The Great Central Main Line

History
The Great Central railway was closed completely in stages between 1963 & 1969. In 1963 most small stations were closed (including Ruddington & Rushcliffe Halt) and in 1966 all through trains between Nottingham & London were withdrawn. The track south of Rugby was lifted leaving only a DMU service to operate between Rugby Central & Nottingham Victoria (serving East Leake, Loughborough Central, Leicester Central, Ashby Magna & Lutterworth). Nottingham Victoria was closed & ripped down in 1967 leaving the service to run from a hastily reopened Nottingham Arkwright Street station. This service lingered on until 1969 when the last section of GCR was finally closed. Immediately a small band of enthsiasts set about preserving the section between Nottingham & Rugby. This idea was soon scaled down to the section around Loughborough. This has been slowley expaned and now reaches Belgrave & Birstall station.

The Nottinghamshire section of track north of Loughborough was kept by BR for freight traffic to the British Gypsum works at Rushcliffe Halt, and the ordnance depot at Ruddington. Initially access was through Weekday Cross Junction in Nottingham, but in 1977 a chord line from the Midland at Loughborough was laid to give access to these sites. The material for this chord was removed from the embankment between the preserved section of line, and the Midland, effectively marooning the preserved railway. This also caused flooding in Loughborough so parts of the embankment were hastily replaced.

Traffic to the ordnance depot continued until 1983, and to the gypsum works until 1985. The last train to Ruddington was the "Ruddington Requiem Railtour" special on 9th June 1984.
Interest in this section of line grew, particularly in the Nottingham branch of the Main Line Steam Trust, and soon regular meetings were being held with an aim of extending the Great Central Railway north to Ruddington. Hence the new Great Central Railway – Northern Development Association was formed. British Gypsum at Rushcliffe Halt very generously offered to store a few items of rolling stock acquired at that time, and the Y7 from Loughborough made a couple of visits to the sidings for the work's open-days.

Negotiations began with the local councils, who were investigating further uses for the former Ordnance depot (now minus rail link) at Ruddington. Eleven acres of the former depot including three large buildings were eventually to the project, and the rest of the site was levelled to create the Rushcliffe Country Park.

The section of track from north of 50-steps bridge to north of Ruddington Station was purchased in late 1992, and recovered to reconnect the missing mile of track between the ordnance depot and the main line. Early 1993 saw the County Council purchasing the 2.77 miles of track bed south of the former Ruddington station site, to the 'railbreak' just north of Rushcliffe Halt. The recently formed Great Central (Nottingham) Limited Company raised sufficient money to purchase the track on this section of line. Following the reconnection of the depot in 1995, attention has been turned to refurbishing this section of track.

Negotiations have taken place to allow trains from Ruddington to have access to the platforms at Rushcliffe Halt. The re-introduced use of the Rushcliffe Halt area by EWSR trains makes access by the GCR(N) trains subject to adequate signalling and point locking being in place to isolate the preserved line from the active line connected to Railtrack lines at Loughborough. It is expected that the preserved line will be used only at weekends initially which should not conflict with EWS workings which tend to be mid-week operations. There are five miles of track between Rushcliffe Halt and the missing bridge and embankment at Loughborough, which the Great Central hope to use for both our own services, and the continuing services to the British Gypsum works.

Map
The main line between Ruddington and Loughborough is in situ and is in good condition. The map below shows the line and the important points along it. Currently we are at 'stage 2' and are able to operate a regular train service from the Heritage Centre onto the main line and along the line to a point close to but not into Rushcliffe Halt. A number of specials do now go to Rushcliffe Halt. The line south of this point down to Loughborough is now owned by us but not in use by passenger trains until sufficient signalling is in place to isolate the line from the Midland main line.

Click on a point of interest on the line to be taken to a page or site all about that area. (For old web browsers or if you're having trouble with the map then text links are provided at the bottom).
Note: clicking on Nottingham or Loughborough take you to external sites which are well worth visiting. Nottingham provides a link to The Nottingham Victoria Station site and Loughborough links to The Great Central Railway web site. Choosing Leicester Central at the bottom of the page will take you to a site all about the current state of the GC line through Leicester.
Some images used in section are thumbnailed. If you want to see a larger version of a picture- click on it. Not all images are thumbnailed though.
Note: Many images in this section have been sourced from the many good GCR publications out there including Main Line, Driving WheelS and other books. These other books are listed in a Bibliography located on the Victoria Station Site. Please do look at it and consider purchasing these books as they are all excellent.
You can also see other images of this section of line here