GC Whetstone Curve

[Brian Kirby]

Not to be confused with the 1960s freight connection from the Midland lines to Leicester GC South Goods, i've spotted another disused formation on an O.S. map slightly further south at Whetstone/Blaby. It also appears on Google Earth and Bird's Eye View, and branches off from the G.C. London Extension, immediately north of where it crosses the Midland Leicester to Nuneaton line. It curves sharply to the east, with the obvious intention of connecting to the Midland, before petering out. Was this chord an original part of the GC scheme? Did any traffic ever use it? The Signalling Record Society mention it, quoting dates of 1916 to 1919, so was this perhaps a World War One government scheme, which were more common during WW2 leading up to D-Day? If the lower half of the GC were ever rebuilt, this abandoned spur would be very useful for gaining access to Leicester Midland and points north. 

 

Any further information would be appreciated.

 

                                                                             Cheers, Brian.

 

                                                                                                           

[Butler Henderson]

From George Dows Great Central Vol 3 - ....on 14th July 1916 a south-east curve about 3/8 mile in length...was brought into use...designed solely for Government traffic, becoming 'temporarily closed' three years later,...the track was taken up in 1922.

[Brian Kirby]

Many thanks Butler Henderson, that seems to confirm everything. If anyone looks on Google Earth, you can still clearly see the curved section at the GC end. You learn something new every day. BK

[Brian Kirby]

Just to add, the disused formation can be seen on the 1954 map within this website.

http://www.npemap.org.uk/tiles/map.html#439,402,1 BK

[30851]

It was originally built to help during the construction of the GC extension and was removed when the GC was opened. As stated above was re-opened during WW1 – seems strange that they didn’t re-open it again in WW2.  Note – the line it connected to belonged to the LNWR not the Midland.

 

There were a number of these special connections during the construction – certainly there was one at Loughbourgh joining to the Midland about where the Chord now is. Also, I sort of remember reading about one at Leicester about where the 1965 freight cord was built – again joining to the Midland. Both these were removed when the GC opened for traffic.

 

 

 

[Brian Kirby]

Thanks 30851, quite right, Nuneaton to Wigston was LNWR, not Midland. I just looked it up in my Pre-Group Atlas! BK

[30851]

See link for a picture of the Loughbourgh connection http://www.railwayarchive.org.uk/map/getobjectmap.php?rnum=L1493&mapid=453320.jpg&mlsref=1032&cmn=Loughborough&pn=&mp=&all=yes

 

 

Rob

[Brian Kirby]

Very interesting, and as you mentioned, pretty much the same spot for the 1974 chord. Rather essential i suppose, when one thinks of the vast tonnages of rail, sleeper, bricks and ballast required. Now i'm wondering whether there was something similar at Rugby, during GC construction? BK

[30851]

I don't know if there was a connection at Rugby or not. Of course there would have been connections to the outside at Woodford and Quainton Road as well.

 

Other planned connections I have seen talked about include:

 

The book 'Echoes of the Great Cntral' talks about a connection at Rugby to the LNWR at Clifton - this would have allowed a train from Leicester to enter Rugby Midland from the south. I have never seen any other mention of this link and the book doesn't say why it didn't get built.

 

There were talks in the 1950's when the LMR took over of connections at Loughbourgh and Leicester to integrate the Midland and GC. This was part of a plan to create a freight spine up the middle of the country. They didn't have the resources at the time to do this - and of course plans changed shortly afterwards. I have seen no details on these but I believe they would have been build for much higher speeds than any of the connections actually built. As a side note - I believe that the removal of the express passengers off the GC was part of this plan and not part of a planned run down - they wanted more paths for freights, expecially during the electrification of the West Coast.

 

The last set of connections I have heard about before closure were in the late 1960's. These would have been at Hillmorton and Whetstone and again would have been high speed connections. This was part of the thinking about the diversion of the Nottingham, Sheffied expresses into Euston and the closure of St Pancras.

 

Rob

 

 

[Butler Henderson]

The link that built at Whetstone during the construction of the GC of very light construction as there is no evidence of it on the 1904 OS map in "The Great Central Then and Now" and further according to George Dow in "Great Central Vol 2" it was a mile long so a completely different formation to the 1916 curve.

[Brian Kirby]

Many thanks for the extra info, no doubt all the materials for building the viaducts at Rugby, would have arrived via the LNWR. Rugby is obviously roughly halfway between Whetstone and Woodford Halse, which in itself is quite a long run, so surely they must have had temporary contractor's connections here during construction? Perhaps they were even both north and south of the LNWR, prior to constructing the Birdcage and approach viaducts?         BK

[DavidBird]

I'm not aware of anything in the Nottingham area connecting with the Midland, other than the connection put in at Netherfield in the late 60s between the Grantham line and the midland line from Newark to allow Grantham trains to access the Midland Station.  Of course around Nottingham was the pre-existing GN network, so any other connections were not necessary.

 

Unless anybody knows different?

[Butler Henderson]

The Netherfield link was a reopening of the original route of the line. It was the MRs opposition to the GNR using its station, a GNR loco was kidnapped!, that resulted in the GN parallel route being built and with the following railway developments around Nottingham (now all lost) it has to wondered whether the MR came to regret the kidnapping.

[Sheffield]

While the GCR was being built there were, I believe, two connections at Whetstone to the LNWR. One already mentioned, and another a little further south that ran along side the Littlethorpe-Whetstone road, acroos country and round to the LNWR immediately east of Narborough station. There used to be a siding at Narborough just before the platform along side the Leicester to Nuneaton track that was the remains of it. I think this was link was made to allow wagons to be exchanged at a station where there was a signal box to control things. There was no yard, or signal box at the LNWR end of the more northerly curve, near Blaby.

[30851]

I'm not aware of anything in the Nottingham area connecting with the Midland, other than the connection put in at Netherfield in the late 60s between the Grantham line and the midland line from Newark to allow Grantham trains to access the Midland Station.  Of course around Nottingham was the pre-existing GN network, so any other connections were not necessary.

 

Unless anybody knows different?

There was a connection at London Road Low Level station but it wasn't a running connection - a number of reversals had to be done to get from one line to the other. Take, for example, a train heading to Skegness from the Midland lines - this would proceed along the Newark line past Sneinton Junction. At this point the LM engine would uncouple and a pilot would couple at the rear end. The pilot would then drag the train through the exchange sidings to besides London Road Low Level. Then the pilot would uncouple and an ER engine would attach at the front and off it would go. 

 

At some point in the early 60's (maybe 62 or 63 but not sure) an easier connection was added that allowed trains to directly proceed towards Trent Lane Junction from Nottingham Midland. This was the connection that was used by the parcel trains and the Ruddington trains in the early 1970's. Other uses of this connection were the DMU's on the remaining Rugby services to get to Midland Carriage sidings for refueling. And I am guessing here as I have never seen it mentioned but the remaining Colwick - Northampton freight trains would have used this after the GN&LNW joint line through Melton Mowbary closed (not sure of the date here - different sources say different things) before the Netherfield link was re-opened on 13/12/64.

 

Rob

[Rugd1022]

A connection between the GC and LNWR was planned at Rugby but it was never built.

[30851]

I have just remembered another talked about link to the GC Extension. At some point ( prior to 1923 I assume) there was talk of diverting the LNWR line to Loughbourgh Derby Road over to Loughbourgh Central. The map shows the line diverging from the existing LNWR line around Shepshed and joining the GC by the A6 bridge. 

 

Rob

[Butler Henderson]

The Loughborough LNWR connection, proposed in 1906, failed to be built due to arguments over the form of the junction with the GC. In Great Central Vol 3 George Dow explains that the GC wanted a flying junction but the LNWR insisted on a flat junction which would have been £13000 cheaper (approx £3.4m today). The GC convinced a House of Commons committee of the soundness of a flying junction "whereupon the North Western, its traditional air of superiority for once throroughly deflated, discarded the idea of a junction altogether."