The Great Central Railway station that never opened

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The Great Central Railway mainline opened in 1899. It linked London, Rugby, Leicester, Nottingham, Sheffield and Manchester. It was the last mainline to be built in Victorian times in Britain. • Just north of Leicester in between the villages of Swithland and Rothley, a new station was being constructed ready for the lines opening. To be called Swithland, it sat on top of the bridge by the current day Swithland sidings and the branch off to Mountsorrel quarry. However the decision was made to instead open an alternative station at Rothley, a very short distance south. • As a result, the Swithland station was never actually opened. There is some debate as to whether or not the entire station was even built. These days we can see a bricked up arch on the road under the bridge (The Riddings). This would be the staircase that would lead up to the platforms. We can see from above that the tracks follow their usual GCR formation for an island platform, but no platform exists these days. • The Great Central Railway these days operates as a heritage railway between Leicester North, just to the north of Leicester City Centre - and Loughborough at the northern terminus. There are plans ongoing to extend the railway even further north as part of a Reunification scheme with another heritage railway near Nottingham. • ‪@GCRofficial‬ • ***Link to GCR Reunification series - • Great Central Railway Reunification

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