Great Central Railway wins £10m award

Bridge to the Future update June 2014. The project to bridge the gap between the two preserved sections of the GCR has now (April 2015) raised £860,000. Video GCRofficial.

Sir Peter Luff, the new chairman of the Heritage Lottery Fund, has announced support worth £98 million for nine projects to preserve Britain’s rich scientific and technological history.

The world’s largest medical collection in London’s Science Museum, one of the earliest factories at Derby Silk Mill, and Cheshire’s ground-breaking Jodrell Bank centre for astronomy are among the sites receiving a share of the money from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Millions of pounds are set to help digitise the British Library’s UK sound collection, while the Great Central Railway, a double-track operational heritage railway between Loughborough and Leicester, will receive funding of £9,999,400 for its Main Line Bridging the Nation project to create a new heritage railway museum in Leicester.

GCR Winter Steam Gala 30 January to 1 February 2015. Video Steaming Around The Midlands.

The new museum will provide secure and weatherproof accommodation for some of the UK’s most iconic locomotives and rolling stock that work or are stored on the GCR, as well as artefacts such as posters, badges and the Newton Photographic Collection.  Uniquely, the operational heritage railway will be an integral part of the museum, enabling visitors to make the connection between exhibits and a real piece of living heritage.

The project will build on an already thriving apprenticeship scheme and involve new volunteers.  There will be a complementary outreach programme which includes plans to make contact with the local Asian community which has strong links to the railway.