[What Is This Building?]

The Aviary at the Arboretum

I remember seeing a parrot there in the 1950s that was supposed to be 80+ years old, probably had been there when the woman were looking at the birds.

[Map Requests.]

Here's the same place from the 1950s. It's now obviously an embankment going over the roads - totally the opposite to what they were showing 20 years earlier. And there's no actual line marked - must've been lifted by then. Only the Midland still has tracks shown.

On OS 1 inch map sheet 122 (fully revised 1950), the track is not depicted as lifted. It shows a double track line going west from Basford junction to closed stations at Watnall and at Kimberley (MR station, north of GNR station by the brewery) before becoming a disused railway track that ran to a stub connecting to Bennerley junction on the main Erewash Valley line. Passenger service to Watnall and Kimberley (Midland) ended effective Jan 1 1917. The OS map also shows a single track line diverging north from the line at Watnall Junction which connected to several collieries (Watnall, High Park, Moor Green, etc) before joining back to the main Erewash Valley Midland main line. According to the www.forgottenrelics.co.uk website the section from Kimberley to Basford Junction was lifted 1955/1956. If that is true there would not have been coal trains on it in 1959. Watnall colliery also had a GN connection that crossed above the Basford to Bennerley Midland line near Watnall station.

[Old Railway tunnels]

At Ratcliffe on Soar there is a 3rd tunnel to the east of the railway tunnels.

Maybe to link the power station to the Trent, any ideas?

It contains water pipes between the Power Station and the River Trent as you suggest. I am guessing that there may also be high-voltage electrical cables in or close, as the overhead transmission line across the river ends right by the north end of the water tunnel.