East Midlands Railway Trust/GCR (Nottingham)

If you look at the "Cutting Edge" FB page post from yesterday, it appears that Contractors are currently conducting vegitation trimming along the whole of the northern section - something that doesn't appear to have been mentioned elsewhere......

 

There's an event taking place at Rushcliffe Halt tomorrow .....

 

I was told that there has been a lot of vegetation clearance work done on the GCR(N). Hopefully they will be restarting running trains soon.

 

A notification of this just popped up whilst I was watching something else....

 

Just the usual line side flailing in advance of the nesting season.

No sign of any running in the near future yet

 

Interesting last sentence in George Green's editorial column in the spring issue of Main Line. Referring to the Ruddington based 125 group's need for a main line connection he writes, "However, the A60 bridge renewal and the planned lesser works further north, when complete, should see connection re-established and the whole line available to traffic, which will be another big step towards reunification." (my underlining).

Might that suggest Bunny Lane bridge just north of Rushcliffe Halt is repairable, rather than needing replacement?

 

Something is finally happening at Ruddington!


How long has the saga of building 4 been going on.........??

 

Excellent news!
Hopefully they will also be updating the website to reflect this good news...

 

16 years, if my arithmetic is correct:
- First sod cut for the building by Edgar Fay QC at the age of 99;
- Who died at the age of 101 in 2009.

So, roughly 2007ish?

Anyhow, good news coming out of Ruddington for once.

 

There's life, Jim, but you have to search for it.....
https://gcrn.co.uk/node/27

The EMRT website, meanwhile, appears to be stuck in 2021....

 

Thanks Johann - however is that a development page as it does not seem to appear on the regular GCR(N) website - however the MOD at 40 years does??

 

I believe that is actually their "new" webpage and hadn't realised there was another version still running. This one appeared back in February but I hadn't looked at it to see what had been updated on it for quite a while as I've been too busy on other things.

 

Given that it's under the name 'GCRN' which the company is not currently trading under (instead they trade under 'Nottingham Heritage Railway, NHR') I'd be surprised if this was the current website for the railway

 

It's back to GCR(N) again now as far as I'm aware - Certainly listed as such (with the names of the current directors) on the inside back page of the current edition of Main Line amongst the other GCR related organisations (FoGCML, DCRT, EMRT, GCR plc)
That website has only appeared in the last few months.

 

…

 

I thought it had changed back to GCRN when the new new board took over from the previous new board that changed it to NHR…?

 

There is a bit more information on the Ruddington.info site which has this ;-

"......Now East Midlands Railway Trust (EMRT) says there’s been a new agreement between the two – with ‘Nottingham Heritage Railway’ again being referred to by its original ‘trading’ name of Great Central Railway (Nottingham) Ltd [GCR(N)] – which is preparing the way for heritage trains to restart from Ruddington.

EMRT has revealed that a change to the ‘Articles of Association’ of GCR(N) Ltd was unanimously approved by shareholders at their Annual General Meeting on January 21st. The vote heralds a ‘new relationship’ between supporting charity East Midlands Railway Trust and GCR(N), with the aim of getting heritage trains ‘running sooner’ and securing the future of nine miles of preserved railway between Ruddington and Loughborough.

It appears the key change removed a clause in the articles which prevented any one party from owning more than 10% of the shares issued in GCR(N). Now, East Midlands Railway Trust, the charity which owns the freehold of the railway, can convert its longstanding loan to GCRN Ltd into share capital to acquire a majority interest in the company. In future GCR(N), as it seeks to reopen the line and run trains, will be the commercial arm of the charity....."

 

Right. It would have been nice of them to clearly communicate that reversal of name to the volunteers and members...

 

Radio silence for the volunteers from both trusts and board, nobody has a clue what's happening until you fall over it at the moment!

 

There has been another update on that website....
https://gcrn.co.uk/node/28
I always thought that particular building was intended for the historic vehicles owned by the GCR Rolling Stock Trust but that update states it will take 4 operational carriages ready for when train services return....
Thought they would have got more than 4 carriages in there as well TBH.