Old Dalby
Encyclopedia
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
county of Leicestershire
Leicestershire
Leicestershire is a landlocked county in the English Midlands. It takes its name from the heavily populated City of Leicester, traditionally its administrative centre, although the City of Leicester unitary authority is today administered separately from the rest of Leicestershire...
. It is located to the north-west of Melton Mowbray
Melton Mowbray
Melton Mowbray is a town in the Melton borough of Leicestershire, England. It is to the northeast of Leicester, and southeast of Nottingham...
. It was originally known as "Wold Dalby" or "Dalby on the Wolds".
Village
Old Dalby has its own village school, church, Scout Hut, Hunters Lodge a retirement home, a pub called 'The Crown' and the Belvoir Brewery. Villagers unfortunately failed in campaigning against the closure of their post office http://www.meltontimes.co.uk/news/VIDEO-Post-office-campaign-takes.3567177.jp. However a new village shop has been opened mon-sat, located at the edge of the industrial estate.Once a year, on the August bank holiday Monday, the village holds a fete known as "Old Dalby Day" to raise money for charities connected with the village.
The Knights Hospitaller
Knights Hospitaller
The Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta , also known as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta , Order of Malta or Knights of Malta, is a Roman Catholic lay religious order, traditionally of military, chivalrous, noble nature. It is the world's...
s owned a preceptory in the village.
The Village Hall
The Village Hall is located at the heart of the village and embodies much of the community spirit in Old Dalby. It is here where the weekly Sunday papers are sold together with a monthly full English breakfast, providing ample opportunity to have a good old gossip! It is available to hire for various village functions. For more details follow this link: here).Railway Test Track
Old Dalby is the location of the control centre of the former British Rail Research DivisionBritish Rail Research Division
The British Rail Research Division came into being in 1964 directly under the control of the British Railways Board, moving into purpose-built premises at the Railway Technical Centre in Derby. The intention was to improve railway reliability and efficiency, while reducing costs and improving revenue...
's railway test track, which runs between Melton Mowbray and Edwalton and which was universally known in the industry as simply 'Old Dalby'. Following privatisation of the UK railways, the test track was taken over by Alstom
Alstom
Alstom is a large multinational conglomerate which holds interests in the power generation and transport markets. According to the company website, in the years 2010-2011 Alstom had annual sales of over €20.9 billion, and employed more than 85,000 people in 70 countries. Alstom's headquarters are...
and electrified on the 25kV overhead system in order to test the Virgin Trains
Virgin Trains
Virgin Trains is a train operating company in the United Kingdom. It operates long-distance passenger services on the West Coast Main Line between London, the West Midlands, North West England, North Wales and Scotland...
tilting Pendolino
Pendolino
Pendolino is an Italian family of tilting trains used in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Slovenia, Finland, Russian Federation, the Czech Republic, the United Kingdom, Slovakia, Switzerland, China and shortly in Romania and Poland...
fleet. During this upgrade phase, which began in 2000, the centre of operations moved from Old Dalby to Asfordby
Asfordby
Asfordby is a village and civil parish in the Melton district of Leicestershire, to the west of Melton Mowbray on the A6006 road.The parish consists of Asfordby proper, Asfordby Valley and Asfordby Hill, which together have a population of around 3,000...
(on the outskirts of Melton Mowbray) where a depot was converted from the former National Coal Board
National Coal Board
The National Coal Board was the statutory corporation created to run the nationalised coal mining industry in the United Kingdom. Set up under the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act 1946, it took over the mines on "vesting day", 1 January 1947...
's buildings. However, with the demise of Alstom as a train builder in the UK, the future of the test track looked bleak and there was a real possibility that it might have been closed.
On 12 February 2007, Metronet
Metronet
Metronet Rail was one of two companies in a public-private partnership with London Underground.Metronet was responsible for the maintenance, renewal, and upgrade of the infrastructure on nine London Underground lines from 2003 to 2008. This included track, trains, signals, civil work and stations...
, the consortium charged with renewing a large proportion of the London Underground
London Underground
The London Underground is a rapid transit system serving a large part of Greater London and some parts of Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Essex in England...
's lines, announced that they had taken over the test track for the testing of new tube trains. To accomplish this they will electrify part of the line on the third
Third rail
A third rail is a method of providing electric power to a railway train, through a semi-continuous rigid conductor placed alongside or between the rails of a railway track. It is used typically in a mass transit or rapid transit system, which has alignments in its own corridors, fully or almost...
and fourth rail system but the original 25kV line will also be retained for future use.
On 7 June 2007, Metronet announced that the contract for operating and maintaining the test track had been awarded to Serco Assurance
Serco Group
Serco Group plc is a government services company based in Hook, North Hampshire in the United Kingdom. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.-History:...
(formerly Serco Railtest), based at the Railway Technical Centre
Railway Technical Centre
The Railway Technical Centre in London Road, Derby, UK, was built by the British Railways Board in the early 1960s to be its technical headquarters....
in Derby.