Great Central Railway - News and "Stuff"

[Flying Phil]

I think the funding will be coming from a variety of sources, but the bridge is not part of NR as they only own to the top of the Chord line from the Midland Main Line.
The bridge falls under the responsibility of the East Midlands Railway Trust who are no doubt busy trying to get it all sorted with the highways dept, County Council, British Gypsum, GCR, DCRT etc etc!!

[Flying Phil]

mcdjl said:

How far up do EMRT own then? As far as gypsum/East leake, or all the way to ruddington?

EMRT own all the GCR(N) track, so from the top of the chord line at Loughborough through to, and including, the site at Ruddington. Both the DCRT and EMRT have the stated aim of re-unification....as has the GCR and GCR(N). Obviously there will be problems to sort out along the way....but we will achieve the 18 mile railway!

[Flying Phil]

That's an impressive shed! Particularly when you notice the size of the man in the last picture. The GCR is to build a new shed and hopefully we will find out more at the AGM this weekend.

[Flying Phil]

The new shed will be very close to where the old engine shed is so there are "Grandfather" rights and it is an industrial zone. Quorn is residential, so no place for a working shed.
The A 60 bridge is part of the "Bridging the gap" project, so it will all need to be done to get the 18 mile railway.
The AGM should be very interesting....

[Flying Phil]

RoverP6B said:

What happened to the site identified for the abortive Workington shed project?

This was to the NE of the present shed, on land adjacent to the Council Recycling depot. I believe that when detailed ground investigations were completed it was found that the land was contaminated and would be too expensive to build on. In fact, comparatively little of the Workington shed was able to be saved but it does still exist in storage somewhere.

[Flying Phil]

Hi P6B
There has been a large - and recently lengthened, shed built there (the back edge of Swithland sidings) - which is used for carriage storage jointly with the Rail Vehicle Preservation group. Again it is a planning condition that no restoration/heavy power tools are used as it is a residential area.

[Flying Phil]

By way of a change for us, the Ops dept were able to bring 6 wagons from Swithland for "Fitness to Run" examination. The shed staff were needed to check the brakes and had to replace the odd hose(4) and seal (5), but all now ok. We did the pad exams, so 24 axleboxes were split or opened. All journals smooth and two poor pads needed replacing. Only another 16 wagons to do......

[Flying Phil]

mcdjl said:

Your wagons seem to feature heavily here https://fb.watch/7fcYpgdO-y/

Thanks mcdjl but that link won't open for me as I'm not on fb.....
But there will be lots of action on the Great Central this weekend for the "Railways at Work Gala".

[Flying Phil]

I was able to prepare a door today......


Then paint it in primer....

[Flying Phil]

Great News
Confirmation in the latest issue of "Main Line" no 188 that "Fundraising for the Factory Flyover section of Reunification has reached the magic seven figure sum".
I must say that I am surprised that it is such a low key announcement.......£1,000,000+ raised - despite a pandemic, in just over 18 months!!!

[Flying Phil]

Our 16T Mineral wagon is nearly finished - and we have completed our "Fitness to Run" examination of 10 of our running rake...so far!

[Flying Phil]

Thanks Rich...This will be our next project, as it failed its FTR with inoperative vac cylinder and bodywork corrosion....

[Flying Phil]

Six more wagons in to do "Fitness to Run" examinations....

[Flying Phil]

Quite correct Matchmaker....however it was felt that the mix of bauxite and grey didn't reflect the "image" of the GCR Windcutters of the 50's and 60's and so all bar one are grey. There is a longer explanation on the GCR website.
We now have those 6 wagons "Fit to Run" and so will have a full rake for the Autumn Gala Sept 30th - Oct 3rd.

[Flying Phil]

Hi Yertis - yes, Unfitted wagons of all types were grey..... and Fitted (Either with through pipes or vac brakes) were bauxite.

Three more wagons were brought to Rothley by the Ops dept and one has passed its FTR exam (B 279742). The other two need some "light" body repairs (B 279721 and B573403). This means that we have 20 of our 30 wagons with new FTRs. We are still on schedule for our 30@30 at the end of next year......

[Flying Phil]

Finally wagon B279719 is completed and it will be out in the running rake during the Gala Sept 30th - Oct 3rd.

[Flying Phil]

Very nice to see our 18 wagons at Loughborough station, awaiting Gala running. They are due to be pulled by a single chimney 9F which is visiting the GCR from the North York Moors Railway.
In the meantime we now have the next wagon in the shed. After removing two barrowloads of rust we could see what needs doing....a new floor!
So we have made a start....

[Flying Phil]

More metal/rust has been removed!

[Flying Phil]

I have been sent a couple of pictures from the recent Gala (Thanks to Richard Warren) which helps to explain why we volunteer to restore rusty 16T wagons.

[Flying Phil]

The ArtfulBodger said:

toastyhamster said:

Looks great Phil.

I have a really dumb question. I know steam boilers can't be made from stainless steel (well they could but they'd never get a boiler cert), but why not use stainless steel in wagon use/more generally in railway stuff that rusts? Cost? Ease of use? Also, why are connecting rods etc stainless?

Cost, pure and simple.

Goods wagons were not and still are not expected to last a lifetime - making them out of stainless won’t extend their useful service life nor make them more economical to operate.

That is a good question and there are several answers, as already outlined, but another aspect is that we are trying to keep a historic collection of wagons running to showcase 1950/60's freight movement. They are steel bodied and they do get rusty.....and that is part of their charm(?). In BR days their useful life was about 25 years before rebodying. In our limited, unloaded, infrequent use they are lasting a lot longer.
Incidently, Coupling and connecting rods on steam engines are not stainless - just polished high grade steel.