Preservation
In 1969 local groups who opposed the closure gathered together for a meeting in a Leicester Central waiting room. The Mainline Preservation Group (MLPG) was formed to restore a section of the railway to run Britain's largest steam and diesel locomotives on double track in a heritage capacity, and recreate scenes from the past using these features. Work began on salvaging as much reusable material from the recent demolitions and start work on the project. The original plan was to restore the entire closed line from Nottingham Arkwright Street to Rugby Central, but this was soon cut back to a smaller Loughborough to Leicester section due to time and financial realities. British Rail retained a single track between the Loughborough and Ruddington for British Gypsum freight and access to the now-closed Ministry of Defence base.
Read more about this topic: Great Central Railway (heritage Railway)
Famous quotes containing the word preservation:
“The reason why men enter into society, is the preservation of their property; and the end why they choose and authorize a legislative, is, that there may be laws made, and rules set, as guards and fences to the properties of all the members of the society: to limit the power, and moderate the dominion, of every part and member of the society.”
—John Locke (1632–1704)
“There is something to be said for jealousy, because it only designs the preservation of some good which we either have or think we have a right to. But envy is a raging madness that cannot bear the wealth or fortune of others.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)
“The bourgeois treasures nothing more highly than the self.... And so at the cost of intensity he achieves his own preservation and security. His harvest is a quiet mind which he prefers to being possessed by God, as he prefers comfort to pleasure, convenience to liberty, and a pleasant temperature to that deathly inner consuming fire.”
—Hermann Hesse (1877–1962)