Future
As of 2010 the line is very little used as its freight traffic has disappeared or goes by road. At the Leicester end of the line, Knighton North Junction has been dismantled and the former course of the line to the junction has been sold and turned into an industrial estate. The line's remaining connection with the Midland Main Line is Knighton South Junction, which faces southwards, away from Leicester railway station. Trains between Leicester and Burton-on-Trent would therefore have to reverse directions at the junction to use the line.
Nevertheless, in the 1990s BR planned to restore passenger services to the Leicester to Burton upon Trent Line as the second phase of its Ivanhoe Line project. However, after the privatisation of British Rail in 1995 this phase of the project was discontinued. In 2009 the Association of Train Operating Companies published a £49 million proposal to restore passenger services to the line that would include reopening stations at Kirby Muxloe, Bagworth and Ellistown, Coalville Town, Ashby de la Zouch, Moira and Gresley (for Swadlincote). There is also some support in the Leicester area for the line to have new stations to serve Leicester City F.C.'s King Power Stadium and the suburb of Braunstone.
Read more about this topic: Leicester To Burton Upon Trent Line
Famous quotes containing the word future:
“The future is the worst thing about the present.”
—Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880)
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—Jim Trelease (20th century)
“But I choose to think he is escaped from the possibility of falling into any future afflictions, and that neither the malice of his pretended friends nor the sufferings of his real ones can ever again rend and torment his honest heart.”
—Sarah Fielding (1710–1768)