Central Railway was a British company which proposed to build a new

intermodal freight Intermodal freight transport involves the transportation of cargo, freight in an intermodal container or vehicle, using multiple modes of transportation (e.g., rail transport, rail, ship, aircraft, and truck), without any handling of the freigh ...

railway line, with a generous

loading gauge A loading gauge is a diagram or physical structure that defines the maximum height and width dimensions in railway vehicles and their loads. Their purpose is to ensure that rail vehicles can pass safely through tunnels and under bridges, and ke ...

, connecting the

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. ...

with the north of England, particularly

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...

docks, using much of the trackbed of the former north-south

Great Central Railway The Great Central Railway in England was formed when the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway changed its name in 1897, anticipating the opening in 1899 of its London Extension. On 1 January 1923, the company was grouped into the ...

. The company argued that such a line could significantly cut road congestion by carrying lorries on flatbed rail trucks. The company was formed in the late 1980s, and its proposals were controversial and faced opposition. The plans were rejected by the government in 1996 and again in 2003, largely because of doubts over financing its £8 billion cost, even though it was a private-sector project.

Route

The line would have run from the

Docks to

Sheffield Sheffield is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is Historic counties o ...

using the disused

Woodhead Tunnel The Woodhead Tunnels are three parallel trans- Pennine long railway tunnels on the Woodhead Line, a former major rail link from Manchester to Sheffield in Northern England. The western portals of the tunnels are at Woodhead in Derbyshire and ...

and then turned south via the

Erewash Valley The Erewash Valley is the valley of the River Erewash (pronounced ) on the border of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire as far as the River Trent. It runs along the boundary of the southern end of the Derbyshire hills and the more rolling Nottinghamsh ...

, joining the former

Great Central Main Line The Great Central Main Line (GCML), also known as the London Extension of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway (MS&LR), is a former railway line in the United Kingdom. The line was opened in 1899 and built by the Great Central Railw ...

(much of whose trackbed was still intact) south of

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 ...

. At a rebuilt

Ashendon Junction Ashendon Junction in Buckinghamshire, England, was a major mainline railway junction where, from July 1910, the Great Western Railway's (GWR) London-Birmingham direct route diverged from the Great Central Railway's (GCR) main London-Sheffield r ...

it would have joined the

Chiltern Main Line The Chiltern Main Line is a railway line which links London () and Birmingham ( Moor Street and Snow Hill), the United Kingdom's two largest cities, by a route via High Wycombe, Bicester, Banbury, Leamington Spa and Solihull. It is one of tw ...

, running alongside it on new tracks, then paralleling the

M25 motorway The M25 or London Orbital Motorway is a major road encircling most of Greater London. The motorway is one of the most important roads in the UK and one of the busiest. Margaret Thatcher opened the final section in 1986, making the M25 the lon ...

, entering a new tunnel between

Leatherhead Leatherhead is a town in the Mole Valley District of Surrey, England, about south of Central London. The settlement grew up beside a ford on the River Mole, from which its name is thought to derive. During the late Anglo-Saxon period, Leath ...

and

Merstham Merstham is a town in the borough of Reigate and Banstead in Surrey, England. It lies 25 miles south of Charing Cross and 2 miles south of the Greater London border. Part of the North Downs Way runs along the northern boundary of the town. Mers ...

and then running alongside existing railways via to the Channel Tunnel terminal at

Folkestone Folkestone ( ) is a port town on the English Channel, in Kent, south-east England. The town lies on the southern edge of the North Downs at a valley between two cliffs. It was an important harbour and shipping port for most of the 19th and 20t ...

. An alternative route would have seen the line joining

High Speed 1 High Speed 1 (HS1), legally the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL), is a high-speed railway linking London with the Channel Tunnel. It is part of a line carrying international passenger traffic between the United Kingdom and mainland Europe; ...

to the tunnel, if the latter railway were to allow non-passenger trains.

Purpose

The line would carry goods lorries between the continent and the Midlands and north of England. It could also have helped facilitate railfreight connections between the north of England and the ports of

Felixstowe Felixstowe ( ) is a port town in Suffolk, England. The estimated population in 2017 was 24,521. The Port of Felixstowe is the largest container port in the United Kingdom. Felixstowe is approximately 116km (72 miles) northeast of London. His ...

and

Southampton Southampton () is a port city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire built-up area, which also covers Po ...

. Trains long would carry up to 80 lorry trailers each, in the manner of American

piggyback Piggyback, piggy-back, or piggybacking may mean: Transport * Piggyback (transportation), something that is riding on the back of something else Art, entertainment, and media * Splash cymbal piggybacking, mounting a cymbal on top of an already ...

services. It would be operated by diesel locomotives, at least in the first instance, in order to save on electrification costs. The promoters stated that lorries already made a modal interchange to go through the Channel Tunnel. The Central Railway scheme would simply make the interchange between points or more apart, rather than at present, saving haulage companies fuel and drastically reducing carbon emissions.

Financial backing

In early 2006, the company said that 11 banks were backing the project.

Personnel

The Chairman of Central Railway was Andrew Gritten and Chief Executive of Central Railway was Alan Stevens who was a

UKIP The UK Independence Party (UKIP; ) is a Eurosceptic, right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. The party reached its greatest level of success in the mid-2010s, when it gained two members of Parliament and was the largest pa ...

county councillor A county council is the elected administrative body governing an area known as a county. This term has slightly different meanings in different countries. Ireland The county councils created under British rule in 1899 continue to exist in Irela ...

Great Missenden Great Missenden is an affluent village with approximately 2,000 residents in the Misbourne Valley in the Chiltern Hills in Buckinghamshire, England, situated between the towns of Amersham and Wendover, with direct rail connections to London Mary ...

Buckinghamshire Buckinghamshire (), abbreviated Bucks, is a ceremonial county in South East England that borders Greater London to the south-east, Berkshire to the south, Oxfordshire to the west, Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-ea ...

between 2013-17.{{cite web, url=http://democracy.buckscc.gov.uk/mgUserInfo.aspx?UID=3420 , title=Councillor details - Alan Stevens - Buckinghamshire County Council , publisher=Democracy.buckscc.gov.uk , date= , accessdate=2018-12-24

Notes

External links

* Central Railway's website http://www.central-railway.co.uk is no longer live but historic snapshots of it are available through th
Web Archive
website. Post-privatisation British railway companies