Leicester Central railway station

Leicester Central
Leicester Central frontage in 2002
Location
Place	Frog Island
Area	Leicester
Grid reference	SK580050
Operations
Pre-grouping	Great Central Railway
Post-grouping	London and North Eastern Railway London Midland Region of British Railways
Platforms	6
History
15 March 1899	Opened
5 May 1969	Closed
Disused railway stations in the United Kingdom
Closed railway stations in Britain A B C D–F G H–J K–L M–O P–R S T–V W–Z

Leicester Central was a railway station in Leicester, England. It was situated to the west of the city centre, on Great Central Street which is today just off the inner ring road. It was closed in 1969.

Opened on 15 March 1899, the station was part of the Great Central Railway's London Extension linking Nottingham with Marylebone in London. The railway crossed built-up Leicester on a Staffordshire blue brick viaduct, incorporating a series of fine girder bridges. In a detail typical of the high standards to which the London Extension was built, the abutments of the girder bridges that crossed public roads were lined in white-glazed tiles to increase the level of light under the bridges. In total the viaduct was in excess of a mile and a half in length and it was upon this that Leicester Central station would be constructed. At the time of construction, the station was the largest single building to be erected in Leicester.

The viaduct's construction required a large area of land to be acquired by compulsory purchase with the GCR agreeing to re-house at its own expense the inhabitants of around 300 houses which had to be demolished; the area principally affected by the works was the working class Blackfriars district (near modern-day Frog Island), where the slums in Sycamore Lane, Charlotte Street and Friars Road were entirely swept from the map, to be replaced by Great Central Street. Around 250 houses were constructed in Newfoundpool to the west of Leicester.

The station was comprised within a south-west facing rectangle, bordered on the one side by Blackfriars Street and Jarvis Street, and on the other side by the new Great Central Street. The tracks ran north-east to south-west, crossing the A50 Northgate Street on a "bowstring" girder bridge before splaying out on either side of a large 1,245 ft H-shaped island-style platform upon which the station was built. Six running lines flanked either side of the station – the Up lines on one side and the Down lines on the other, with bays at either end to accommodate local workings to Nottingham and Rugby. A parcels office and stabling point for locomotives were also incorporated into the site.