Great Central Railway- Railways At Work- 19th-20th August 2023

Some footage taken around the event, featuring Beeching protests and the return of 6990 'Witherslack Hall' running as scrapped sister loco 6988 'Swithland Hall'.

 

Had another idea for how to give Leicester North something unique to show at future events. Permanent Way.

So, with all the spare ballast area, a display of Permanent Way equipment from the 1960's could be set up. Then between trains at specific times there can be a demonstration of how track gangs kept the railways in order during the 1960's.

 

As I got to Rothley in plenty of time on the Saturday morning (first train movement was around 08.40), I did notice that the tearoom on the platform was already open by that time - certainly by 08.30 - which was considerably earlier than I've seen it before. A lot of people were taking advantage of this facility (including me) as it was open early and I can can certainly recommend the Jubilee sponge cake that was on offer !
Hopefully they did well financially out of this and that earlier opening becomes a regular feature of the special weekends. The place certainly seemed very busy each time I passed through on the train and I don't think the cake supplies lasted very long.....
Certainly the hot drink + cake portion offer at £3.20 was a bit of a bargain!

 

Rip off , coffee or tea /cake only £3.15 on Rothley platform.!.Yes very busy here and on the trains during Saturday. Two photo's attached ,GWR Hall and 73156 on a Leicester holiday special.

 

Short bit of video from Sunday afternoon, we were only there for a few hours with a nice run behind the Hall, but was a wonderful event.

 

One of the best events I’ve been too. Not too packed like many steam galas, but lots of atmosphere that really made the event.

The little cameos across the whole line really did make the event, the trainspotting schoolboys being chased by the police, the anti-Becching protesters, the mechanical horse drag race. Brilliant fun and certainly an event I’d look to return to in the future.

 

I see that the dates for next years event have been posted on the GCR FB page - 11th/12th May 2024.