Traffic on the Great Central Railway

Coal from the South Yorkshire and Nottingham/Derbyshire coalfields was the major source of revenue. This traffic headed both east, to Grimsby and Immingham for export and west to the industrial areas of south Lancashire.

The new mainline to London became the major passenger route of the GCR, and the company introduced a substantial service between Marylebone and Manchester including dining and refreshment services on most of the expresses. To generate as much traffic as possible on the new route, Sam Fay introduced many through services often passing over the metals of several railway companies. Some examples of these were Barry - Newcastle, Manchester/York/Bradford - Bournemouth, Liverpool/Manchester - Harwich. Some of the through services consisted of complete trains, in other cases just through carriages.

The link with the GWR between Woodford and Banbury saw much freight traffic and also a notable number of the through services mentioned above.

Another significant service were the fast fish trains from Grimsby which headed for most parts of the country, mainly south.

Acknowledgements

Thank you to Richard Barron for the above information.