Supporters seek £3 million for GCR ‘Factory Flyover’
A NEW drive to raise £3 million towards the next stage of linking the two heritage era Great Central Railways has been launched.
Following the completion of the new bridge to carry heritage trains over the Midland Main
Line at Loughborough and the refurbishment of the existing bridge over the Grand Union Canal, the Friends of the Great Central Main Line is seeking to build two more major pieces of infrastructure in the form of crossings of a factory car park and the town’s Railway Terrace.
For this second phase, accordingly dubbed the ‘Factory Flyover’, two bridge decks which Network Rail had no further use for and were able to generously donate to the project will be incorporated into the work. Building two pieces of the jigsaw at the same time, rather than separately, is expected to be cheaper overall.
The ultimate aim is to link the Great Central Railway to the Great
Central Railway (Nottingham), creating a 17 mile ‘steam highway’ between the outskirts of Leicester and Nottingham and giving Britain’s only double-track heritage main line, access to the national network for the first time.
Friends chairman Andy Fillingham said: “We’ve already achieved so much to reunify the two halves of the GCR. We have an ambitious target for our new appeal of £3 million. We’ve already raised that amount of money for previous elements of the project so we know it can be done with everyone’s support.
Reunification support
“We know so many people from around the world are interested in seeing reunification succeed. We truly believe we can succeed and deliver not only a heritage railway for the nation to be proud of but also an economic asset which supports the East Midlands service sector.
“Work can proceed only when we have the vast majority of funds available so if you want to see this happen, now is the time to get on board and support the Factory Flyover appeal.”
The Leicester and Leicestershire Enterprise Partnership has previously supported reunification with a substantial grant from its Local Growth Fund, while hundreds of people from across the UK are donating money every month, and £100,000 is already ‘in the pot’ towards the target.
The 400th donor to give money every month has just been signed up, and this support is over and above one-off donations by other individuals.
While the Friends’ role is to raise the money and promote the scheme, donations go to the David Clarke Railway Trust which supports the GCR. Money raised for reunification goes into a ringfenced fund so it can only be used for that purpose.
➜ If you wish to support the new appeal, visit www.gcrailway.co.uk/ unify