WSR). Its boiler is now getting a new inner firebox and other work at the SDR, so it should be "in ticket" around 2020/2021.......just in time to go North across the "Gap"?

 

[Cowley]

Hi Kell
Re the first train across the "Gap", I suspect there will be a strong desire to have a "celebrity" engine such as Flying Scotsman or Tornado to have that honour.....But I have long been a supporter of Boscastle and it was the first "big" engine on the GCR in 1973, and has been there ever since, (Apart from a short stint on the WSR). Its boiler is now getting a new inner firebox and other work at the SDR, so it should be "in ticket" around 2020/2021.......just in time to go North across the "Gap"?

That’s an interesting thought Phil.
Maybe your brake van will be one of the first vehicles across...

 

[Kell G Nielsen]

Hi Phil,
Ofcourse it will depend on which engines are available at the time. Strong candidates could also be one of the two remaining original GC-engines. The director will hardly be available, but maybe the O4

 

[Cowley]

Hi Phil,
Ofcourse it will depend on which engines are available at the time. Strong candidates could also be one of the two remaining original GC-engines. The director will hardly be available, but maybe the O4

Welcome to the forum by the way Kell.

 

[Kell G Nielsen]

Thank you very much Cowley

 

[Flying Phil]

That’s an interesting thought Phil.
Maybe your brake van will be one of the first vehicles across...

You have read my "bucket list"! If not one of the first, I certainly would like to be in my brake van, behind Boscastle and a rake of minerals going 18 miles on the GCR in 2020/1/2......

 

[AndyY1951]

Don't forget that 'Prince of Wales' should be available by then...................

 

[Flying Phil]

Don't forget that 'Prince of Wales' should be available by then...................

.....That would be quite special ....and the Prince of Wales also opened the Mountsorrel Branch, so a double act to open the GGCR?

 

[IKBrunel]

Hi Andy
Whilst it is good that the ultimate aim is double track to the back of PreciSpark, I, and others it seems, think it would be better to keep the project moving forward in small stages. So the missing North embankment is put back (Navvies and wheel barrows cheapest option but an excavator with two dumper trucks hired in, three men, two to four weeks?)

I would be interested to see a costing for this.
Working to UK health & safety law (CDM, manual handling regs, etc) means the navvies & barrows option for civil engineering on the scale of building a large embankment is a non starter even before we consider paying the navvies a living wage.
There are also technical advantages of using excavators e.g. levelling & compaction.

 

[AndyY1951]

The Festiniog's Deviation was achieved in the 70's using navvies and barrows, it would probably be considered impossible by today's 'experts'.

 

[Flying Phil]

As Andy has just said!
I am not a civil engineer but, taking guestimates, the missing part of the North embankment is about 30m long, if it is 6m high and 5m wide at the top then the volume of spoil is approx 2000 cubic metres. Then if one person(navvy) can shift 1 cu m per day from one pile, 100m to make the new pile/embankment then he/she will take 2000 days......but if 20 people work then it is a 200 day operation. That is less than a year.... and if they are volunteers with their own spades and barrows the cost is minimal. I know this may be considered whimsical/not practical/dangerous/etc but the whole Railway Preservation scene, it could be argued, is based on whimsy and a triumph of hope over practicality/economics and reality.
Certainly it could make a great TV comparison show to do some by hand and some by machine? As ever, if more money is available, then buy in the machines and expertise, but some work can be done very cheaply by using enthusiastic,willing people.
The Mountsorrel Branch was built for approx £100,000 in such a manner.

 

[Worf]

I was one of the navvies on the FR deviation in the 1970's (and 1960's). Shifted more than 1 cu m per day (well. cubic yards anyway). Nobody died!

 

[AndyY1951]

Thinking about the North Embankment, a few questions spring to mind.
1. Does the railway own the land it will stand on? (Or lease, as something tells me that the land the rest of the railway stands on is actually owned by the local authority, so they are the railway's landlords).
2. Is there a detailed specification/design for its reconstruction, specifying the materials to be used?
3. Are the various permissions yet in place to reinstate it, with doubtless a mound of reports and studies necessary?
4. Given that the alignment of the new bridge isn't exactly as its predecessor, does the new embankment need to occupy any land not used originally, i.e. does it need to move sideways at all?

I guess 3 can't happen until 2 is complete.

 

[Flying Phil]

Hi Andy
1 I believe the land is owned by Charnwood Borough Council but leased to the GC. Where the spoil heap is, currently alongside the embankment, is land belonging to Loughborough Grammar School (their paddock).
2 and 3 Not known but some of the spoil heap did come from the end of original embankment. It was removed to create the work area for the abutment.
4 There is a slight change to the alignment but, as the track/bridge is single now, it is not very much. However the original bridge did have an extra gap for additional MML running lines so there were two piers, thus the new embankment comes closer to the MML onto the new abutment.

 

[IKBrunel]

Is the spoil on adjacent heaps suitable to build a robust embankment which will carry a loco without subsiding during torrential rain? are sheet piles or truck loads of stone required? Being in the bottom of a river valley I imagine it has quite a high proportion of fine sand/clay.

 

[njamescouk]

The Festiniog's Deviation was achieved in the 70's using navvies and barrows, it would probably be considered impossible by today's 'experts'.

my mother and her sister, as part of a cast of thousands, helped build this railway in 1947

http://www.zeleznice.in.rs/forum/viewtopic.php?t=426

Samac to Sarajevo

 

[Flying Phil]

Is the spoil on adjacent heaps suitable to build a robust embankment which will carry a loco without subsiding during torrential rain? are sheet piles or truck loads of stone required? Being in the bottom of a river valley I imagine it has quite a high proportion of fine sand/clay.

A lot of the spoil in that heap actually came from the original North embankment, the South embankment top, that was the PreciSpark car park and the excavated earth from the abutments so it should be solid enough to build a new embankment I would think.
....and that Samac to Sarajevo work was impressive!