THE GREAT CENTRAL RAILWAY
After a jam-packed 50th anniversary year, the Great Central Railway is already taking big steps forward, with a new management team and a new outlook.
Forward. Famously the motto of the old Great Central Railway company. Unlike the somewhat pretentious Latin mottos adopted by other railway companies, this single word epitomised the GCR’s modern attitude and transformation from the old, regional Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway into a new and dynamic organisation that, with its new ‘London Extension’ main line to Marylebone, had its eyes firmly on the future.
‘Forward’ could also be, appropriately, the motto of today’s Great Central Railway. While 2023 was very much a celebration of its past and 50 years as a heritage line, 2024 is all about the future and making Britain’s only preserved double-track main line fit for the next 50 years.
Choice of passion
Leading the charge is the GCR’s new general manager, Malcolm Holmes. Replacing the outgoing managing director Michael Gough after a review of the railway’s management structure, Malcolm has been in the newly created post for over a year.
In many ways, Malcolm is the ideal person for the top job. Firstly, he’s a professional railwayman, having started his career with British Rail in 1992, when he was in the last intake to BR’s Railway Training Scheme. From there, he worked with the Intercity driver management team at Bristol Bath Road, followed by stints as a ticket examiner (also at Bristol) and as a senior conductor, based at Derby. Malcolm has also worked for Midland Mainline, Silverlink (now London Overground), and Chiltern Railways, and led the West Midlands Rail Executive (“I’m very proud of that,” says Malcolm).
Malcolm has also been a GCR volunteer for three decades. “When I came to Derby to work for Midland Mainline, my trainer at Derby was the senior stationmaster at Quorn & Woodhouse station, who is a volunteer on the railway today. I’ve been a volunteer here ever since, except for a bit of a break when I was working in London.”
Being a volunteer has given Malcolm the perfect grounding for stepping up as general manager. “I recognised and observed, as a volunteer, many of the challenges that the railway was facing and believed that I maybe had something to offer. Leading the West Midlands Railway executive, the nature of
