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Great Central Steam Railway
The Great Central Railway (GCR) is a heritage railway in Leicestershire, named after the company that originally built this stretch of railway. It runs for between the town of Loughborough and a new terminus in the north of Leicester. It has period signalling, locomotives and rolling stock. The GCR is currently the only double track mainline heritage railway in the world with of working double track. Four stations are in operation, each restored to a period in the railway's commercial history: (the 1950s); Quorn & Woodhouse ( Second World War and the remainder of the 1940s); ( Edwardian Era); Leicester North (the 1960s). Background history In 1897, the Great Central Railway itself was formed, becoming the last steam mainline in the United Kingdom. Two years later in 1899, "The London Extension" was officially opened to passenger and freight traffic, allowing more direct journeys from the capital to Nottingham, Leicester, Sheffield and Manchester. The entire li ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Loughborough Central Railway Station
Loughborough Central Station is a railway station on the Great Central Railway and the Great Central Railway (preserved) serving Loughborough. History The station was opened by the Great Central Railway on 15 March 1899, built to the standard GCR arrangement of having an island platform set between the two main running lines. The platforms are long, capable of accommodating consists of up to 6 coaches and/or mail vans. The station buildings are unique on the preserved railway, the only station with a complete canopy, the longest in railway preservation. The station was closed by British Rail under the Beeching Axe, on 5 May 1969. Reopened by the Great Central Railway as part of the restored heritage railway in 1974, train services currently run south from the station to . Within the station complex, the station buildings, original GCR signal box sited to the north, and the three original water tanks are all Grade II listed. Station masters *Walter Tate *P.B. Hand ca. 192 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The two cities and the surrounding towns form one of the United Kingdom's most populous conurbations, the Greater Manchester Built-up Area, which has a population of 2.87 million. The history of Manchester began with the civilian settlement associated with the Roman fort ('' castra'') of ''Mamucium'' or ''Mancunium'', established in about AD 79 on a sandstone bluff near the confluence of the rivers Medlock and Irwell. Historically part of Lancashire, areas of Cheshire south of the River Mersey were incorporated into Manchester in the 20th century, including Wythenshawe in 1931. Throughout the Middle Ages Manchester remained a manorial township, but began to expand "at an astonishing rate" around the turn of the 19th century. Manchest ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
LMS Stanier Class 5 4-6-0
The London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) Stanier Class 5 4-6-0, commonly known as the Black Five, is a class of steam locomotives. It was introduced by William Stanier and built between 1934 and 1951, of which 842 were built and were numbered 4658-5499 (BR then renumbered 44658-45499). Several members of the class survived to the last day of steam on British Railways in 1968, and eighteen are preserved. Origins The Black Five was a mixed-traffic locomotive, a "do-anything go-anywhere" type, designed by Stanier, who had previously been with the GWR. In his early LMS days, he designed his Stanier Mogul in which he experimented with the GWR school of thought on locomotive design. A number of details in this design he would never use again realising the superiority of details not used on the GWR. Stanier realised that there was a need for larger locomotives. These were to be the LMS version of the GWR Halls but not a copy, as the Hall was too wide to run most places in Br ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ministry Of Defence (United Kingdom)
The Ministry of Defence (MOD or MoD) is the department responsible for implementing the defence policy set by His Majesty's Government, and is the headquarters of the British Armed Forces. The MOD states that its principal objectives are to defend the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and its interests and to strengthen international peace and stability. The MOD also manages day-to-day running of the armed forces, contingency planning and defence procurement. The expenditure, administration and policy of the MOD are scrutinised by the Defence Select Committee, except for Defence Intelligence which instead falls under the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament. History During the 1920s and 1930s, British civil servants and politicians, looking back at the performance of the state during the First World War, concluded that there was a need for greater co-ordination between the three services that made up the armed forces of the United Kingdom: t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Gypsum
BPB Ltd (formerly BPB plc) (British Plaster Board) was a British building materials business. It once was a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. In 2005, the company was purchased by Saint-Gobain of France. The company subsidiary British Gypsum, which was the UK operating arm of the company, operates as a subsidiary of Saint-Gobain, with five manufacturing sites in Britain as of 2012. History Inter-war period The development of plasterboard (a sandwich of gypsum plaster between two sheets of paper) dates back to the late nineteenth century in the US. The first patent was granted in 1894 but it was not until an American, Frank Culver, persuaded his new employer, Thomas McGhie and Sons, to buy a plasterboard plant from the US that this new product was introduced to Britain. A site was acquired at Wallasey Cheshire and building started in 1916. However, McGhie's shareholders could not supply sufficient funding and in 1917 the plasterboard assets were sold to a new company, British P ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Rail
British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British railway companies, and was privatised in stages between 1994 and 1997. Originally a trading brand of the Railway Executive of the British Transport Commission, it became an independent statutory corporation in January 1963, when it was formally renamed the British Railways Board. The period of nationalisation saw sweeping changes in the railway. A process of dieselisation and electrification took place, and by 1968 steam locomotives had been entirely replaced by diesel and electric traction, except for the Vale of Rheidol Railway (a narrow-gauge tourist line). Passengers replaced freight as the main source of business, and one-third of the network was closed by the Beeching cuts of the 1960s in an effort to reduce rail subsidies. On privatis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Main Line Preservation Group
The Main Line Preservation Group was an organisation formed in 1968, "to acquire a suitable length of main line, for the operation of steam hauled passenger trains, at realistic speeds". The organisation's contemporary literature and advertising claimed that it was negotiating with British Railways for 18 miles of the former Great Central Main Line between Leicester Leicester ( ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city, Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority and the county town of Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. It is the largest settlement in the East Midlands. The city l ... and Ruddington.Advertisement on page vii of The Railway Magazine for October 1969 In time, this stated ambition was largely achieved in the form of the Great Central Railway (heritage railway). References External links Early days of the MLPG Rail transport preservation in the United Kingdom {{England-rail-transport-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leicester Central
Leicester Central was a railway station in Leicester, England. It was situated to the west of the city centre, on Great Central Street which is today just off the inner ring road. It was closed in 1969. History Construction Opened on 15 March 1899, the station was part of the Great Central Railway's London Extension linking Nottingham with Marylebone in London. The railway crossed built-up Leicester on a Staffordshire blue brick viaduct, incorporating a series of fine girder bridges. In a detail typical of the high standards to which the London Extension was built, the abutments of the girder bridges that crossed public roads were lined in white-glazed tiles to increase the level of light under the bridges. In total the viaduct was in excess of a mile and a half in length and it was upon this that Leicester Central station would be constructed. At the time of construction, the station was the largest single building to be erected in Leicester. The viaduct's construc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Beeching
Richard Beeching, Baron Beeching (21 April 1913 – 23 March 1985), commonly known as Dr Beeching, was a physicist and engineer who for a short but very notable time was chairman of British Railways. He became a household name in Britain in the early 1960s for his report ''The Reshaping of British Railways'', commonly referred to as "The Beeching Report", which led to far-reaching changes in the railway network, popularly known as "the Beeching Axe". As a result of the report, just over were removed from the system on cost and efficiency grounds, leaving Britain with of railway lines in 1966. A further were lost by the end of the 1960s, while other lines were reduced to freight use only. Early years Beeching was born in Sheerness on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent, the second of four brothers. His father was Hubert Josiah Beeching, a reporter with the ''Kent Messenger'' newspaper, his mother a schoolteacher and his maternal grandfather a dockyard worker. Shortly after his birth, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beeching Axe
The Beeching cuts (also Beeching Axe) was a plan to increase the efficiency of the nationalised railway system in Great Britain. The plan was outlined in two reports: ''The Reshaping of British Railways'' (1963) and ''The Development of the Major Railway Trunk Routes'' (1965), written by Richard Beeching and published by the British Railways Board. The first report identified 2,363 stations and of railway line for closure, amounting to 55% of stations, 30% of route miles, and 67,700 British Rail positions, with an objective of stemming the large losses being incurred during a period of increasing competition from road transport and reducing the rail subsidies necessary to keep the network running. The second report identified a small number of major routes for significant investment. The 1963 report also recommended some less well-publicised changes, including a switch to the now-standard practice of containerisation for rail freight, and the replacement of some services wit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Midland Main Line
The Midland Main Line is a major railway line in England from London to Nottingham and Sheffield in the Midlands. It comprises the lines from London's St Pancras station via Leicester, Derby/Nottingham and Chesterfield in the East Midlands. Express passenger services on the line are operated by East Midlands Railway. The line is electrified between St Pancras and Corby and the section south of Bedford forms the northern half of the Thameslink network, with a semi-fast service to Brighton and other suburban services. A northern part of the route, between Derby and Chesterfield, also forms part of the Cross Country Route operated by CrossCountry. Tracks from Nottingham to Leeds via Barnsley and Sheffield are shared with Northern. East Midlands Railway also operates regional and local services using parts of the line. The Midland Main Line is to receive a major upgrade of new digital signalling and full line electrification from London to Sheffield. HS2 is to branch onto th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Channel Tunnel
The Channel Tunnel (french: Tunnel sous la Manche), also known as the Chunnel, is a railway tunnel that connects Folkestone (Kent, England, UK) with Coquelles ( Hauts-de-France, France) beneath the English Channel at the Strait of Dover. It is the only fixed link between the island of Great Britain and the European mainland. At its lowest point, it is deep below the sea bed and below sea level. At , it has the longest underwater section of any tunnel in the world, and is the third longest railway tunnel in the world. The speed limit for trains through the tunnel is . The tunnel is owned and operated by the company Getlink, formerly "Groupe Eurotunnel". The tunnel carries high-speed Eurostar passenger trains, the Eurotunnel Shuttle for road vehicles and international freight trains. It connects end-to-end with the high-speed railway lines of the LGV Nord in France and High Speed 1 in England. In 2017, through rail services carried 10.3 million passengers and 1.22 milli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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