Lost Railways of Leicestershire and Rutland [Paperback]

My interest in trains peaked in the sixties but never completely disappeared, although it has been dormant for long periods. My curiosity was aroused when I started walking around Leicester and observing, among other things, the remains of old railways. This book, one of series that I hope may eventually cover the whole of Great Britain, explores Leicestershire and Rutland, discussing the railways that used to exist but which no longer do, or which survive exclusively for the conveyance of freight traffic.

These days, passengers can travel on the old Midland Railway line that runs from London (St Pancras) to the north of England, or they can travel on the east-west cross-country route that runs between Birmingham and Norwich or Stansted Airport. The author has not included these lines, although they inevitably get the occasional mention while discussing other lines. Other books in the series covering different regions include chapters on lines that survive but where stations have been closed, but I don`t mind whether they are included or not.

The lines covered here include the oldest line in the area, the Leicester and Swannington Railway. Which was built to transport coal from the mines to the city. Parts of this line survive for freight traffic, and there was at one time a plan to re-open these sections for passengers, but this plan has been abandoned. Maybe it will be resurrected one day.

Also here is the most famous closed line in the area, the Great Central Railway, which at its peak was a rival to the Midland Railway. Some sections of this once-mighty network survive, but the central spine became a victim of Beeching's axe. In Leicestershire, the section between Loughborough and the northern outskirts of Leicester survives as a tourist attraction, using a mix of steam and diesel locomotives and using the Great Central Railway name. To the north of Loughborough, a section of the line towards Nottingham is still in use for freight (with a link to the surviving ex-Midland Railway line) and if this freight traffic ceases, the Great Central Railway may try to take over that section too.

Less well known is the line that the Great Northern Railway built to connect Leicester with its own main line from London (Kings Cross) to York. In its heyday, this line provided Leicester with easy access to the seaside resorts of Skegness and Mablethorpe, but the land between Leicester and Grantham was (and still is) deeply rural so local passenger traffic was always limited. With the Great Central and Midland both providing good long distance services to the north, I doubt if many passengers took the train to Grantham to travel onwards to the north of England or to Scotland. The old station, described as a mini-King's Cross, was razed to the ground and a supermarket stands on the site where it used to be. Freight traffic kept the line going for a long time, but this has gone too.

All those railways and other lost lines in the two counties are explored - why they were built, the traffic they carried, their decline and closure, together with a description of what you could still see at the time of publication. To aid exploration, Ordnance Survey references are given although, as the author points out, some places of interest are on what is now private land and permission may be required to gain access. Even just sticking to public land, there is plenty to see, particularly in Leicester where a large section of the Great Central Railway has been converted to a public footpath and cycleway, while the site of the old West Bridge station (terminus of the and Swannington Railway) is preserved with a mock-up. The old Great Central station was built on a viaduct. The viaduct survives, but there have been changes to the site and there will be more, so the future is uncertain here, but I understand that the intention is to redevelop the site preserving the viaduct intact. Further south, the Upperton Road bridge that carried an important road over the Great Central has been demolished since the book was published, while the bowstring bridge survives but needs expensive restoration that may not be forthcoming, so may suffer the same fate. That would be a pity, though I don't see how the cost of restoration could be justified from public funds, especially as it would have no practical value. (To find out more, just Google for bowstring bridge Leicester.)

Elsewhere in Leicestershire and Rutland, there is an amazing variety of surviving relics of the old railways. I was surprised to see that a former railway cutting is now used to train racehorses. Steeplechase fences have been erected so that racehorses now gallop and jump where iron horses once hauled their trains (see picture on page 97, sadly without a horse in view). Some other railway cuttings have been used as landfill, which is much less glamorous but the garbage has to go somewhere.

If you are interested in Leicester's railway heritage, and especially if you wish to explore surviving relics, this book is well worth reading. Just remember that there will always be further developments, so a few things may be different now from what the book says.