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The Great Central Railway (Nottingham) (formerly known as Nottingham Transport Heritage Centre) is a heritage railway and Transport Museum on the south side of the village of Ruddington in Nottinghamshire. The route consists of approximately 8.5 miles of the former Great Central Railway Main Line between Loughborough South Junction (with the Midland Main Line), to Fifty Steps Bridge and the site of Ruddington's former GCR station site, plus a branch line from Fifty Steps Bridge to the Ruddington Fields site which is located on a former Ministry of Defence site next to Rushcliffe Country Park. There are currently stations at Ruddington Fields (within the main centre site) and at Rushcliffe Halt, but the GCR(N) aims to re-open the former station at East Leake in the future, and there are plans to build a high-level (interchange) station at Loughborough (as there is currently no platform there). The railway is currently not connected to Great Central Railway (at Loughborough Central in Leicestershire), although there are plans well underway and work started to reunite the two preserved lines. This is a major engineering project that is expected to be completed during 2018 - 2020. Some 5.5 miles of the line is used by gypsum trains serving the British Gypsum works at East Leake. == Preservation history == After the major part of the GCR main line was closed by British Rail in 1968 a section from Nottingham to Rugby was retained until 1976. Presevationists had hoped to convert that into a live heritage line, but funding was impossible to obtain — except for the length from Loughborough to Belgrave and Burstall, north of Leicester. British Rail decided to maintain rail connection from Loughborough to Ruddington MoD depot until closure and the GCR main line became an unsignalled BR single-track branch. When the Ministry of Defence depot at Ruddington was closed, so the 2.77 miles of track from East Leake to Ruddington were no longer needed by BR. It was also considered that British Gypsum was unlikely to bring in any more bulk materials from Coal-Fired power Stations by rail. The GCR Northern Development Association was formed with the aim of reconnecting the then two GCR sections once again. Work initially concentrated on restoring Rushcliffe Halt, but when Nottinghamshire County Council, which had acquired the whole of the 220 acre MoD site, agreed to lease 12 acres of the former MOD site to the Association, the grand scheme of the Nottingham Transport Heritage Centre was devised to encompass not only railway preservation but any transport heritage relevant to the area. In the 1990s, work on what had become the Great Central Railway (Nottingham) Ltd was concentrated mainly at Ruddington. The transfer of former BR property to Railtrack and then Network Rail hindered attempts to purchase the line. Ironically, it was British Gypsum's intention to renew rail freight traffic that was the catalyst that allowed the GCR(N) to buy the line and restore it initially for freight use. At East Leake station, houses were built on the former goods yard in the 1980s and some were built only yards from the remaining track. The disused nature of the line combined with a solicitor's error led the new occupants to believe that the line was closed, but BR had never listed the line as closed and could have resumed operations at any time. However, when the GCR(N) applied for a Transport and Works Act 1992 Order to purchase and operate the line, objections from local residents resulted in a permanent speed restriction of 5 mph through East Leake and the station remaining closed. For Network Rail to route freight trains onto the line during the week and GCR(N) to operate heritage trains at the weekend, a length of rail north of East Leake was removed to create two separate railways. However, with this 'rail break', the GCR(N) were unable to access Rushcliffe Halt, and a better solution was found in the form of a clip-on, double-sided wheel scotch, padlocked to the line at the site of the rail break. At weekends, the GCR(N) phone Network Rail to take possession of the line: Network Rail then lock the line out of use from their end and allow the GCR(N) to unlock the rail break and access the track to Loughborough. In 2003, regular services to Rushcliffe Halt resumed. Passenger trains further south now run on a regular basis to the site of a proposed Loughborough High Level station. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Great Central Railway (Nottingham)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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