The Great Central Railway: The Lost Mainline Reborn! | Another Station, Another Mile #9

In 1899, the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway and their General Manager Edward Watkin realised an ambitious vision to connect their own network in the North with London city in the South via a trunk route through the East Midlands. This grand, expensive project became known as the Great Central Main Line, and for 70 years it transported passengers and freight up and down the spine of England. Then the infamous Beeching cuts of the 1960s happened, and almost the entire route - nearly 100 miles of track and stations - was ripped up and lost forever. Well, all except one section. A small preservation group managed to save one section of this once-vast main line in between Leicester and Nottingham. And after another 50 years of hard work, political wrangling, blood, sweat and tears, this is their own version of Edward Watkin's vision realised. Welcome, one and all, to the Great Central Railway!
#Heritage #Railway #GreatCentralRailway
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[@andynoon2584]

As I volunteer at the G C R thank you for your nice comments about the line. It is nice that people appreciate the hard work that goes into running something like the G C R and in deed all the other railways around the country.

[@HeyItsAJOmega]

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed the video, more than happy to give you guys some love - I have huge respect for every volunteer and staffer at a heritage railway, working so hard to keep a living museum (as it is!) thriving so well :)

[@jennykettle7981]

Such an amazing line! Love that it's got little dips into different periods in the past along it. Also great b-roll!

[@HeyItsAJOmega]

Thank you! Honestly, b-roll is king ;)

[@robinwatling6538]

what a great adventure!

[@raawrsome]

Big fan of the different station designs!

[@HeyItsAJOmega]

Honestly theyre so beautiful. Its such a nice touch too. Period correct posters and colours and signs at each station, Id love more heritage lines to do it 😊

[@cassieSP]

Loved this one as always. The shots you take are so beautiful and make me want to explore these railways!

[@HeyItsAJOmega]

Awwww thank you!! That's exactly the aim of this series ^_^

[@ianashleigh]

Sir Edward Watkin also had the idea to build an equivalent of the Eiffel Tower for London but chose a site in an obscure London suburb for the project. In addition, he ran out of funds after building to the first stage and it remained rusting until the 1920s when the site was used for the Empire Exhibition and the pitch of Wembley Stadium sits exactly where 'Watkin's Folly' once stood.

[@christopherflynn4094]

Ohh my those outtakes! Such a fun weekend!

[@HeyItsAJOmega]

It was a great time!! Thanks for organising it and being a great companion for the adventure 😊

[@crossleydd42]

Whether we like it or not, Beeching was only carrying out the brief that the government set him. The brief had a failing and that was that social needs of an area were not taken into account, that if you cut out branch line willy nilly, people will travel by means other than rail and, most important, that the survey was carried out in an unbelievably cold January week, which meant that passenger numbers were far lower than normal, giving a distorted picture.

[@OlanKenny]

I've heard tales that they deliberately did it in that week BECAUSE the numbers would be so low

[@ninasiddle8569]

GWR Hall class locos were regular visitors to Loughborough in the sixties. They worked through Banbury to Nottingham Victoria on Bournemouth to York and Paignton to Bradford expresses.

[@christopherflynn4094]

No they wernt, GWR locos would have been taken off at banbury and something midland/LNER built would have taken the train on further.

[@jameshatch8652]

@@christopherflynn4094 Sorry Christopher, but Great Western engines most certainly did work north of Banbury, mostly to Leicester, but sometimes to Nottingham. On one infamous occasion there was nothing to take over and "Woolston Grange" worked through to Huddersfield where it had to be removed having damaged a number of platforms between Penistone and Huddersfield!

[@christopherflynn4094]

@@jameshatch8652 I never said they didnt as theres a prototype for everything in railway circles. But regular visitors? Absolutely not and chances of one not being taken off at banbury would be very low.

[@jameshatch8652]

Sorry you are still wrong. For example, prior to the dieselisation of the York to Bournemouth and return services, a Hall class locomotive was booked from Oxford to Leicester, returning with the Grimsby to Whitland fish. I was an engine controller at the time and can assure you that Banbury Hall,s were booked on a number of goods and local passenger trains as far north as Nottingham.

[@amandawarner3780]

Mate...absolutely epic channel. Cheers for the quality content!

[@HeyItsAJOmega]

Thank you! ^_^

[@McMetro]

Interesting and enjoyable video 😀👍 The island platforms remind me of Chippenham station where you enter the station on the disused platform and use platforms 2 and 3 for services - on an island platform. This means they only need one dispatch person 👍

[@MichaelStephens1997]

To see a channel like yours visit a heritage railway that is so important to me makes me happy! I love visiting this railway! It is in fact my closest heritage railway to me. Can't wait to see it once the link to the GCRN is complete! Great video. Love the Black Five steam loco and the Class 08 loco photo bombing too!

[@HeyItsAJOmega]

Oh that's awesome! Must be so cool to have this as your local (ish) heritage line? And yup, the GCR Revisited episode is already noted down for me to come back when the link is finished :D

[@eirugsiongriffiths8563]

Brilliant videos, Dr Beaching destroyed a lot of branch lines here in Wales such as the Swansea to Brecon Railway and the Swansea Vale Railway. It would be nice to see old branch lines reopened using the Reverse Beaching funding.

[@Finglesham]

Very good. I live in Rothley and can see the steam from the GCR ( when running) . Th mineral line runs at the bottom of the field behind my garden. I heard that teh Midland 'men' hated teh GCR and influenced the Beeching cuts to destroy the GCR even though it was the most modern line and fastest. Politics. Also the Leicester North is so called because Leicester City council bunged the money for it. Part of tourism etc. Very good/noble idea.

[@mastertrams]

Funny. In the GCR's Re-Unification video, they mentioned that building this 500m stretch of track would give us the full picture. Personally, I believe that to get the full picture, you'd have to re-open the whole London // Manchester line... Pity that such a beautiful railway was cast aside by a few men who could see nothing other than the numbers under their lines!

[@bfapple]

Doesn’t the Marylebone-Aylesbury section count as one that remained open after Beeching?

[@HeyItsAJOmega]

True! Although I count a lot of that as the Metropolitan route, though Marylebone was built in 1899 specifically for the GCML, IIRC?

[@srhvideo]

The very northern most part of the GCR from Manchester to Sheffield is pretty much what "the Northern Powerhouse" project is screaming out for now, or 10 years ago now

[@SirKenchalot]

Though the GCR is my fav line to study and revisit, I have to see it as the most obvious candidate for cutting as it simply replicated existing routes. Would a second route be useful for freight? Yes! Would it be useful as a relief line? Yes. Would competition between the lines help raise standards? Yes! But at the same time, its so easy to see that it was late to the party and offered little additional value to the national network. Am I wrong to hold such a traitorous view?

[@HeyItsAJOmega]

No, not really? You're allowed to have a differing opinion, and tbh at the time it might've been hard to forsee just how much demand would increase as the decades went by. I still think it was slightly short-sighted to completely erase such a major main line altogether, with no chance to even reopen it? Just to completely wipe it off the map seems needless to me. :)

[@SirKenchalot]

@@HeyItsAJOmega Were it still around today, it might be the basis of at least part of HS2 and in fact some parts of it are. Will you ever cover Quainton Rd? I find it surreal that chiltern trains sold tickets to that station even in 2017 on bank holidays, even though it closed 51 years ago. I have mine in a frame!

[@michaelhunt4445]

Were this line not subject to the "Beeching cuts", would HS2 be needed?

[@HeyItsAJOmega]

You know, that's a really good question!

[@markmiddleton1772]

hi just started watching your channel. i livr in loughborough so i have this on my door step

[@cbrooks122000]

Lets face BR would have closed the Settle to Carlisle line, they used the old excuse that it would cost a fortune to repair the Ripplehead Viaduct. Fortunately for us Michael Portillo and Prince Charles thought no and in the end the cost to repair the Ripplehead Viaduct was a very small percentage of what BR said it would cost. The joke of it is that line makes a fortune in the Summer with tourists.

[@cefnonn]

Is Swithland Sidings box the old Neasden South signal box? I read somewhere that Neasden South is now preserved on the GC. Thanks for another lively, informative video.

[@Andrewjg_89]

Perhaps you should other heritage railways. My favourite is the North Norfolk Railway, Epping Ongar Railway and Bluebell Railway. Nice video.

[@HeyItsAJOmega]

Absolutely planning to 😁 thank you!

[@simongleaden2864]

It's a pity that like on pretty well all preserved railways there's so much tender-first running, a very inauthentic aspect of heritage railway operations. To get greater authenticity they would need turntables at both ends of the line, but I realise that would be very expensive and unnecessary, given the low speeds at which preserved railways run.

[@MichaelStephens1997]

Also wouldn't it take up more time when turning the engines round? Unless they have plenty of waiting time after they have turned around before their departure.

[@mickallsopp5870]

Well done.

[@HeyItsAJOmega]

Thank you!

[@SoiBuakhaoRoutemasterbus]

What was the fleet or reg number of the bus? It is an ex London Transport RT and a very rateable move to get to the GCR station......Ta

[@nathanw9770]

Damn, literally anything seemed possible in the 60s... beeching just casually ripped up 100+ miles of track.

[@michaeldwyer3352]

Beeching ripped up nothing - he simply accepted an official brief to make sensible proposals for rationalisation of the network. It was Barbara Castle, the Labour Secretary of State for Transport, who used Beeching as cover for wholesale rail closures between 1965 - 1969.

[@iancrawford1140]

good stuff keep it up.

[@alextotaro1809]

With Witherslack Hall, although it is a GWR engine it did run over the GCR during the 1948 London Exchange Trials so theoretically it does kind of fit in.

[@HeyItsAJOmega]

Thats an interesting one! I guess the 1948 Trials are an interesting prototype for anything - GWR locos on the ECML, LNER locos in Devon, for a brief while all bets were off! 😆

[@S4undo]

If you had looked to your right when you were sat at Loughborough station you would of seen the reinstated bridge that will carry the GCR over the Midland Mainline

[@paulspeed8460]

Mid Norfolk is longer at currently 15 or 16m of usable line

[@jappedut9009]

Where can trains gain access to GCR ?

[@Hard-Boiled-Bollock]

By the way, is it just me or do you think you look like Mark King of Level 42?

[@HeyItsAJOmega]

Haha! You're the first person to say that, and...I can *kinda* see it? Unfortunately I'm nowhere near the bass player that he is xD

[@Hard-Boiled-Bollock]

@@HeyItsAJOmega Well, keep tryin' ;)

[@hadkinsproductions5346]

4:55 the branch line is in the wrong place it should be before rothley

[@mlp-hot-rod5824]

I wonder how much of the mainline can be restored if it were proposed?

[@HeyItsAJOmega]

That would be intriguing! On the Rediscovering Lost Railways channel, they've done a full look of the old trackbed of the GCML, and a lot of it is still fairly dormant and unused - but then elsewhere there's some hefty building developments over the top of the old trackbed, as well as roads.

[@mlp-hot-rod5824]

@@HeyItsAJOmega With enough money & backing, something could well be done. As you said, that mainline would do wonders today. Dr Beeching was a damn fool!

[@johnmehaffey9953]

All of it, all it needs is an act of parliament, that’s how the railways began

[@alextotaro1809]

@@HeyItsAJOmega After the reunification project is completed, there are rumours that they might extend it up to the old Ruddington station and extend past Leicester North.

[@PreservationEnthusiast]

@@alextotaro1809 This should be prevented. It's not viable. The GCR needs to be demolished and forgotten.

[@olly5764]

Not correct regarding double track, The Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch is largely double track, and the SVR has a section between Bewdley North and Bewdley South (True double track, not a Main and loop set up) and their gala's can be something else too.

[@gabri_maybe]

This was where Top gear drove their Caravan train and TGV 12 wasn't it?

[@benjenden4997]

Yes indeed it was.

[@MichaelStephens1997]

Yes. I've seen that episode several times.

[@victoriousrufus6747]

Wanton destruction of the railways in the 60’s!

[@PreservationEnthusiast]

No, because it had no traffic and needed to be dismantled and the land repurposed.

[@a11csc]

then along comes covid

[@HeyItsAJOmega]

To ruin everything. >_>

[@stevenwatsham5973]

If it was not for Beeching we would not have these wonderful steam railways that we have now... I love the British character that does not see the impossible and achieves the impossible.. A 120 odd Preservation lines up and down the land rebuilt by enthusiasts... Breathtaking..

[@SoiBuakhaoRoutemasterbus]

It wasn't all ripped up.....Marylebone is still there as is the line to Ashenden Junction....and just north of Quainton Road the line is there past Calvert (and the large hole i used to drive landfill trains to!) to Claydon Junction. It's not much but it does still exist even if some is freight only.....

[@Lynxfan2]

Yes I noticed this mistake as well. The section of line between London Marylebone - Harrow-On-The-Hill - Rickmansworth - Amersham - Aylesbury/Aylesbury Vale Parkway is open for passenger services with trains being operated by Chiltern Railways. Most trains are formed of Class 165/0 Chiltern Turbo DMU trains. Best wishes and take care. Kind regards, Peter Skuce. St Albans. Hertfordshire.

[@SoiBuakhaoRoutemasterbus]

@@Lynxfan2 Ah, a St Albans citizen.....some very nice pubs in St A....i work at the CAMRA beer festival each year....although not this year obviously!.....

[@Hard-Boiled-Bollock]

Very good video, keep making more like this. You deserve more subscribers

[@HeyItsAJOmega]

Thank you! :)

[@merlinonline67]

Beeching had nothing to do with the closure of the GCR, it closed because of regionalisation in British Rail post-nationalisation. The GCR which had been LNER ended up in BR Midland Region with ex-LMS Managers, they didn't know what to do with it and saw it as a threat to the Midland Main Line out of St Pancras which had always struggled as it didn't have the big expresses like its big brother the WCML. In its day the GCR was more about transporting coal and freight than people. Unfortunately, nobody saw that in 45 years + that the Midland Main Line would be struggling with capacity issues, If it had been kept then it probably would have been a high-speed line today

[@PreservationEnthusiast]

The GCR was a duplicate route which needed demolition.

[@jontownsend8090]

In one respect, hs2 is going some way to restore this missing main line. Don't get me started on what Beeching and the so called transport commission did in the 1960s, to say bloody narrow minded would be an understatement. To rebuild the gcr in its original alignment would be a massive undertaking, hs2 is a good replacement due to being a straighter route for higher speeds. If the idiots in the 60s were never born or done away with at birth, we would have had a great route, built to the Berne gauge i believe. With the opening of the Channel tunnel in 1994, we would be in a great position by running international trains into the Midlands much earlier, for example, the ill fated nol Eurostar sets would have worked well along the route, albeit at a reduced maximum speeds. Great little piece at the end there pal, yes i agree 110%

[@itsjustme114]

I just discovered your channel and I'm absolutely loving it!

[@HeyItsAJOmega]

Thank you!!

[@meltrain]

5:50 I don't know if you already know this, but the West Somerset Railway is the longest heritage railway in the country,

[@MichaelStephens1997]

That's true, but I believe that if you do the entire Welsh Highland Railway and the Ffestiniog Railway, then that becomes the longest heritage railway trip. Except over 2 separate railways since they run the odd service going from Caernarfon to Blaneau Ffestiniog. but that is over 2 railways, but like you said the WSR is the longest single heritage railway.

[@utareangara5529]

i went on that line to the south Corff Castle to Swanage, It was a beautiful; wartm sunny day.

[@alexhando8541]

The Swanage Railway?

[@thegreateasterntrainfan3121]

If u like the whole bit of business on a Heritage Line you should go to the Epping Ongar Railway I am there all the time for the galas and open days so if you want we could meet after all this has finished

[@HughTerry69]

Really tragic that the Great Central was lost. I completely agree with the closing remarks!

[@FromtheWindowSeat]

Love your cinematography. 😍👌 What camera do you use? 🤔

[@HeyItsAJOmega]

Thank you! I use a Canon G7X Mk2 and a DJI OSMO for some of the B-Roll footage. :)

[@peterdean8009]

Very interesting and informative presentation. But... I had to play it at 0.75 speed because you speak rather quickly.

[@richardpettet9996]

Quality video with interesting content. One thing however, your map of the current line at 4.45 shows Mountsorrel branch south of Rothley when it is actually north of it.

[@BibTheBoulderTheOriginalOne]

Myself and Mrs Boulder had our wedding reception on the GCR. What an incredible day, and fantastic value. Can heartily recommend it.

[@muttt.whopull3252]

Were you digging for gold at 11:00?