Old Dalby

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Old Dalby is a village in the English county of Leicestershire, UK. It is located to the north west of Melton Mowbray. Although it is now called Old Dalby, it was originally known as "Dalby on the Wolds".

Old Dalby has its own village school, post office, church, retirement home and a pub called 'The Crown'. Once a year, on the August bank holiday Monday, the village holds a fete known as "Old Dalby Day" to raise money for different charities connected with the village.

The Dalby and Heather Preceptory belonging to the Knights Hospitallers was situated in the village.

Old Dalby is the location of the former British Rail Research Division's railway test track, known in the industry as simply 'Old Dalby'. However following privatisation of the UK railways, the test track was taken over by Alstom and electrified in order to test the Virgin Trains tilting Pendolino fleet. During this upgrade phase, which began in 2000, the centre of operations moved to Asfordby (on the outskirts of Melton Mowbray) where a depot was converted from the former National Coal Board's buildings. However with the demise of Alstom's train building in the UK, the future of the test track looked bleak and there was a real possibility that it might have been closed.

However on 12th February 2007 Metronet, the consortium charged with renewing a large proportion of the London Underground'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 3rd and fourth rail system but the original 25kV line will also be retained for future use.