Track Watch 2013 – Humberstone Gate

11 Mar

A second sighting this year – just a small amount of rail spotted this time.

This time we are on Humberstone Gate at the corner of Charles Street standing with the school uniform shop behind the camera. This section of Humberstone Gate (between Charles Street and Rutland Street) is being remodelled to give it a new layout and a smarter paving appearance.

Most of the road is made up of concrete slabs from a previous road remodelling and then tarmac covered so much of the rail in this section was removed some time ago. The new roadworks have run right up to Charles Street and it looks like the workers may have unearthed the end of what remained from a previous clear up of tram rails. Some of the ends of the sections show the bolt holes where the fishplates have been removed showing that whoever removed the adjoining piece did it properly and un-did the bolts. That makes me think that this might be the point where the original removal of the network ended back in 1950.

I had to brave some ferociously cold weather to snap this poor quality image. 10 seconds later and it began to snow! There are four small sections of rail stacked up at the back of this scene against the white plastic safety barrier

Thanks to members of the Leicester Transport Heritage Trust for the tip off on this one!

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