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Great Central Railway (preserved)
The Great Central Railway (GCR) is a heritage railway in Leicestershire, England, 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. 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). Between 2006 and 2023 there were four accidents involving injury to people, or investigation by the Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB). 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, Sheffi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BR Standard Class 7 70013 Oliver Cromwell
70013 ''Oliver Cromwell'' is a British Railways BR Standard Class 7, Standard Class 7 (also known as the Britannia class) historic preservation, preserved steam locomotive. The locomotive is notable as one of the four steam locomotives which worked the last steam railtour on British Railways (BR) in 1968. Career One of 55 of the Standard Class 7, ''Oliver Cromwell'' was built at Crewe Works, being completed on 30 May 1951. 70013 was initially allocated to Norwich engine shed, Norwich depot (List of British Railways shed codes, BR shed code 32A) on the Eastern Region of British Railways and employed on Liverpool Street railway station, London Liverpool Street to Norwich railway station, Norwich expresses. Some of the Norwich diagrams (the day's operating schedule for a locomotive) required two return trips a day to London totalling 460 miles. The introduction of the Britannia Pacifics revolutionised express services in East Anglia. From 1958, diesel-electric locomotives began t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nottingham
Nottingham ( , East Midlands English, locally ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located south-east of Sheffield and north-east of Birmingham. Nottingham is the legendary home of Robin Hood and to the lace-making, bicycle and Smoking in the United Kingdom, tobacco industries. The city is also the county town of Nottinghamshire and the settlement was granted its city charter in 1897, as part of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee celebrations. In the 2021 United Kingdom census, 2021 Census, Nottingham had a reported population of 323,632. The wider conurbation, which includes many of the city's suburbs, has a population of 768,638. It is the largest urban area in the East Midlands and the second-largest in the Midlands. Its Functional Urban Area, the largest in the East Midlands, has a population of 919,484. The population of the Nottingham/Derby metropolitan a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Public Limited Company
A public limited company (legally abbreviated to PLC or plc) is a type of public company under United Kingdom company law, some Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth jurisdictions, and Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is a limited liability company whose shares may be freely sold and traded to the public (although a PLC may also be privately held, often by another PLC), with a minimum share capital of £50,000 and usually with the letters PLC after its name. Similar companies in the United States are called Public company, ''publicly traded companies''. A PLC can be either an unlisted or listed company on the stock exchanges. In the United Kingdom, a public limited company usually must include the words "public limited company" or the abbreviation "PLC" or "plc" at the end and as part of the legal company name. Welsh companies may instead choose to end their names with , an abbreviation for '. However, some public limited companies (mostly nationalization, nationalised concer ... [...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. A total of 842 were built, initially numbered 4658-5499 then renumbered 44658-45499 by BR. 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 Great Western Railway, GWR. In his early LMS days, he designed his LMS Stanier Mogul, Stanier Mogul , experimenting 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 4900 Class, GWR Halls, but they wer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ministry Of Defence (United Kingdom)
The Ministry of Defence (MOD or MoD) is a Departments of the Government of the United Kingdom, ministerial department of the Government of the United Kingdom. It is responsible for implementing the defence policy set by the government and serves as 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 World War I, concluded that there was a need for greater ... [...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's 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 ... [...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 rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 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. British Railways was formed on 1 January 1948 as a result of the Transport Act 1947, which nationalised the Big Four British railway companies along with some other (but not all) smaller railways. Profitability of the railways became a pressing concern during the 1950s, leading to multiple efforts to bolster performance, including some line closures. The 1955 Modernisation Plan formally directed a process of dieselisation and electrification to take place; accordingly, steam locomotives had been entirely replaced by diesel and electric traction (except for the narrow-gauge Vale of Rheidol Railway tourist lin ... [...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 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) The Great Central Railway (GCR) is a heritage railway in Leicestershire, England, 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 Leiceste .... 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 construction ... [...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 colloquially referred to as the Beeching Axe, were a major series of route closures and service changes made as part of the restructuring of the nationalised railway system in Great Britain in the 1960s. They are named for Dr. Richard Beeching, then-chair of the British Railways Board and the author of two reports''The Reshaping of British Railways'' (1963) and ''The Development of the Major Railway Trunk Routes'' (1965) that set out proposals for restructuring the railway network, with the stated aim of improving economic efficiency. The first report identified 2,363 stations and of railway line for closure, amounting to 55% of stations, 30% of route miles, and the loss of 67,700 British Rail jobs, 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 f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Midland Main Line
The Midland Main Line (MML), sometimes also spelt Midland Mainline, is a major Rail transport in Great Britain, railway line from London to Sheffield in Yorkshire via the East Midlands. It comprises the lines from London's St Pancras railway station, St Pancras station via , / and . Express passenger services on the line are operated by East Midlands Railway (EMR). The line is electrified between St Pancras and Wigston, south of Leicester railway station, Leicester, and the section south of Bedford forms a branch of the northern half of the Thameslink, Thameslink network, with a semi-fast service to Brighton railway station, 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 railway station, Leeds via Barnsley Interchange, Barnsley and Sheffield are shared with Northern Trains, Northern. East Midlands Railway also operates regio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
