The font used in this publication is ‘Gill Sans’, a true ‘Railway Font’ being designed by Eric Gill in 1927 for the LNER for use on their Notices and Posters.

This Newsletter is an independent publication, and whilst every attempt is made to ensure accuracy of information, any discrepancies are not the responsibility of Great Central Railway.

Sept. 2014. No. 74

If you have any material that you think might be useful for this publication, please e-mail me at brian.rowe2@virginmedia.com

As mentioned in issue No. 73, and inview of the wonderful prospectsthat are on the horizon for our

railway, I realised that there must bemany people who are totally unawareof the beginnings of the present GCR. So, with this in mind I decided toinclude the following from PeterSkinns, one of the Founder Members,and who was present at the inauguralmeeting that took place in 1969 atLeicester Central Station

FIRST MEETING OF THE MAINLINE PRESERVATION GROUP.

“The meeting was held in March 1969 atLeicester Central station in the generalwaiting room, which was situated oppo-site the top of the staircase, which ledfrom street level to the platform. Atthis time the station was effectively anunstaffed halt apart from the signalmenwho I think were responsible for open-ing and locking up the waiting room andthe gates in Great Central Street . As far as I can remember there wereabout fifty people present and the meet-

ing was addressed by Richard Williswho outlined the objective of the groupwhich unlike all other preservationschemes was to operate as a main lineprobably starting from Abbey Lane sid-ings and running to the outskirts ofNottingham.” “The immediate priority was to per-suade British Rail not to lift the trackafter the line closed which was going tobe on the 3rd of May 1969 and in orderto send the message that we were

serious, Richard asked the people at themeeting to join the group and to recruitas many other people as possible. Most of the people at the meeting paidthe ten shillings fee and joined there andthen, I became member number 26 buthad difficulty persuading other people,most of who thought we were barkingmad! Alas we were unable to preventBritish Rail from lifting the track. Over the next few months I wasinvolved in several events to promotethe group, these included a film showgiven by Alan Pegler at the Museum,an exhibition at the Vaughan College,stands at the Rempstone traction enginerally and the City of Leicester show inAbbey Park . Also around this time the first editionof Main Line appeared produced by Rog-er Holmes who asked me if I had anyphotographs he could use for subse-quent editions, to my amazement heused my picture of 35030 near Belgraveand Birstall on the cover , although hehad managed to add some smoke effectsI had also joined the group who wererestoring the Bagnall 0-6-0ST LamportNumber 3 at Leicester Power Stationand we managed to persuade a localhaulier to transport it around the city aspart of the Lord Mayors Show in May1970. We bedecked the engine withsigns promoting the MLPG and hadsome scantily clad girls handing outmembership forms to the crowds liningthe route” (see photo). “After it became clear that LeicesterCity Council wanted to develop the Ab-bey Lane site it was decided that Lough-borough would become the base andindividual groups would take responsibil-ity for restoring the other stations.The people at that first meetingcould not have imagined where therailway is today, my only regret is thatdue to having to leave the area with mywork I could not continue to be involved,but in retirement I am now involved withthe South Devon Railway.”( P. Skinns)

David Putt has this amendment toadd to the above...

“Hello Brian,Your (Peter’s) report is essentially rightas far as I can recall, although I wasn’t atthe first meeting. (My involvement be-gan in May 1969.) Your one major erroris regarding the track lifting, for BritishRail did in fact leave more or less whatwe requested. We had a single trackfrom Loughborough to Birstall with dou-ble from L’boro to Quorn. The trackwas removed from north of L’boroCanal Bridge to the Midland crossingand from Birstall south to Rugby. It wasin 1976 that the Rothley /Birstall sectionand the L’boro/Quorn Down Line werelifted.Lamport No.3 was only stored at Leices-ter Power Station after being saved, itspent its working life in the Northamp-tonshire Ironstone Quarries.Regards, “David

Bagnall 0-6-0ST Lamport Number 3 P. Skinns LATEST TOTAL!

£590.000! Go towww.gcrailway.co.uk/unify for de-

tails of this Appeal.THE ‘SWITHLAND’ DVD OF-FER IS A ‘REWARDING’ WAY

TO DONATE.WITH EVERY PENNY GOINGTO THE FUND! Go to...http://www.gcrailway.co.uk/news/#8905

GREENACRES NEWS&

MAINTENANCE REPORTOVERLEAF!

www.gcrailway.co.uk

TELEPHONE NUMBERSLEICESTER NORTH

0116 261 0946

LOUGHBOROUGH CENTRAL

01509 632 323

THE PLATFORM CAFÉ

077785 12275

CONT’D FROM PAGE ONE!MAINTENANCE REPORT!

The reduction in the amount ofmowing being carried out this monthhas given us time to get the bufferspainted at last. The wall below will bepainted white as soon as possible andrepairs and painting to the surroundingfences will begin. This important part ofour station will then be more attractive. We are carrying on with our usualjobs but extra work as regards strim-ming has been carried out which im-proves the overallappearance of the embank-ment and the station area.The flower beds are puttingon a good show and drawmany favourable commentsfrom our visitors. More details next month.Mike Dunk, (Maintenance TeamLeader).

GREENACRES NEWS! As we start to head in towardsSeptember slightly fresher mornings andcooler nights but hopefully some lovelysunny days, we will miss the footfall offamilies that came with the midweekrunning but hope customers will stillenjoy Wednesday’s timetablesthroughout the month along with somedelicious food The Platform Café has tooffer. September will be an exceptionallybusy month for staff at the café as we haveour first wedding celebrations taking placeon Saturday 13th Sept and would like toadvise all that the café will be closedfor the entire day.Looking aheadGreenacres will be welcoming all to theBeer Festival where we will be serving avariety of beers and ciders along withhome-made curries and chilli-con-carneto help wash it down with”Calling allPirates & Princesses”, why not dressup and join in the fun, The Platform Caféwill be hosting Balloon Modelling, FacePainting, Treasure Hunts and more on theweekend of 27th & 28th September so seeyou there! ( Cont’d next column.)

LEICESTER NORTH NEWSLETTER

LEICESTER NORTH STATION ARRIVALS & DEPARTURES WEEKENDS. APRIL 6th to OCTOBER 27thArrivals

10.08 10.30 11.30 12.30 1.30 2.05 2.45 3.45 4.43

Departures 10.10 10.45 11.45 12.45 1.45 2.17 3.00 4.00 4.55

Leaflets advertising ‘Drive a TrainExperiences’, Dining Trains etc

available from the Waiting Room!

‘Special’ Timetables apply on ‘GalaDays’, “Thomas” & other events

etc!(see web site for details)

FORTHCOMINGATTRACTIONS!

Beer Festival19th-21st Sept.

Classic & Vintage VehicleW/End

20th-21st Sept.

Autumn Steam Gala2nd-5th Oct.

(upper photo, looking south)Loco. No. 44847on the 14:38 Marylebone-Nottingham, passing Bel-grave & Birstall station master’s house (now the

“Green Acres” site) 8/8/1966. Taken by P. Skinns,(former Parcel Acc's. Clerk, Leicester Central Sta-tion).

LEICESTER NORTHSTATION

The original station that used to standon this site was known as BELGRAVEAND BIRSTALL, but, by the time thatthe present Heritage Railway hadreached this far south the buildings werein such a sorry state, owing to vandalism,that the decision was taken to rebuild.To have rebuilt it to its originalappearance would have beenprohibitively expensive, so the presentstation is something of a compromise.Plans are, however in the pipeline tomake many improvements. Anydonations that you feel able to make, tospeed up these proposals would be mostwelcome (please use the donation box inthe Waiting Room.) If you are wondering how the originalstation used to look, see the abovephotograph. It was a typical GCR stationwith the usual “Island” platform, accessedvia a flight of stairs from the bridge. If youlook to the left you will see where theoriginal staircase descended from thebridge (now bricked up). The presentstation is sited a little further south thanthe original. The two intermediatestations, ROTHLEY, and QUORN &WOODHOUSE, still being intact willgive you a better idea, although there isa larger copy of the above photo on thewall of our waiting room.

Please remember to signour Visitor’s Book which

will be found on the desk inthe Waiting Room!

NOTICEIf you wish to be kept in-

formed about Leicester NorthStation this “Newsletter” is

available online. Go towww.gcrailway.co.uk click on

“Leicester North Station” andthe link to the latest issue is at

the bottom of the page.

PS we are now taking bookings forChristmas Parties, for further informationplease contact Lesley Allardyce on 07778512275.