Great Yarmouth railway station

Great Yarmouth National Rail
Location
Place Great Yarmouth
Local authority Great Yarmouth (borough)
Coordinates 52°36′42″N 1°43′15″E / 52.6118°N 1.7207°E / 52.6118; 1.7207Coordinates: 52°36′42″N 1°43′15″E / 52.6118°N 1.7207°E / 52.6118; 1.7207
Grid reference TG519080
Operations
Station code GYM
Managed by Abellio Greater Anglia
Number of platforms 4
DfT category C2
Live arrivals/departures, station information and onward connections
from National Rail Enquiries
Annual rail passenger usage*
2010/11 Increase 0.428 million
2011/12 Increase 0.441 million
2012/13 Increase 0.462 million
2013/14 Decrease 0.461 million
2014/15 Decrease 0.437 million
History
Original company Yarmouth and Norwich Railway
Pre-grouping Great Eastern Railway
Post-grouping London and North Eastern Railway
1 May 1844 (1844-05-01) opened as Yarmouth Vauxhall
? renamed Yarmouth
16 May 1989 renamed Great Yarmouth
National Rail – UK railway stations
* Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Great Yarmouth from Office of Rail and Road statistics. Methodology may vary year on year.
UK Railways portal

Great Yarmouth railway station, formerly known as Yarmouth Vauxhall railway station, is in Great Yarmouth in the English county of Norfolk. The station is one of the termini of the Wherry Lines 18 1⁄4 miles (29.4 km) from Norwich. There are two routes to Norwich, one via Acle and Lingwood and the other via Reedham, Berney Arms and Cantley. The two routes join up at Brundall railway station where they continue to Norwich.

The station is served by Abellio Greater Anglia who operate an hourly service to Norwich each day of the week, with the service becoming half-hourly during peak periods. As of May 2011 there are frequent weekend Saturday services to/from London Liverpool Street to cater for tourists heading to the town. Most services travel via the Acle branch with only a few services operating via the remote village of Berney Arms and Reedham.

Facilities on offer at the station include a ticket office, a small newsagents and coffee kiosk, a burger van, public telephones, waiting room, toilets (disabled), bicycle and taxi ranks, bus stop and a taxi office.

History

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 and the line and its stations were opened on 1 May 1844. Great Yarmouth station was originally named Yarmouth Vauxhall.[1] Yarmouth Station was, and still is, east of Berney Arms Station. 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 asset.[2][1]

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, and 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 the Royal Assent.[4]<CJ Allen - Great Eastern - page46>

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 1 mile west of Yarmouth-Vauxhall and the junction was named Breydon. The 1st part of the new line opened on 1 March 1883 as far as the 1st station west of Yarmouth-Vauxhall called Acle.

The system settled down for the next 4 decades, apart from the disruption of First World War. The difficult economic circumstances that existed after World War 1 led the Government to pass the Railways Act 1921 which led to the creation of the Big Four. The GER was absorbed into the London & North Eastern Railway (LNER). Yarmouth-Vauxhall became a LNER station on 1 January 1923.

A generation later, in 1947, the Government of the day passed the Transport Act which nationalised the Big Four and created British Railways (BR). On 1 January 1948 Yarmouth-Vauxhall became a BR station.

The station name was simplified to Yarmouth by BR at some point between 1953 and 1962.[1] The station was extensively damaged in World War II and was rebuilt in 1960.

Before rail closures of the 1950s and the later Beeching Axe the station was the largest of three major railway stations in the town.[3] Yarmouth Beach station was located on Nelson Road and was owned by M&GN who ran services up the Norfolk coast to Melton Constable and Peterborough. It was closed in 1959 and is now a coach station although plans exist to turn the area into offices. Yarmouth South Town railway station was owned by the Great Eastern Railway but operated as the a Norfolk and Suffolk Joint Railway and ran services through Gorleston and Lowestoft to join with the current East Suffolk Line for a mainline service to London. It was closed in 1970.

Yarmouth Vauxhall, named Great Yarmouth since 16 May 1989, is the only station to remain open.[4] There used to be large sidings and an engine shed before they were demolished to make way for the new Asda superstore and bypass.

Following privatisation of the railways, Railtrack became responsible for infrastructure maintenance in 1994. Following Railtrack's financial problems Network Rail took over operation of the infrastructure in 2002.

The operation of the line was privatised in 1997 when the franchise was awarded to Anglia Railways, which operated it until April 2004 when 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.

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 holiday makers still travelling by train and still holidaying in Great Yarmouth at this time. [5]

May 2013

Generally there is one train each hour between Great Yarmouth and Norwich, with additional services during the morning and evening peaks. Most trains run via Acle although there are still a number that run via Berney Arms.

Sunday services tend to be hourly and up to 1600 every other service runs via Berney Arms.

A number of summer weekend services operate to/from London Liverpool Street.

All services are operated by Abellio Greater Anglia.

Future

A campaign has recently been launched to bring Great Yarmouth Station up-to-date. The "Fix Great Yarmouth Station" campaign[6][7] has been created to bring one of Norfolk's popular sea-side towns' railway station in the 21st century. Spencer McCormack, of BWell gyms, who has helped to co-ordinate the campaign, which has attracted more than 3,000 pledges of support since it was launched in February, said plans were progressing for a volunteer day on 19 June.[8]

A Facebook group has also been created making it easy to get involved and find out whats happening[9]

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 will continue in 2013. The service was run on a voluntary basis.

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. ↑ C.J. Allen
  3. ↑ Great Yarmouth's Rail Connections Archived May 21, 2007, at the Wayback Machine.
  4. ↑ Butt 1995, pp. 256, 109
  5. ↑ Kenworthy, Graham (January 2009). "Summer Saturday services at Yarmouth Vauxhall in 1959". Great Eastern Railway Society Journal. 137: 24–27.
  6. ↑ http://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/content/eveningnews24/norwich-news/story.aspx?brand=ENOnline&category=News&tBrand=ENOnline&tCategory=xNews&itemid=NOED19%20Apr%202010%2020%3A15%3A08%3A080
  7. ↑ http://fixourstation.com/
  8. ↑ http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=506726962#!/event.php?eid=111388095565265&ref=mf
  9. ↑ http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=248104733042
Preceding station National Rail Following station
Acle   Abellio Greater Anglia
Wherry Lines
(via Acle)		   Terminus
Berney Arms   Abellio Greater Anglia
Wherry Lines
(via Reedham)		  
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