The Great Central

[Bartsimho]

I was looking to see if any bits of the Old Great Central Mainline would be considered useful today. Some bits between Brackley and the remaining line to Aylesbury is having HS2 running over it but the existance of this would suggest that a slower line might not have as much opposition. An idea is to have this as a Primary freight line so the 3 Mainlines to the WCML can free up capacity for passenger services. Most of the Trackbed looks to still exist up to Leicester with only a small bit of Brackley having buildings present. Amazingly Rugby appears to has the path in-tact apart from like 300m to the north of the WCML.

It also has the course of the M1 alongside but as the cuts were after the construction of the Motorway the route remains unobstructed. From The fully northern section at Beighton to Kirkby-in-Ashfield is also relatively unobstructed. Maybe a staged plan for freight followed by passengers might work with a connection to EWR also occurring.

 

[A0]

I was looking to see if any bits of the Old Great Central Mainline would be considered useful today. Some bits between Brackley and the remaining line to Aylesbury is having HS2 running over it but the existance of this would suggest that a slower line might not have as much opposition. An idea is to have this as a Primary freight line so the 3 Mainlines to the WCML can free up capacity for passenger services. Most of the Trackbed looks to still exist up to Leicester with only a small bit of Brackley having buildings present. Amazingly Rugby appears to has the path in-tact apart from like 300m to the north of the WCML.

It also has the course of the M1 alongside but as the cuts were after the construction of the Motorway the route remains unobstructed. From The fully northern section at Beighton to Kirkby-in-Ashfield is also relatively unobstructed. Maybe a staged plan for freight followed by passengers might work with a connection to EWR also occurring.

In a word - no.

HS2 will free up freight and passenger capacity on the WCML.

From Rugby northwards, the GCR didn't serve anywhere significant which wasn't served by other lines.

You've also overlooked the fact the formation through Leicester has gone, from Belgrave & Birstall to Loughborough it's preserved and from north of the MML at Loughborough its also preserved. The route into Nottingham is partly lost and partly used by the tram network. So you have a huge gap from south of Leicester to Kirkby in Ashfield to contend with.

 

[70014IronDuke]

I think we used to have a GC resurrection/why was it closed/shouldn't the Midland have closed? thread once every three months or so - nowadays it seems we have one per month.

Even if all 'the bits' of the GC from Aylesbury to Nottingham (or Sheffield?) could be magicially* restored at no cost whatsoever (including the sections to be used for HS2 - it's that magical) a) what freight do you think should use it? and b) how would you get the freights onto and off it to the places where freight needs to be delivered?

Something tells me Network Rail is not exactly eager to fit freight paths on the section south of Aylesbuy, even if there were ways to channel freight onto the line in the first place.

* And this is at a time when the government is determined to cut subsidies to rail and funding for investment is getting tougher and tougher to find.

 

[zwk500]

What actual journeys/freight flows are you serving though, that can't be easily run on todays railway? The Beighton-Kirkby section is one of the least useful as trains can run via Worksop and none of it is particularly constrained.
If the plan is to divert freight, where is it currently originating from and heading to? There's no point diverting traffic onto a line that sends it in the wrong direction.

 

[Halifaxlad]

For it to be any use you would need to build some significant new sections.

Catesby tunnel is now being used as a vehicle testing facility although that tunnel was only built to please local landowners.

If you got to Leicester you could link it into HS2 and use it for services to Nottingham and Derby I certainty can't see it being used for freight without significant investment or a new line between Leicester and Newark!

 

[EnriqueEspaña]

I think retention to Brackley may have been useful at a stretch. There's a lot of commuter traffic on the roads between Brackley and Aylesbury, but the railway was designed for long distance freight and passenger services. Getting the crayons out, if you were to design an extension now days from Aylesbury (excluding EWR), you'd probably follow the arc of the A413/A422 from Aylesbury (Pop. 58K) - Banbury (Pop.54K) via Winslow (Pop.6K), Buckingham (Pop.13K) and Brackley (Pop.16K). Following that route, you would need to build about 32 miles of single track to capture a population of 147K plus surrounding villages. Banbury - London via Aylesbury wouldn't be a competitive time, but the amount of local trips you'd open up would probably be worth it.

 

[A0]

I think retention to Brackley may have been useful at a stretch. There's a lot of commuter traffic on the roads between Brackley and Aylesbury, but the railway was designed for long distance freight and passenger services. Getting the crayons out, if you were to design an extension now days from Aylesbury (excluding EWR), you'd probably follow the arc of the A413/A422 from Aylesbury (Pop. 58K) - Banbury (Pop.54K) via Winslow (Pop.6K), Buckingham (Pop.13K) and Brackley (Pop.16K). Following that route, you would need to build about 32 miles of single track to capture a population of 147K plus surrounding villages. Banbury - London via Aylesbury wouldn't be a competitive time, but the amount of local trips you'd open up would probably be worth it.

"There's a lot of commuter traffic on the roads between Brackley and Aylesbury"

But mostly not by people travelling between Brackley and Aylesbury. And there isn't a direct road between Aylesbury and Brackley.

 

[4-SUB 4732]

I think we used to have a GC resurrection/why was it closed/shouldn't the Midland have closed? thread once every three months or so - nowadays it seems we have one per month.

Even if all 'the bits' of the GC from Aylesbury to Nottingham (or Sheffield?) could be magicially* restored at no cost whatsoever (including the sections to be used for HS2 - it's that magical) a) what freight do you think should use it? and b) how would you get the freights onto and off it to the places where freight needs to be delivered?

Something tells me Network Rail is not exactly eager to fit freight paths on the section south of Aylesbuy, even if there were ways to channel freight onto the line in the first place.

* And this is at a time when the government is determined to cut subsidies to rail and funding for investment is getting tougher and tougher to find.

The only benefit would be if you stuck a chord on, allowing stuff from Southampton to run up to Oxford then go over, past Bicester, dropping onto this GC and then having to find its way onto a chord to Narborough and Nuneaton, taking traffic off the sections Oxford - Nuneaton, or Oxford - Coventry - Stechford, or Oxford - Solihull - Landor Street.

That’s as good as it would get, really. You remove big conflicting moves and go along a set of quieter routes.

 

[zwk500]

The only benefit would be if you stuck a chord on, allowing stuff from Southampton to run up to Oxford then go over, past Bicester, dropping onto this GC and then having to find its way onto a chord to Narborough and Nuneaton, taking traffic off the sections Oxford - Nuneaton, or Oxford - Coventry - Stechford, or Oxford - Solihull - Landor Street.

That’s as good as it would get, really. You remove big conflicting moves and go along a set of quieter routes.

EWR gives you half of that already. You can get the other half of those moves with a chord at Lichfield onto the Burton route.

 

[The Planner]

The only benefit would be if you stuck a chord on, allowing stuff from Southampton to run up to Oxford then go over, past Bicester, dropping onto this GC and then having to find its way onto a chord to Narborough and Nuneaton, taking traffic off the sections Oxford - Nuneaton, or Oxford - Coventry - Stechford, or Oxford - Solihull - Landor Street.

That’s as good as it would get, really. You remove big conflicting moves and go along a set of quieter routes.

Makes all those journeys longer though and as the vast majority of traffic would be intermodal it can/would have knock on effects to wagon sets and terminal times. You just replace a big conflicting move elsewhere with one at Oxford.

 

[Northumbriana]

Would the Leicester to Rugby section diverted to link onto the WCML istead of over it along with a restored Northampton to Bedford line provide a useful diversionary route for trains on the MML? Would Nottingham, Derby and Leicester trains get to London any quicker via the WCML from Rugby?

 

[zwk500]

Would the Leicester to Rugby section diverted to link onto the WCML istead of over it along with a restored Northampton to Bedford line provide a useful diversionary route for trains on the MML? Would Nottingham, Derby and Leicester trains get to London any quicker via the WCML from Rugby?

Where do you put the M1?

If you're linking Leicester to Rugby, surely the ex-LNWR route via Broughton Astley is better?

 

[70014IronDuke]

Would the Leicester to Rugby section diverted to link onto the WCML istead of over it along with a restored Northampton to Bedford line provide a useful diversionary route for trains on the MML? Would Nottingham, Derby and Leicester trains get to London any quicker via the WCML from Rugby?

Good grief! The ££££ signs are begining to shoot up and up. Even if the Northampton - Bedford route were clear (I believe it has been built over quite a bit at the northern end) you'd have a wonderful conflicting junction at Oakley, which was fine with 2 TPH or so each way from St Pancras in 1961, but wouldn't go down so well with 5 TPH each way today.

In any case, Northampton - Bedford was not a high-speed line - I suspect the line speed was 50 mph - and I don't think it was ever used as a diversionary route when it might have done a job in the WCML electrification.

 

[The Planner]

Would the Leicester to Rugby section diverted to link onto the WCML istead of over it along with a restored Northampton to Bedford line provide a useful diversionary route for trains on the MML? Would Nottingham, Derby and Leicester trains get to London any quicker via the WCML from Rugby?

You don't build a railway to be a diversionary route and there is no room to put MML trains on the WCML.

 

[Matt P]

The old phrase last in first out probably applies to the Great Central.

For any section for it to have been or to be useful, circumstances would have needed to have been different, in particular transport policy and also how transport policy aligned with land use planning policy.

The fact the GC served cities that were also served by routes that provided better connectivity to other parts of the country is an issue that I am sure has been mentioned in other threads. Add to that a decline in rail use, increase in car ownership and a political environment either hostile or at best ambivalent to rail, then the GC was probably always going to be vulnerable to changing travel patterns.

Two of the major issues (as I see it) for the GC were a lack of a connection to the WCML and the fact that its approaches to London were via shared and mostly twin track routes. The London Extension may have been had some current use value to relieve capacity on the WCML if these two particular constraints had been addressed sometime just before or perhaps just after nationalisation. But as with lots of other closed railway lines, the ability to re-use the GC in whole or in part would have required a decision to have been made in the 1960s to protect disused railway corridors for potential future transport use.