thumb|right| The route of the new line
Central Railway was a British company which proposed to build a new intermodal freight railway line, with a generous loading gauge, connecting the Channel Tunnel with the north of England, particularly Liverpool docks, using much of the trackbed of the former north–south Great Central Railway. The company argued that such a line could significantly cut road congestion by carrying lorries on flatbed rail trucks.
The company was formed in the late 1980s, and its proposals were controversial and faced opposition. The plans were rejected by the government in 1996 and again in 2003, largely because of doubts over financing its £8 billion cost, even though it was a private-sector project.
Route
The line would have run from the Liverpool Docks to Sheffield using the disused Woodhead Tunnel and then turned south via the Erewash Valley, joining the former Great Central Main Line (much of whose trackbed was still intact) south of Leicester. At a rebuilt Ashendon Junction it would have joined the Chiltern Main Line, running alongside it on new tracks, then paralleling the M25 motorway, entering a new tunnel between Leatherhead and Merstham and then running alongside existing railways via to the Channel Tunnel terminal at Folkestone.