Great Yarmouth railway station

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Yarmouth Beach was located on Nelson Road and owned by the M&GN, which ran services along the Norfolk coast to Melton Constable and Peterborough. The station closed in 1959 and the site is now a coach station, although plans exist to turn the area into offices. [10]

Yarmouth South Town

Yarmouth South Town was owned by the Great Eastern Railway but also served as the terminus for the Norfolk and Suffolk Joint Railway, which ran services through Gorleston-on-Sea and Lowestoft to join with the current East Suffolk Line for a mainline service to London. It closed in 1970. [11]

Newtown Halt

Newtown Halt was located on Salisbury Road and was owned by the M&GN. It opened in 1933 and closed in 1959. [12] [13]

Services

Summer 1959

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

A typical summer Saturday 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 that ran. Some local workings were cancelled to cope with this influx of trains, but it indicates the significant numbers of UK holidaymakers still travelling by train and still holidaying in Great Yarmouth at this time. [14]

Present day

There is 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. All services are operated by Greater Anglia. [15]

There are proposals to run a wider variety of direct services to London Liverpool Street, Stansted Airport and Peterborough from 2025. [16]

Carriage sidings

The carriage sidings at Great Yarmouth RMS 08762 Yarmouth 160620.jpg
The carriage sidings at Great Yarmouth

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 (400 m) north-west of the station. It had fallen out of use in the 1980s when Norwich Crown Point depot was built. [17] [18]

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. [19]

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." [17] Following extensive de-vegetation works, Direct Rail Services 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 Mark 3 coaches for storage. [17] [20] On 6 July 2020, ERS was authorised a licence exemption permitting them to operate trains within the site. [21]

Class 08 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. [22]

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. [23]

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. [24] 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. [25]

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. [26] The project was completed in November 2018. [27]

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References

  1. 1 2 3 Butt, R.V.J. (1995). The Directory of Railway Stations. Yeovil: Patrick Stephens Ltd. p. 256. ISBN   1-85260-508-1. R508.
  2. ↑ Body, Geoffrey (1986). Railways of the Eastern Region. Vol. 1, Southern operating area. Wellingborough: Patrick Stephens. p. 124. ISBN   9780850597127.
  3. ↑ Allen 1956, p. [ page needed ].
  4. ↑ Allen 1956, p. 46.
  5. ↑ Dow, George (1947). The First Railway in Norfolk (Second ed.). LNER. p. 29.
  6. ↑ "Yarmouth Vauxhall Railway Station". www.berneyarms.co.uk.
  7. ↑ Great Yarmouth's Rail Connections Archived 21 May 2007 at the Wayback Machine
  8. ↑ "Great Yarmouth's Rail Connections". www.berneyarms.co.uk.
  9. ↑ Butt 1995 , pp. 256, 109
  10. ↑ Yarmouth Beach Railway Station
  11. ↑ Yarmouth South Town Railway Station
  12. ↑ Adderson, R.; Kenworthy, G. (2007). Melton Constable to Yarmouth Beach. Midhurst, West Sussex: Middleton Press. pp. Plate XXI. ISBN   978-1-906008-03-1.
  13. ↑ Yarmouth Newtown Halt
  14. ↑ Kenworthy, Graham (January 2009). "Summer Saturday services at Yarmouth Vauxhall in 1959". Great Eastern Railway Society Journal. 137: 24–27.
  15. ↑ "Timetables". Greater Anglia. 21 May 2023. Retrieved 21 October 2023.
  16. ↑ Hickey, Daniel (26 February 2019). "Great Yarmouth to Stansted rail link "unlikely" until at least 2025". Great Yarmouth Mercury. Retrieved 22 October 2023.
  17. 1 2 3 Bumfrey, Stephen; Steward, James (29 May 2020). Afternoons on BBC Radio Norfolk . www.bbc.co.uk. BBC Sounds. Event occurs at 2h46m. Retrieved 21 June 2020.
  18. ↑ Intelligence Railway Gazette International December 1982 page 968
  19. ↑ Developments at Great Yarmouth
  20. ↑ New us for revitalised Yarmouth sidings Rail issue 907 17 June 2020 page 24
  21. ↑ "Eastern Rail Services Limited LMD licence exemption | Office of Rail and Road" (PDF).
  22. ↑ 08762 undergoes maintenance and cab refurbishment at Great Yarmouth
  23. ↑ "Fix Our Railway Station: Talks held". Great Yarmouth Mercury. 12 March 2010. Retrieved 20 October 2023.
  24. ↑ Clapham, Lucy (21 June 2012). "Friendly faces all aboard to greet visitors". Great Yarmouth Mercury.
  25. ↑ Ryan, George (21 September 2017). "Platform to be removed from Great Yarmouth train station as part of signals upgrade". Great Yarmouth Mercury.
  26. ↑ Norton, Joseph (21 November 2018). "First look at Great Yarmouth train station's new £710,000 entrance". Eastern Daily Press.
  27. ↑ "Great Yarmouth station forecourt transformation complete". 21 November 2018.
Great Yarmouth
National Rail logo.svg
Great Yarmouth (formerly 'Vauxhall') station, 1993 geograph-3579907-by-Ben-Brooksbank.jpg
Great Yarmouth railway station in 1993
General information
Location Great Yarmouth, Great Yarmouth
England
Coordinates 52°36′42″N1°43′15″E / 52.6118°N 1.7207°E / 52.6118; 1.7207
Grid reference TG519080
Managed by Greater Anglia
Platforms3 (numbered 2, 3 and 4)
Other information
Station codeGYM
Classification DfT category C2
History
Original company Yarmouth and Norwich Railway
Pre-grouping Great Eastern Railway
Post-grouping London and North Eastern Railway
Key dates
1 May 1844 (1844-05-01)Opened as Yarmouth Vauxhall
UnknownRenamed Yarmouth
16 May 1989Renamed Great Yarmouth
Passengers
2018/19Decrease2.svg 0.381 million
Preceding station National Rail logo.svg National Rail Following station
Acle   Greater Anglia
Wherry Lines
(via Acle)		 Terminus
Berney Arms   Greater Anglia
Wherry Lines
(via Reedham)		 
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