A quick look at today's map of the county of Leicestershire and it's
easy to see that its county town, Leicester, sits at an important
railway crossroads. With London to the south and the East Midlands
cities of Derby and Nottingham to the north, the line linking St Pancras
and Sheffield is crossed in Leicester by one of England's most important
east-west link lines. This link provides passenger rail journey
opportunities to and from Birmingham to the west and the cities of
Peterborough and Cambridge to the east. In addition, it is playing an
increasingly important role as a freight route to and from East Anglia,
including connecting the UK's largest container port at Felixstowe with
a number of terminals across the country. The line between Leicester and
Burton on Trent may have lost its passenger service, but it remains an
important access route to the quarries in the area around Coalville. The
county's railways may have been drastically pruned by the Beeching Axe,
but they still have a wide variety of traffic on offer. In this book
John Jackson looks at the variety of traffic at work on the county's
main lines. The story is completed by a glance at today's roll of
Brush's workshops in Loughborough and loco servicing and stabling
facility now occupying the former depot at Leicester itself.
