Recommended Posts

A friend of mine has posted the following on Facebook. I thought I might share her question on here to see if anyone knows about it.

'Does anyone know why the bridge for the new stretch of tramline that went over the road next to Midland Station towards the Meadows has been removed?
I took pictures of this as it was being built thinking the area would never look the same again....and now its gone!
Very puzzling'

Any offers please?

Link to post
Share on other sites

If only "They" had left the GC bridge in place, think how much it would have saved!

  • Upvote 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

The new bridge will also acommodate a tram stop for the station and has been designed to leave room for the overhead powerlines when the ML route is electrified. Somehow I don't think the GCR took account of those design requirements with their structure. :jumping:

Link to post
Share on other sites

'Hindsight is a wonderful thing'. If only they'd left half the things that were destroyed over the years.

I was one of the reactionaries who said that they should have closed Midland station and NOT Victoria. Victoria was on a direct line to everywheree; midland is an outlying station connected badly to nowhere in particular.

  • Upvote 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

Not sure about that - Derby was a bit of a roundabout excursion from Victoria, and while Derby is not a particularly desirable destination, it did offer good connections in many directions - but not from Friargate where the trains from Victoria dropped you.

Link to post
Share on other sites

We are basically talking of two railway systems here the ex L.N.E.R.(G.N.R./G.C.) & the ex L.M.S.(Midland Railway)

And the two systems were not generally connected for running from one system to the other.

When I lived in Nottingham & wished to go to Derby I would never have gone there from Victoria.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Apart from the lack of large(ish) population centres south of Rugby the GCR's fate was sealed when it became part of BR's London Midland region.

There was no way the old LMS-types - working for BR - would allow a former LNER route to survive rather than one of their "own".

Link to post
Share on other sites

The best rail solution for Nottingham would have been to scrap everything and start again ;)

It would have been far too expensive though!

Neither Victoria, London Road or Midland were ideal - either in location or routes. Nottingham City Council was at least partly to blame. In the 19th Century, they made it difficult for the railways to build anything too close to the city centre, or that might cause any "obstruction". The original plan for the Great Northern was for a railway line from London Road across a viaduct past the castle and out to the west. Instead, the objections of the council forced them to build a long loop round via Gedling and Arnold.

It was only when most of the lines had been built that the council realised the error of their ways and tried to persuade the Great Northern and Midland railways to develop a central station - but to no avail.

Finally, the Great Central built its line through Victoria, but with poor connections to the west.

Victoria was a grand station. If it had survived, it would surely have ended up looking like Birmingham New Street though - a concrete tunnel under a shopping centre. It suffered from having just 2 tracks at either end - the ones to the north being quite long and very expensive to widen.

Link to post
Share on other sites

The prime reason for both the Great Northern lines north & west of Nottingham was coal traffic. The Great Central was more important for freight than passengers.

Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 1 year later...

Ayup! where habve the through running lines gone in Midland Station?

Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 2 months later...

Carrying on from the photos of the bridge in post #15, this is what it all looks like a bit further along.

This corner, with the Crown Inn, has now changed.

crown2.jpg

It now looks like this. As a reference, the brown-brick factory on the right has survived.

ark1-2.jpg

Slightly different angle. Up the slope to the bridge over the railway station.

ark2-1.jpg

Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 3 weeks later...
  • 5 months later...

These photos could go in several threads, but Tram Bridge is good enough.

This is the new tram bridge over the railway line at Lenton Lane. Towards Beeston and Chilwell on the left, coming from Nottingham on the right. For the railway people, this is Lenton South Junction. Taken from Lenton Lane bridge.

lenton%20tram1.jpg

This is the bridge looking at its approach from the Nottingham side. 40 years earlier I would have been standing in the Ordnance Factory in the Meadows.

lentontram2.jpg

This is real anorak material - industrial archaeology. The approach to the bridge comes through land which used to be sidings for Clifton Colliery and Wilford Power Station. This concrete lamp post is a leftover from those days. The bridge in the background is the original Lenton Lane bridge.

lentontrampost.jpg

  • Upvote 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

A friend of mine has posted the following on Facebook. I thought I might share her question on here to see if anyone knows about it.

'Does anyone know why the bridge for the new stretch of tramline that went over the road next to Midland Station towards the Meadows has been removed?

I took pictures of this as it was being built thinking the area would never look the same again....and now its gone!

Very puzzling'

Any offers please?

Well, at least you were right. It will never look the same again.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...