BUILDING BRIDGES
Reunifying the preserved portions of the Great Central Main Line and creating an 18-mile railway linking Leicester to Nottingham is one of the biggest projects ever undertaken by the preservation movement. Steam Railway finds out what the next steps are.
“
What do you do with an 18‑mile railway?” ponders Great Central Railway General Manager Malcolm Holmes. It’s a simple question, but the answer is far from straightforward. Nonetheless, getting the answer right is fundamental to the future success of the Reunification project – an ambitious scheme to link the Great Central Railway with its northern neighbour, the Great Central Railway (Nottingham).
Right now, behind the doors of the room where the project’s steering board meet, key decisions are being taken. While much has been achieved since physical construction began back in February 2016 – not least the installation of a single‑track bridge over the Midland Main Line (autumn 2017) the refurbishment of the original bridge over the Leicester line of the Grand Union Canal in Loughborough (autumn 2020), and the replacement of the bridge over the A60 road (late 2022) – there is still a long way to go before trains can travel from Leicester to Nottingham uninterrupted.
Now the focus is on what remains to be built, getting planning consent to build it and, to come back to Malcolm’s question, how the railway will work once the two lines are reunified.
Mind the gap
Bridging the Gap. Three little words that make it all sound so easy. Indeed, if you stand at the north end of the refurbished Grand Union Canal bridge and look in the direction of Nottingham, were it not for the new bridge over the Midland Main Line, you could actually see the other end of the ‘gap’. From such a vantage point, it looks deceptively simple.
The first – and admittedly biggest – obstacle would be to reinstate approximately 1,000 feet of embankment between the canal bridge and the aptly named Railway Terrace road, on the northern side of which is a surviving retaining wall for the bridge that once existed here.
Between the rear of this wall and the new MML bridge is a car park for an adjacent factory; both Railway Terrace and the car park need to be bridged – literally. In March 2020, the project
“
What do you do with an 18‑mile railway?” ponders Great Central Railway General Manager Malcolm Holmes. It’s a simple question, but the answer is far from straightforward. Nonetheless, getting the answer right is fundamental to the future success of the Reunification project – an ambitious scheme to link the Great Central Railway with its northern neighbour, the Great Central Railway (Nottingham).
Right now, behind the doors of the room where the project’s steering board meet, key decisions are being taken. While much has been achieved since physical construction began back in February 2016 – not least the installation of a single‑track bridge over the Midland Main Line (autumn 2017) the refurbishment of the original bridge over the Leicester line of the Grand Union Canal in Loughborough (autumn 2020), and the replacement of the bridge over the A60 road (late 2022) – there is still a long way to go before trains can travel from Leicester to Nottingham uninterrupted.
Now the focus is on what remains to be built, getting planning consent to build it and, to come back to Malcolm’s question, how the railway will work once the two lines are reunified.
Mind the gap
Bridging the Gap. Three little words that make it all sound so easy. Indeed, if you stand at the north end of the refurbished Grand Union Canal bridge and look in the direction of Nottingham, were it not for the new bridge over the Midland Main Line, you could actually see the other end of the ‘gap’. From such a vantage point, it looks deceptively simple.
The first – and admittedly biggest – obstacle would be to reinstate approximately 1,000 feet of embankment between the canal bridge and the aptly named Railway Terrace road, on the northern side of which is a surviving retaining wall for the bridge that once existed here.
Between the rear of this wall and the new MML bridge is a car park for an adjacent factory; both Railway Terrace and the car park need to be bridged – literally. In March 2020, the project
launched an appeal to raise £3 million for Phase 3 of reunification; dubbed the ‘Factory Flyover’, it would use one of the former bridge decks recovered from the remodelling of Reading station (originally planned for use in crossing the MML) to cross Railway Terrace, while a viaduct would carry the railway over the car park and join up with the new MML bridge.
On the other side of the MML, it’s then ‘merely’ a case of reinstating a small portion of missing embankment between the new bridge and the existing GCR(N) trackbed, and the ‘gap’ would finally be filled.
While it may sound simple on paper, the scale, cost and complexity of delivering such a project cannot be overestimated. This is a massive civil engineering project – arguably the largest ever undertaken by the British railway preservation movement – that will cost several million pounds to complete. It therefore needs careful planning.
This is why there’s been a review of the project’s management in recent months. Malcolm Holmes explains: “Reunification is a project that we’ve had around for a long time, and it’s been making some steady progress over the years. We’ve been making some bits of progress, but I sensed when I came into the job that we were lacking a key position in the strategic future of the organisation, something I was very keen to change.”
The development of a clear rationale, business case and timeline for the delivery of Reunification is one of the objectives outlined in the GCR’s recent 2023-2028 business plan, to which end the railway has created a specific project board “so that we can get the governance into a reasonable and solid place to drive the project forward,” says Malcolm, “That’s now happened, and the project board, that I chair, is now up and running.”
The board also has a volunteer project manager from the construction industry, and a former Network Rail sponsor who is responsible “for the stakeholder relationships, for setting the remit and the outputs of the project, dealing with all the funding elements. They’re all working as volunteers, and that team is beginning to really make some progress.”
A change of plan
An early sign of that progress is a recent review of how the GCR aims to rebuild the railway between the canal and Midland Main Line. Malcolm explains: “Previously, that had been assumed to be embankment for much of it, followed by bits of viaduct and bridge. We’re looking again at that.”
The viability of an embankment between the canal and Railway Terrace has been influenced by two factors since its removal. The first is the fact that the land on which it would be rebuilt has been narrowed since the line’s closure owing to flood defences on the adjacent brook. The second is a key part of the Reunification project – the bridge over the Midland Main Line, which has been built at a higher level than the original bridge owing to the need for future electrification clearances. These
factors combined mean the reinstated embankment would be both narrower and taller than the original, which would mean the embankment sides would be incredibly steep. Malcolm says: “The rather phenomenal design statistic is that in order to hold the thing up it will need 400 piles.”
So, instead of an embankment, the railway is going to build a viaduct, encompassing both the route of the old embankment and replacing the bridges over both Railway Terrace and the Precis Spark car park, for which a planning application will be submitted this summer.
As you’ll see from the concept drawing above, the planned viaduct will still be an enormous undertaking – bigger than anything any heritage railway has attempted before. Indeed, many will undoubtedly ask what the estimated timescale for completing both the viaduct and reunification as a whole will be, and how much more money is needed – especially considering the several million pounds raised so far.
“A while and lots,” replies Malcolm, jokingly. “This design work will help us to set clear milestones, and also determine what the likely price of the project will be. I would like to think that with the new focus on energy that this government has been putting around the project, that will help drive it forward, so we will be able to put some dates around
when we can deliver it. That will, of course, depend on having the available funds – and it is many millions of pounds, I don’t think there’s any secret about that. There’s a couple of million pounds in the bank for this, and people are generously giving money constantly for this project, which is really, really fantastic, but there are many millions of pounds required, so clearly, that will be a constraint on our delivery timescales.
“The fundraising remains vital, as it’s the glue that will attract grants for which we apply. It remains a people power project.”
While we’re on the physical aspects of reunification, one of the biggest obstacles exists on the GCR itself – the locomotive shed at Loughborough. Built in 1973 using a hangar recovered from RAF Langar near Nottingham, the shed is sited on the trackbed of the main line between Loughborough and Nottingham, and thus presents a significant barrier to reunification. Although provision was left for the running line to the west of the shed if reunification ever became reality, the railway’s management has decided this isn’t the best way forward. So, after 50 years of sterling service, the shed will come down (SR556 News). As to what will replace it, and where it will be, that’s still to be decided, but it nonetheless heralds a significant step forward.
“We now have a team working on the future engineering provision, bearing in mind we will be an 18-mile railway. It’s a project that will be delivered over years, not months, so the recent upgrades to the Loughborough shed are not wasted. Indeed they were vital to see it to the end of its life.”
Working together
However, Reunification isn’t merely a physical exercise. It’s also a conceptual one – namely, how do you merge two railways into one? It goes beyond things like sharing rolling stock and so on, but it’s also about having a unified rule book and Safety Management Systems, shared methods of operation and certification and a cohesive management structure. Don’t forget, since the GCR(N) first started running trains out of Ruddington 30-or-so years
ago, these railways have operated as two distinct, standalone organisations, and haven’t always enjoyed cordial relations. Combining the two, with all the complexities that involves, has the potential to be a serious headache.
In a bid to smooth the path, in December 2023 the boards of the Great Central Railway and Great Central Railway (Nottingham) signed a Memorandum of Understanding, which sets out how the two entities will cooperate in the run-up to reunification, and afterwards.
It establishes how the railways will work together on things like “developing the best possible case for reunification and the use of the new infrastructure” and “planning our future needs when the railways are reconnected (for example, required number of operational locomotives, carriages, servicing facilities etc)” as well as “the development of common standards for railway operations and maintenance, and the training and development of our people.”
Malcolm says: “I think it’s a really important totemic, a symbolic example of how the two organisations recognised that the future can only mean working together.”
Indeed, since the recent change in management at the GCR, and the appointment of a whole new board of directors at the GCR(N) back in January 2022, the relationship between the two railways has, arguably, never been better. This is helped significantly by the fact that one of the new GCR(N) directors, Andy Fillingham, is also chairman of the Friends of the Great Central Main Line membership organisation, and is involved with several of both railways’ other supporting charities.
Malcolm says: “We’re in daily communication
with one another over bits and bobs that we’re working collaboratively on. There’s quite a lot of work going on between the two organisations now, sharing people and helping one another with different bits. So, that is all a step towards considering this as one railway for the future, because, ultimately, it has to operate as one railway. This is a step towards beginning to do that, which is really, really important.”
A good example of this new collaborative approach was the recent joint event celebrating the 125th anniversary of the GCML, on March 16/17. Indeed, the railways were reunified for the weekend, using a rail replacement bus service. “That was a joint decision, and I think it’s a really important, symbolic example of how we’re working together to run as one railway, albeit one that is currently missing a bit of infrastructure,” says Malcolm. “I’d like to see us do much more of that kind of stuff. We’ve lent them a coach for that, and we’re sharing assets and doing all sorts of different bits together, which is brilliant.”
Getting on track
While the Memorandum of Understating is very much a positive step forward, how would the two railways work as one from a managerial perspective? “It’s too early to say,” says Malcolm. “At some point a decision needs to be taken about that, but that decision doesn’t need to be taken now. I think there is recognition that we need to operate as one railway in the future. The specific model for that isn’t yet determined or known, nor have we had any conversations about it either.”
Those conversations will need to happen before too long though. After all, the currently eightmile GCR alone faces enough challenges as things stand now – reunifying with its northern neighbour will more than double its track length. So how do you join two railways without being detrimental to either?
This brings us back to the question Malcolm posed at the start – what exactly do you do with an 18-mile railway? This is particularly pertinent when you consider that many railways – against the current backdrop of increased energy and fuel costs, and the cost-of-living crisis – are dialling back their expansion plans. As Malcolm says: “How do you make that not become a financial drain on your organisation? We don’t want to be any financially worse off than we are today. So what is the business case for this?”
Leading the charge is a new GCR director, Mark Beckett. Mark is the author of Great Central Reborn, which ponders what would have happened if the GCML hadn’t closed in 1969. But, perhaps more importantly, he was also the development director of Chiltern Railways from 1995 for 12 years, and now works as a railway strategy consultant. “He’s also on the project board for reunification, and he’s leading the work around the business case, which is really fascinating stuff,” says Malcolm.
“In order to successfully deliver an infrastructure project such as the Bridging the Gap project, it’s important to understand the operational outputs you’re then going to deliver which, in turn, deliver the commercial and economic benefits that a project like this can, or really should or must, bring. The timetable, of course, is a really important output, so we need to make sure that the timetable that delivers the commercial outcomes we need is also supported by the infrastructure that we are commissioning and building.
“Then, that exercise of looking at the timetable leads you to some other conclusions. For example, there’s been a long-held aspiration to have double track to Leicester North and Ruddington. I’ve never seen anything that suggests why that’s a good idea, or why it’s necessary, other than an ideological perception that it is nice to do. The work that Mark has done demonstrates that, actually, with single track from, essentially, the north of Loughborough to Ruddington, with a passing loop at Rushcliffe Halt, the key constraint on the railway’s capacity becomes Rothley to Leicester North, because you’ve got the double-track section between Loughborough and Rothley, and you’ve then got this bit at the end that becomes a key constraining factor on the operation of the entire railway. So, actually, the timetable, and the constraints the infrastructure then brings become the reason to double to Leicester, and so it becomes a strategic necessity, not an ideological nicety.
A linear museum
“The other really important factor that’s come out of Mark’s work is how we consider the attractions of the railway. This goes back to what I said in your previous article about the visitor experience and being more than a train ride. If we are an 18-mile steam train ride from Ruddington to Leicester North, intuitively I don’t feel that this is going to be a success, and we’ll be having a conversation in a few years’ time about the next financial crisis, or a real financial crisis the railway’s in, as we’re trying to somehow soak up the operational cost of running a railway that’s more than twice the length of our existing one, and all the costs that go with that. So, rather, we need to think of the whole thing as a holistic visitor attraction. A good example that I use is Ironbridge, with a cluster of museums at Ironbridge that all feed off one another. Ironbridge as an attraction in its own right, not because of one particular museum, but because of a cluster of museums.”
How could that be applied to the reunified GCR? Malcolm’s vision is for the railway(s) to become “a kind of linear museum, in effect, where the train becomes the glue that holds it all together.
“Ruddington’s an interesting visitor experience, and there are plans to make that even better. Rushcliffe Halt has its charms, and it’s an interesting place to visit, and there’s Hotchley Hill ’box and so on. Loughborough is a big station, and there’s stuff to see here, so there are attractions, and we need to make sure that there are attractions at each of those places, so that you don’t have to do an 18-mile journey on your day out. You can come and do a six-mile journey and go and see a different bit than you saw last time. That’s the essence of the business case that we’re creating, which I think is probably the most important bit. What we don’t have to do is create an 18-mile white elephant, which would be a disaster.”
But how do you manage going from an eightmile railway to an 18-mile one? For instance, what goes into the increased wear and tear on rolling stock? “Quite a lot of planning. Planning that hasn’t been started yet,” concedes Malcolm.
“We are going to need more rolling stock in the future, so we’ve begun to assess what we’ve got in stock for restoration and for overhaul, to make sure that we have sufficient rolling stock. We’re beginning to think about engineer wagons, as an example of where we were thinking across the two railways, rather than just thinking of two different railways, and because in the future they will be joined together.”
Another change will be the shift from time-interval-based maintenance to mileage-based maintenance, so that even though stock will inevitably accrue higher mileage working on the reunified railways, the examination and maintenance intervals will be managed proportionately.
Path to completion
Given all the unknowns around how the two railways will be successfully merged; how the reunified railways will actually function and be commercial and financially sustainable; the enormous amount of outstanding work to physically re-join the two railways and the millions still left to raise, one has to ask – especially considering the massive challenges currently facing the heritage sector: is it all worth it? Why is there such a desire to unite the GCR and GCR(N) and create this potentially problematic behemoth?
“There are three reasons,” says Malcolm. “The first is about the opportunity that I mentioned earlier to deliver a much better visitor experience – additional features with a tunnel, the site at Ruddington, and all the opportunities that holds, connecting to the Nottingham market, which is really significant; I think we can do something pretty special with that.
“The second is that it reconnects us with the national rail network. That will be a really valuable connection for us. It’s a constant constraint, the fact that we have to bring everything in and out of the railway by road, but it will also allow us to develop in new ways and attract charters and additional testing.
“The third reason, which is slightly less tangible, but actually really important, is that this project has been a long-held ambition. I remember talking about it when I first joined the railway in the mid-1990s. People have given so much to this project. People have left money – and continue to leave money – in their wills. There have been heartwarming stories of collections being done at funerals to support the reunification project.
“This isn’t necessarily a sound business reason, but I think it’s morally and ethically unthinkable that we can now stop this project, given how much people have committed and put into it, both alive and dead. Almost for that reason alone, this is a path to which we’re committed, and we need to continue following. Now, the timescales can be changed according to the resource and the viability of the business case around it, but actually it’s a project that is intrinsically us now, and what we’re about, and one that we are on a path to complete. It’s the preserved main line, which will always be a home for the largest locomotives, hauling heritage trains in the right context. After all, that’s how the whole preservation adventure began.”
The railway requires planning consent and the application is being prepared right now. Submission is expected in early summer and, assuming it is successful, orange jackets will return with more survey work on the route of the hybrid embankment viaduct to take design drawings and make them ready for engineering companies to tender against.
The heritage railway sector’s biggest infrastructure project is pushing forward, as alive and kicking against the odds as never before.