Great Yarmouth railway station

History

Yarmouth Vauxhall

The Bill for the Yarmouth and Norwich Railway (Y&NR) received Royal Assent on 18 June 1842. Work started on the line in April 1843; the line and its stations were opened on 1 May 1844. Great Yarmouth station was originally named Yarmouth Vauxhall. The Y&NR line to Norwich through Reedham was the first railway in the county to open.

On 30 June 1845, a Bill authorising the amalgamation of the Yarmouth & Norwich Railway with the Norwich & Brandon Railway came into effect and Yarmouth Vauxhall station became a Norfolk Railway (NR) asset.

The Eastern Counties Railway (ECR) and its rival the Eastern Union Railway (EUR) were both sizing up the NR to acquire and expand their railway empire. The ECR trumped the EUR by taking over the NR, including Yarmouth Vauxhall station on 8 May 1848.

By the 1860s, the railways in East Anglia were in financial trouble; most were leased to the Eastern Counties Railway, which wished to amalgamate formally but could not obtain government agreement for this until an Act of Parliament on 7 August 1862, when the Great Eastern Railway (GER) was formed by the amalgamation. Actually, Yarmouth Vauxhall became a GER station on 1 July 1862, when the GER took over the ECR and the EUR, before the Bill received Royal Assent.

Two decades into GER ownership, the latter decided to build a shorter route between Yarmouth Vauxhall to Norwich Thorpe. Work started in the early 1880s. The GER started the new line about one mile west of Yarmouth Vauxhall and the junction was named Breydon. The first part of the new line opened on 1 March 1883 as far as the first station at .

The system settled down for the next four decades, apart from the disruption of World War I. The difficult economic circumstances that existed after the war led the government to pass the Railways Act 1921, which led to the creation of the Big Four. The GER amalgamated with several other companies to form the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER). Yarmouth Vauxhall became an LNER station on 1 January 1923.

In May 1943, the station was badly damaged during an air raid. The upper floor of the station building had to be demolished, but train services continued to operate during this period. The remainder of the original station building was demolished and rebuilt in 1960.

On nationalisation in 1948, the station and its services became part of the Eastern Region of British Railways. The station was renamed Yarmouth by British Railways at some point between 1953 and 1962.

Before rail closures of the 1950s and the later Beeching Axe, it was the largest of the three railway stations in the town. The three stations had been linked together since 1882 by the Yarmouth Union Railway. The station is now the sole surviving station in the town.

The station was renamed Great Yarmouth on 16 May 1989. There were large sidings and an engine shed, before they were demolished to make way for an Asda superstore and bypass.

Historical services

With the closure of Yarmouth Beach station in early 1959, Vauxhall became the focus of the summer Saturday traffic for the town. The station had always had a number of summer Saturday trains up to this point, but this hike in numbers had led to some remodelling of the station layout - platform lengthening and changes to carriage stabling - in order to cope with the additional traffic.

A typical summer Saturday in 1959 saw an additional 24 timetabled passenger trains from locations including York, Derby, Sheffield, Manchester, Leicester and Sunderland. In addition, on 25 July 1959, there were an extra eight holiday relief workings. Some local services were cancelled to cope with this influx of trains, but it indicates the significant numbers of British holidaymakers still travelling by train and holidaying in Great Yarmouth at this time.

Privatisation

On privatisation, ownership of the station passed to Railtrack; management of the station and its services were transferred to Anglia Railways. In April 2004, National Express East Anglia won the replacement franchise, operating under the brand name One until February 2008. From February 2012, Abellio Greater Anglia took over operating the franchise.

Other stations in Yarmouth

The town was also formerly served by the following stations:

Yarmouth Beach

Main article: Yarmouth Beach railway station

Yarmouth Beach was located on Nelson Road and owned by the M&GN, which ran services along the Norfolk coast to and . The station closed in 1959 and the site is now a coach station, although plans exist to turn the area into offices.

Yarmouth South Town

Main article: Yarmouth South Town railway station

Yarmouth South Town was owned by the Great Eastern Railway, but also served as the terminus for the Norfolk and Suffolk Joint Railway; this ran services through and to join with the current East Suffolk Line for a main line service to London. It closed in 1970.

Newtown Halt

Main article: Newtown Halt railway station

Newtown Halt was located on Salisbury Road and was owned by the M&GN. It opened in 1933 and closed in 1959.

Services

Greater Anglia operates one train each hour between Yarmouth and Norwich, with additional services during the morning and evening peaks. Most services run via Acle, although there are still a number that run via Reedham.

Sunday services tend to be hourly and, up to 16:00, trains alternate between the two routes.

There are proposals to run a wider variety of direct services to London Liverpool Street, Stansted Airport and Peterborough from 2025.

Carriage sidings

New sidings were provided at the western end of the station to cope with the additional services operating into the station, following the closure of the M&GN system. It is a crescent-shaped site between the A47 road and Wherryman's Way at the northernmost point of the River Yare, about 1/4 mi north-west of the station. It had fallen out of use in the 1980s when Norwich Crown Point depot was built.

In 2010, the unused sidings were purchased by Great Yarmouth Borough Council; they were intended for use as a freight terminal, despite the lack of rail connection to the town's port. It was hoped that 10,000 tonnes of sugar cane per week would be carried from Yarmouth to Cantley. The need to use a lorry shuttle between the docks and the rail yard, along with a £3.2 million quote for replacing the sidings at Cantley, saw the plan dropped.

In May 2020, Eastern Rail Services commenced a lease with Norfolk County Council and Network Rail for Yarmouth Vauxhall sidings. Managing director James Steward said the siding "matched ERS's requirement for an East Anglian site to base its rolling stock." On 6 July 2020, ERS was authorised a licence exemption permitting them to operate trains within the site.

no. 08762, owned by Eastern Rail Services' sister company RMS Locotec, was delivered by road from Heaton TMD on 16 June 2020 to take up shunting duties on site.

Recent developments

A campaign was launched in 2010 to bring the station up-to-date, called the Fix Great Yarmouth Station campaign. The project attracted around 3,000 pledges of support on-line.

During 2012, Great Yarmouth Community Trust, in partnership with Greater Anglia, provided a welcoming and information service at the station for incoming holidaymakers and tourists. This service was operated as Welcome Host and continued in 2013; it was run on a voluntary basis.

In 2017, signalling and track layout changes saw the lifting of the tracks leading into platform 1, reducing the number of operational platforms at the station to three.

In 2018, it was announced that the station would benefit from £710,000 of investment, redeveloping the entrance and surrounding areas, with the work being funded by the New Anglia Local Enterprise Partnership's Growth Deal. The project was completed in November 2018.

Gallery

Image:Greatyarmouth34.jpg|Platforms 3 and 4 at Great Yarmouth Image:Yarmouthstation1.jpg|Looking across to Asda where the old rail yards were. Image:Yarmouthstationinterior.jpg|Interior of the station showing the shop and entrance. Image:Platform2greatyarmouth.jpg|Platforms 1 and 2 facing towards Norwich.

References

Citations

Sources

References

1. Butt, R.V.J.. (1995). "The Directory of Railway Stations". Patrick Stephens Ltd.
2. (1986). "Railways of the Eastern Region. Vol. 1, Southern operating area". Patrick Stephens.
3. (1947). "The First Railway in Norfolk". LNER.
4. "Yarmouth Vauxhall railway station".
5. [http://web.ukonline.co.uk/berneyarms/html/yarmouth/rail/railway.htm Great Yarmouth's Rail Connections] {{webarchive. link. (21 May 2007)
6. "Great Yarmouth's Rail Connections".
7. {{harvnb. Butt. 1995
8. Kenworthy, Graham. (January 2009). "Summer Saturday services at Yarmouth Vauxhall in 1959". Great Eastern Railway Society Journal.
9. [http://www.berneyarms.co.uk/html/yarmouth/rail/beach/beach.htm Yarmouth Beach Railway Station]
10. [http://www.berneyarms.co.uk/html/yarmouth/rail/southtown/southtown.htm Yarmouth South Town Railway Station]
11. Adderson, R.. (2007). "Melton Constable to Yarmouth Beach". Middleton Press.
12. [http://www.berneyarms.co.uk/html/yarmouth/rail/newtown/newtown.htm Yarmouth Newtown Halt]
13. (21 May 2023). "Timetables". Greater Anglia.
14. Hickey, Daniel. (26 February 2019). "Great Yarmouth to Stansted rail link "unlikely" until at least 2025". Great Yarmouth Mercury.
15. (29 May 2020). "Afternoons on BBC Radio Norfolk".
16. Intelligence ''[[Railway Gazette International]]'' December 1982 page 968
17. [https://www.railfuture.org.uk/east/rail-east/RailEast-Issue-147-September-2010.pdf Developments at Great Yarmouth]
18. Following extensive de-vegetation works, [[Direct Rail Services]] [[British Rail Class 37. 37402]] became the first locomotive in 19 years to run into the sidings on 26 May 2020, followed the next day by it delivering five former Greater Anglia [[British Rail Mark 3
19. (6 July 2020). "Eastern Rail Services Limited LMD licence exemption | Office of Rail and Road".
20. [https://rmslocotec.com/news/08762-undergoes-maintenance-and-cab-refurbishment-at-great-yarmouth 08762 undergoes maintenance and cab refurbishment at Great Yarmouth]
21. (12 March 2010). "Fix Our Railway Station: Talks held". Great Yarmouth Mercury.
22. Clapham, Lucy. (21 June 2012). "Friendly faces all aboard to greet visitors".
23. Ryan, George. (21 September 2017). "Platform to be removed from Great Yarmouth train station as part of signals upgrade".
24. Norton, Joseph. (21 November 2018). "First look at Great Yarmouth train station's new £710,000 entrance".
25. (21 November 2018). "Great Yarmouth station forecourt transformation complete".