Last weekend, the GCR was 125 years old. In 1899, the London Extension was opened between Annesley and Quainton Road, thus connecting the old Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway in the north with the Metropolitan Railway in the Home Counties. This allowed expresses to travel directly for the first time from Manchester London Road to the new station at Marylebone, on the then newly renamed Great Central Railway.
The modern-day GCR has now been a heritage railway for
longer than in any of its previous guises – GCR, LNER and BR. It is to the
great credit of the volunteers who saved it from complete destruction in the
late 60s and early 70s, and to those who have followed them since, that there
is now a vibrant double track main line to enjoy, complete with its own branch
line, and with plans well underway for a through inter-city railway connecting the
southern edge of Nottingham with the northern extremities of Leicester.
The celebratory weekend included a get together at Marylebone on Friday and a two-day anniversary event back in Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire to emphasise the increasingly close links being forged between the current GCR at Loughborough and the GCR[N] at Ruddington, joined for the duration by shuttle buses running between the two.
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