Bridge to the Future

For many years the Great Central Railway has cherished a vision. We want to bring together the two halves of the former main line railway we preserve to create an exciting whole.

We foresee an 18 mile railway where the biggest steam locomotives can operate and look at home. It will stretch across the East Midlands between Nottingham and Leicester and bring economic benefit.

A glance on any map shows you the problem. Five hundred metres of the line are missing at Loughborough. It was taken away by British Rail in the 1970s.

Putting it back involves building a new embankment, placing a bridge over a road and then another bridge across the Midland Main Line railway to London.

After years of hard work we are ready to begin work on the most complex but exciting part - the railway bridge.

This is a real project and it is happening. We have the best possible partner; Network Rail. Their planning, construction and project management experts are already working on the design of the scheme.

We have to raise one million pounds, to put two previously recovered bridge decks in place by the end of 2015.

If we fail, when the Midland Main Line railway is electrified in a few years time the project will become prohibitively expensive and the vision will be lost forever.

The other elements of the project are straightforward. Get the bridge in and they will follow. Anything we raise over the one million pound target will be spent taking us towards the inevitable "Golden Spike".

Together with Network Rail we can close the gap and reunify the railways. If you want to see the vision become reality the time to act is now.

Any donation you can make is very welcome and takes us closer to our target.

For more information about the project and the ways you can help or to make a secure donation online using a credit card, head to www.gcrailway.co.uk/unify. 

There is also a downloadable Q&A information sheet available HERE (Adobe PDF format).