Description: Showing the excavation of the huge trench cut into the bunter sandstone and construction of the buttress walls in the station cutting, with the Holy Trinity Church, Mechanics Institute and YMCA building in the background. Nottingham Victoria was one of the main railway stations in Nottingham and was a splendid example of Victorian Railway Engineering. It was built 1894-1898 as part of the new Great Central Railway, which ran from London Marylebone through Aylesbury, Rugby, Leicester, Nottingham and Sheffield, linking up to the old Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway. The first coal trains ran between London and Sheffield in 1898, and passenger travel followed in March 1899. The railway had changed its name to The Great Central Railway, and now the network ran from London in the south through the Midlands to the older network in the North between Lincoln, Grimsby, Sheffield, Manchester, Liverpool and Wrexham. In 1923, the GCR was grouped with the GER, GNR, NER, NBR and others to form the London North Eastern Railway, in 1948 British Railways was formed. Nottingham Victoria was towards the North of the city centre, and was built in a huge cavern below street level. Trains ran into the cavern through tunnels to the north (to Sheffield) and south (along the GCR main line to London, and via GNR lines at Weekday Cross Junction towards Grantham and Melton). The GCR line crossed the MR line and the Midland Station, before travelling south and crossing the River Trent at Wilford, next to the old toll bridge. The station building was red sandstone, and a handsome clocktower rose above the facade. Trains ran along the line until the Beeching axe closed it in 1969. Smaller stations closed in 1963, and the track south of Rugby was closed in 1966. Nottingham Victoria followed in 1967. The station was bulldozed and in its place built a shopping centre and underground multi-story carpark. The only part of the station that remains is the clock tower.