“Give me a child until he is seven and I will
give you -
someone who, hopefully, might also like trains
a bit in the future.”
My grandson [and my passenger]
is 18 weeks old today and therefore oblivious, for the time being anyway, of
the history of the track formation directly ahead of his current method of transportation.
With luck, Grandad will explain all in the fullness of time. The [pram]
driver’s view is of the old Great Central Railway in its approach to the city
of Nottingham Ruddington
Lane
The tramway-stop at Ruddington Lane, Wilford,
looking north.
The impressive, four-track,
GCR River Trent viaduct [bridge 289] and the Nottingham South Goods signal box,
which once commanded the approach to that crossing, just to the north of here, are
things of the past. Not far to the south, however, the modern Great Central
Railway [North] is well established in the old ordnance depot at Ruddington and
with the replacement of the missing link over the ex-MR main line at
Loughborough under way, the dream of a reinstated Leicester to Nottingham
inter-city steam railway is closer to becoming a reality.
There is plenty of
time for my new companion to learn about the erstwhile sights and sounds along
the route of the Master Cutler and the South Yorkshireman
that might have attracted his attention at his current abode, had he arrived
there, three, or maybe even just two, generations earlier.
Looking south from the
Ruddington Lane tram crossing in the direction of former bridge 296, the GCR alignment
went straight ahead. The tram tracks are crossed by the A52, the Nottingham southern
ring road, before veering off to the right towards Clifton
Walking the “buggy
friendly” modern footpath alongside the route in the other direction towards
Wilford, I noticed these tell-tale blue bricks forming a small bridge that crosses
the stream at the approach to the Compton Acres tram stop, close to the site of
former bridge 294. Wilford brick works was on the east side of the line to the
south of this point. That area is now occupied by Wilford Industrial Estate,
apart from which, the surroundings are now engulfed by housing developments.
That growth, of
course, is what encouraged the development of phase two of the Nottingham
Express Transit [NET] system, with the two newer lines between them more than
doubling the network, adding 17.5 kilometres of new route and 28 more tram
stops. The other line passes Queen’s Medical Centre above ground, then on via
Nottingham University and Beeston before ending up at Toton Lane.
I never travelled on
the former GCR in BR days. I didn’t go around Annesley or Woodford Halse sheds,
nor did I ever go train spotting on any of its stations. It was an unknown
quantity to me, sandwiched between the West Coast Main Line, which we knew very
well from our regular visits to Crewe and Preston and the East Coast Main Line,
which we held in high esteem as a kind of enthusiast’s El Dorado. For the most
part it was out of our range, though it beckoned us with the tantalising promise
of riches. The GCR occupied the railway shadowlands of my youthful imagination,
somewhere between the two. I was unaware of any concentration of “namers”
frequenting those parts, so, consequently, it was overlooked. Like the S&D,
it was gone before I had a chance to pay it the attention it deserved. I’m
trying to make up for it now, in a small way, by volunteering on the ambitious and
forward looking, present day GCR set-up.
Living in the East Midlands today, I’m now very conscious of the course
of the old GCR, both in areas where it has left no trace and those where the
blue brick infrastructure still provides an indicator of former glories. Until
relatively recently, in addition to the Nottingham Victoria clock tower that
somewhat incongruously overlooks the entrance to the shopping centre of the
same name, there were many other clear reminders of how, rather belatedly, the
GCR had cut a swathe through the whole built-up area.
For me - and from a considerable
distance at home on Merseyside - Weekday Cross was the best known of these
locations, now immortalised in the splendid paintings of Rob Rowland, a member
of the Guild of Railway Artists. I found its unusual name and its
unconventional, yet instantly recognisable, railway location intriguing.
Photographs of it must have appeared in Trains Illustrated and elsewhere from
time to time in the 1960’s.
The elevated junction,
hemmed in amongst the cityscape, was formed where a north to east spur to the former
Great Northern Railway’s route to Grantham joined the GCR. Both lines marched
through the city using a series of tunnels, bridges and viaducts. As the name
suggests, this area was actually at the heart of the medieval city and it has
been an important location continuously since Saxon times.
In its latest guise, part
of the development site has become the Nottingham Contemporary, a fascinating
gallery, though for my admittedly rather conservative taste in art, it tends to
show some very bizarre exhibitions from time to time that just add to my
general puzzlement with what probably isn’t even called “modern art” any more. I,
for one, would still prefer the railway.
It no doubt won’t be
long before my grandson is exercising his own preferences, as the wonders of
the world open up before him. For the moment, though, he seems quite content
for me to keep pushing on a bit while he gets some more shut-eye.
[This article has previously appeared in the Railway Antiques Gazette and Main Line, the journal
of the Friends of the Great Central Railway]
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