When travelling around Norfolk do you ever think to yourself…”there used to be a train station there” or “I’m sure that’s where the railway line was.”
Most of them have long gone but the memories remain and from time to time we hear about suggestions to build more stations as plans for thousands of new homes are discussed.
Over the next few weeks we shall be looking at some of the stations and lines which criss-crossed the county and provided such a valuable service for both locals and visitors.
In his autobiography the late George Cushing, founder of the Thursford Steam Museum, recalled how people would walk to Thursford station on Sunday evenings just to watch the trains go by.
Back in the 1830s there were talks and plans to build railways in Norfolk with the first one being a link between Norwich and Yarmouth. The line followed the course of the River Yare.
By May 1 1844 Norfolk had its first railway and the intermediate villages of Brundall, Buckenham, Cantley and Reedham made their debuts on the railway timetables.
Slowly but surely other lines and stations were opened as the railway map of Norfolk and Suffolk continued to grow, north, south, east and west.
Local landowners were largely responsible for the promotion of the branch lines from King’s Lynn to Hunstanton as a way of promoting attractions of the north-west corner of the county as a holiday and excursion destination.
As time move on more lines and stations were built. Holiday makers, locals and businesses used the railways opened by various companies.
The Iron Horse was virtually unchallenged as the most efficient means of transport in the county.
The railways played their part during the war years, and the construction and additional sidings were built at several locations to handle materials for airfields being built across Norfolk and Suffolk.
In 1948 the railways were nationalised and the lines in Norfolk became part of the British railways system and once established began to prune the network.
The Mundesley to Cromer line, the last to be built, was one of the first to be closed and places like Overstrand and Trimingham never developed as the promoters had hoped.
By Easter of 1953 the last trains on the route closed and Cromer High station shut the following year. The days of two stations in one town were fading away.
Lines were closed on the coast and other smaller ones such as those between Heacham and Wells, Wroxham and County School and Tivetshall and Beccles.
The only permanent victim following the 1953 floods was the stretch of line between Wells and Burnham Market.
On a more positive note, in 1952 the “Broadsman” express was introduced on a two-hour schedule between Norwich and London, and by 1959 there were four two-hour trains in each direction.
And then in 1959, before the notorious Beeching Report in 1963, 180 miles of railway, running from Yarmouth and Norwich in the east to Peterborough and Bourne in the west, would be erased from the map.
*On Tuesday September 10 at 7.30pm there will be a brief service with lit beacons and floral tributes on River Green, Thorpe St Andrew, to mark the 150th anniversary of the train crash which claimed 26 lives.
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