Plans for new viaduct to reunite heritage Great Central Railway line

Work is under way to try and reunify the two sections of the railway

Plans for a new viaduct to reunite two halves of a heritage railway line have been announced.

The Great Central Railway line ran between Leicester and Nottingham until the 1970s, when old bridges and an embankment were removed.

Plans to build a link to connect the Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire branches, which will create an 18-mile stretch of railway, are set to be submitted "in a matter of weeks".

Organisers are appealing for funding.

An artist's impression of the new urban viaduct section has been released

Restoration work to reunite the line - which celebrated its 125th anniversary since its opening last month - has been ongoing since 2017, with the timescale for the work depending on funding.

Malcolm Holmes, general manager of the Great Central Railway, said the new plan will need 100m of embankment and 200m of viaduct.

He said about £500,000 will need to be spent on design documents and blueprints once an application is submitted, with about £2m already raised to fund the scheme.

"Momentum's really building now towards reunifying what are currently two railways," he said.

"With that 18-mile railway we'll be better able to recreate the best years of steam, which is what we exist to do."

The original old Great Central Railway bridge, in Loughborough, carried locomotives over four tracks of the main line