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

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

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 k ...

, connecting the

Channel Tunnel The Channel Tunnel (), sometimes referred to by the Portmanteau, portmanteau Chunnel, is a undersea railway tunnel, opened in 1994, that connects Folkestone (Kent, England) with Coquelles (Pas-de-Calais, France) beneath the English Channel at ...

with the north of England, particularly

Liverpool Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...

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 Great Central Main Line, London Extension. On 1 January 1923, the company ...

. 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 in South Yorkshire, England, situated south of Leeds and east of Manchester. The city is the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire and some of its so ...

using the disused

Woodhead Tunnel The Woodhead Tunnels are three parallel trans-Pennines, 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, Derbyshire ...

and then turned south via the

Erewash Valley The River Erewash is a river in England, a tributary of the River Trent that flows roughly southwards through Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, forming the boundary between the two counties for much of its length. It rises near Kirkby-in-Ashf ...

, joining the former

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

(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 area, and the county town of Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. It is the largest city in the East Midlands with a popula ...

. 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 rou ...

it would have joined the

Chiltern Main Line The Chiltern Main Line is a railway line which links London () and Birmingham (Birmingham Moor Street railway station, Moor Street and Birmingham Snow Hill railway station, Snow Hill) on a route via High Wycombe, Bicester, Banbury, Leamington ...

, running alongside it on new tracks, then paralleling the

M25 motorway The M25 or London Orbital Motorway is a major ring 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 th ...

, 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-Saxons, Anglo-Saxon ...

and

Merstham Merstham is a town in the borough of Reigate and Banstead in Surrey, England. It lies 17 miles south of Charing Cross just beyond the Greater London border. Part of the North Downs Way runs along the northern boundary of the town. Merstham has ...

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

Folkestone Folkestone ( ) is a coastal 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, shipping port, and fashionable coastal res ...

. An alternative route would have seen the line joining

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

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 and civil parish in the East Suffolk District, East Suffolk district, in the county of Suffolk, England. The estimated population in 2017 was 24,521. The Port of Felixstowe is the largest Containerization, containe ...

and

Southampton Southampton is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Hampshire, England. It is located approximately southwest of London, west of Portsmouth, and southeast of Salisbury. Southampton had a population of 253, ...

. 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 Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), member ...

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. Australia In the Australian state of New South Wales, county councils are special purpose ...

Great Missenden Great Missenden is a village and civil parish in the Misbourne Valley in the Chiltern Hills in Buckinghamshire, England, situated between the towns of Amersham and Wendover. It adjoins the village of Little Kingshill, and is a mile from Lit ...

Buckinghamshire Buckinghamshire (, abbreviated ''Bucks'') is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-east, Hertfordshir ...

, between 2013 and 2017.{{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