The Demolition of Brackley Viaduct

An 8mm film showing the demolition of the Brackley Viaduct which carried the Great Central Railway.
Opened in 1899, the line closed as part of the Beeching changes in the 60's along with Brackley Central station in 1966 and the viaduct was demolished around 10 years later.
The A43 Brackley By-Pass today passes through the site, you can still see the embankment of the railway just after the Buckingham Road roundabout if you are travelling towards Towcester.
The other station in Brackley which was on a line from Banbury to Bletchley via Buckingham closed in 1960 before the Beeching report - the station site is today occupied by the Fire Station, Police Station and other buildings down St James Road.
The railway is today still open from Marylebone to Aylesbury, and is planned to reopen via Calvert to form a new Marylebone to Milton Keynes Service. The section between Nottingham (Ruddington) and Leicester (Belgrave and Birstall) is still open running steam trains in two separate sections, soon to be joined by a new bridge.
The ultimate terminus of the line from Marylebone was Sheffield

[@SimonPass230267]

Brilliant find. I remember this when we moved to Brackley in 1977. Can you believe they destroyed something like this. Criminal.

[@pmonkeygeezer6212]

Simon Pass I enjoyed watching the demolition.

[@lindafreeman461]

I lived in Brackley in 1969-1970 and loved seeing this beautiful viaduct! What a terrible shame to have it demolished - it was such a beauty!

[@christopherbusby1726]

The Great Central line. The destruction of Nottingham Victoria Station is sadder still.

[@PreservationEnthusiast]

It needed to be demolished, so they could build something more useful on the site. A shopping centre with 20 million visitors a year.

[@larrybarker2495]

It should have been listed. The GCR was the HS2 of its day and no one in authority gave a damn.

[@williamgoodwin5948]

Larry Barker milwall v tottenham 2001

[@philclarke3203]

Absolutely criminal!! All that very hard Victorian work to build a magnificent structure, destroyed like that!!

[@christopherbusby1726]

Total agreement.

[@PreservationEnthusiast]

@@christopherbusby1726 I enjoyed the demolition.

[@christopherbusby1726]

@@PreservationEnthusiast .... No surprise there... !!

[@PreservationEnthusiast]

@@christopherbusby1726 Scrapping and demolition are very important progressing society. This viaduct was in a dangerous state with the parapet collapsing into the valley below. People glibly say "preserve it", but they never say who is going to pay ongoing maintenance over the future years. Maybe they should be stumping up their own money.... as if that would ever happen!

[@muckle8]

The parapet could have been rebuilt very easily and very cheaply, the arches looked to be immaculate too

[@thevignolespress]

I stood in almost the same spots and took still photos as this glorious viaduct was destroyed. A terrible shame. A great loss. And now Brackley Central station is under threat...

[@beecee2205]

sheer bloody vandalism. you take something that should be part of our Industrail heritage. something to be proud of. and you blow it up.

[@iangrice329]

Such a short sighted decision to close not only the GCR but a lot of other lines. Look at the mess we are in now.

[@colinknight9850]

The mad thing is, this line was configured with no crossings, and built to continental sizes, re. tunnels etc. so could easily have carried european sized freight etc. had a massive set of goods sidings south of coventry, and ran straight down the middle from the pennines to london,, and the man in charge was up for extending it to the south coast and across the water to europe, via a tunnel... all 50 yrs before the chunnel, and the mega expensive H.S.....We had it all, and threw it away.....now were rebuilding, eg.oxford to cambridge, it was there all the time....jesus, we,re ruled by donkeys, as ever.

[@Hard-Boiled-Bollock]

So fucking true. Governments only think in the short term, and the infuriating thing is the people keep voting theses same parties back into power

[@PreservationEnthusiast]

@@Hard-Boiled-Bollock Not true at all. The route was not suitable for HS2 as it does not serve Birmingham. It does not go down the middle of the Pennines it goes to the East with a tortuous curve to Manchester. A line to Glasgow serving Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham needs to follow the M6 corridor. The entire Great Central infrastructure is only suitable for one thing... demolition.

[@edbridges1164]

The GC had generous loading gauge but was certainly not built for continental loading gauge it wasn't even built for the Bern Loading gauge as that appeared after the GC was built! It was built with speed in mind but certainly would not cope with the High Speed running that HS 1 & HS 2 will be able to achieve! It is sad that the GC was near enough Wiped from the face of the Earth Brackley Viaduct is certainly one major piece as to why the GCML will never reopen as it would cost Billions to replace it! There are also other structures missing as well as a load of bridges and parts of the Viaducts around Leicester Central are gone sadly the GCML is not one of the Railways that can be re opened easily without heavy expenditure

[@edbridges1164]

Also the GC did have a few Gated Level Crossings so it was not Crossing free by any means

[@mikehindson-evans159]

So pleased that someone recorded this destruction. Now, you drive up the A43 along this valley floor and are hard-pressed to locate the abutments of the old viaduct. what a waste, but glad that HS2 is on its way to improve railway capacity up the middle of England.

[@daystatesniper01]

As already stated ,no crossings ,continental loading gauge HS2 was and still is sat there ,to Sheffield ,then the disused Midland to Leeds aaahhh to be corrupt

[@paulwilson3083]

What a contrast, a soulful well built structure being used as hardcore to build a soul less Milton Keynes. If I was younger I would be campaigning to get this old line used as far as Rugby, infact in the early 1990s a man called Andrew Gritten formed a group and had the old line surveyed and was going to rebuild it using PRIVATE MONEY and investment, the Tory Government said no and so did the labour one when they came to power in 1997, so Rotten politics rules again. My age is now against me but there must be people out there to campaign for its reinstatement , the Birmingham end has started but the billions saved on the southern end by using it would be colossal, after all the track bed is mostly intact and it was originally built to continental loading gauge it's just logic and common sense.

[@PreservationEnthusiast]

It's a duplicate line on the wrong alignment that we don't need. The best course of action is demolition and repurposing the track bed for useful projects eg Housing or industry.

[@VTodd1972]

I found this and thought wow. I'll send it to a guy I know who is into this stuff. Then I realised it was you in the first place 🤣

[@colinparry]

very sad it was my favourite building

[@robtyman4281]

More damage was done to our transport infrastructure in the 1970's than during WW2. That's a very sobering, if depressing thought. It's absolutely true. As a country I don't believe we've really learnt. Something similar could STILL happen in the future.

[@TraceySFrench]

Such a shame, it was a beautiful sight 🙁

[@HughTerry69]

Heartbreaking and shameful. This magnificent structure should never have been knocked down by those government vandals. It's the opposite of Progress!

[@pmonkeygeezer6212]

Hugh Terry Demolish that shite old viaduct it was not being used!

[@trainmaniacstudios8216]

Ahh, but if they had waited another 25 years it would have been used for HS2.

[@pmonkeygeezer6212]

Train Maniac Studios Can't argue with that if it was on the right alignment. I guess one has to balance the costs of maintaining swathes of redundant infrastructure against the rebuild costs of the tiny proportion that is needed again.

[@PreservationEnthusiast]

@@trainmaniacstudios8216 The Great Central did not serve Birmingham and is the wrong route for HS2. So all of this stuff about "GCR could have been used for HS2" is just a red herring. It's not valid

[@edbridges1164]

@@PreservationEnthusiast part of the formation is being used by HS2 I'm not lying the GC certainly would have been almost perfect for a straight up the middle Run and could have taken traffic off the East & West Coast MLs however the maximum you'd have got from the GC would have been 125mph at a Push! I think BR were certainly in undue haste to kill the GC but sadly being the Last of the Mainline's to reach London meant it had to serve Sparsely Populated areas of Britain and the Big Conurbations that it did serve were already served by others so effectively whilst opening new areas up the GC Traffic (in BRs Mind) could and was distributed between the West & East Coast Main Lines sadly that's where their Crystal Ball ran out because the GCML would certainly come in handy now! But alas all gone now! All gone

[@zdtgamingforce]

Why did they destroy it it’s a great part of history

[@PreservationEnthusiast]

Would you have liked to pay to maintain it?

[@luketurnham3270]

@@PreservationEnthusiast pipe down

[@xavga1]

@@PreservationEnthusiast I bet youre fun at parties mate

[@PreservationEnthusiast]

@@xavga1 Yes, I'm great fun at parties. Are you fun at parties?

[@gerrynewton3147]

Total madness!

[@mervynsands3501]

GCR filmed being destroyed, not a pretty sight, what a great travesty if modified here and there and brought up to date, this route would have been a great HS2 style route to the North, with branches off it as need be. Sickening to see such needless demolition, as it was built for rapid travel prior to 1900, and could do the same today. Ah well, good while it lasted! 🙂👍

[@davidpercival5601]

Only disliked because it’s criminal this was allowed to happen 😢

[@richardmarshall4322]

Hard to watch. The GC was magnificent. Now they wast billions on HS2. They had it. Unbeleivable.

[@almonkey1]

what was that bricked up arch with the two circular openings used for? it can be seen at 2:02

[@rosscatley]

It was supposed to be a standard arch, but during construction they found the land at that end was too soft - that’s why there is a bricked arch and girders to stabilise the viaduct on poor ground.

[@almonkey1]

@@rosscatley thanks for the info Ross!

[@gb5uq]

Architectural vandalism didn't end with Henry VIII.

[@stephenquinn6485]

So angry this was knocked down used to.play underneath it part of my growing up rrr

[@saabinsanity]

pure vanadlism

[@TheRunnerbeans1]

what a waste :( walked over this as a kid probably a year before it

[@jamesfenton9816]

Was about 12 when I walked over in 1974. Some nasty holes all the way through so you could see the ground below, quite a drop, put the wind up me

[@Hard-Boiled-Bollock]

Criminal

[@johnhealy8513]

A wonderful video of mindless vandalism. The Great Central is dead long live the Great Central.

[@rob235ioa1]

as it want being used anymore it was an eyesiore a waste of space and had to go

[@trainmaniacstudios8216]

Im fairly certain it was becoming dangerous due to the amount of attacks by vandals (knocking off the parapets into the valley below). What BR wasnt prepared for was how well it really had been built. Constructed of solid brick, even after several charges of dynamite it still remained in large chunks (as seen in the video)