This page reviews news from the railways of Norfolk dated prior to 1980. The articles have been recovered from research sources (as indicated).
The articles are listed in reverse date order. Any additional information welcome!
Dereham to Norwich special service run
8 April 1978, Norfolk By Rail
The first passenger train since closure ran from Dereham to Norwich carrying a full load of 330 people from the branch for an afternoons shopping in the city. A party of ramblers also used the outbound servce as far as Thuxton. The special service was aranged by the Wymondham, Dereham and Fakenham Rail Action Committee.
Case for trains from Norwich to Fakenham
January 1977, Railway Magazine, p.38
A report has been submitted to the Norfolk County Chief Planning Officer by the Wymondham, Dereham and Fakenham Railway Action Committee putting the case for restoring rail passenger services between Norwich, Dereham and Fakenham. Details of the committee's campaign can be obtained from ...
PASSENGER OPENING OF SHERINGHAM TO WEYBOURNE LINE BY N.N.R.
1976
CLOSURE OF YARMOUTH TO LOWESTOFT LINE
May 1970
PASSENGER CLOSURE OF DEREHAM TO WYMONDHAM LINE
October 1969
M and GN News
May 1969, Railway World, p.6193
Winter work on the North Norfolk Railway was hindered by very bleak weather, but members of the Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway Society are now working flat out to prepare the line for steam trains this summer. The most time-consuming task is that of reconditioning the permanent way. Fishplates, keys, fencing and ballast are receiving attention, while the S and T Department concentrates on fitting the point locking equipment. Work is proceeding on the B12 4-6-0 and the J15 0-6-0. The latter is in the process of being retubed and restored to full GE livery. Two more coaches, an LNWR 12-wheelerand an L and Y director's saloon (the former owned by Mr G Sircom), will arrive at Sheringham in the near future. Also expected to arrive soon are the latest additions to the steam motive power stock, an 0-6-0ST which originally worked on the Wissington Light Railway, and donated to the society by Mr Derek Crouch after whom it is named, and a Peckett 0-6-0T recently purchased from the NCB by three members of the society. The first president of the society is Mr John Betjeman CBE; Mr betjeman's experience in preserving the best of the past will be most beneficial to the society in achieving its aims.
Another Norfolk preservation scheme
October 1968, Railway Magazine, p.623
On July 20th, the Ipswich Evening Star published a report that Mr J.E. Rumens of Ketteringham, who has been associated with the North Norfolk Railway, was heading a local group, which intended to purchase the Lowestoft to Yarmouth line, now under threat of closure by British Railways. The group's intention would be to provide an all-year round commuter service, with extra steam-hauled trains in summer as a tourist attraction.
CLOSURE OF KING'S LYNN TO HUSTANTON
May 1969
PASSENGER CLOSURE OF DEREHAM TO KING'S LYNN LINE
9th September 1968
PASSENGER CLOSURE OF MARCH TO KING'S LYNN LINE
9th September 1968
CLOSURE OF SHERINGHAM TO MELTON CONSTABLE LINE
1964
CLOSURE OF FAKENHAM TO WELLS LINE
October 1964
PASSENGER CLOSURE OF DEREHAM TO FAKENHAM LINE
October 1964
CLOSURE OF SWAFFHAM TO THETFORD LINE
June 1964
First and last
December 1960, Railway magazine, p.857
The last "B12" 4-6-0, No.61572, [operated] on the first passenger train, a Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway Preservation Society special, run on October 8, to use the Themelthorpe curve, which was opened on September 12, linking the Norwich City branch with the Wroxham - County School line.
CLOSURE OF YARMOUTH TO BECCLES LINE
November 1959
Farewell to the "Leicesters"
March 1959, by R.S. McNaught, Railway Magazine, p.158
The almost complete closure as from midnight on February 28 of the Midland and Great Northern Joint line disrupts what has been aptly called "the North-West Passage out of East Anglia." This was the cross-country route from Great Yarmouth, Cromer and Norwich to Birmingham and the Midlands. How passengers will re-act to the nebulous and complicated alternatives suggested remains to be seen ; already the Press in some areas is both indignant and sorrowful, and it is highly significant that upward "adjustments" in bus and coach fares have already been announced.
With the closure of the M.G.N. line, there comes to an end one daily through service which was as near express standard as any train could be on a route with long sections of single track and many awkward gradients and permanent service slacks over bridges. This was the useful and comparatively well-patronised through-service, with a buffet car, in each direction linking Birmingham with Norfolk. The pride of the system in M.G.N. days, the daily expresses were known as the "Leicesters" (irrespective of direction) probably because it was at Leicester London Road that the Joint Line locomotives took over.
In the years before 1914 there were two regular daily trains between Birmingham and Norwich, Cromer, Yarmouth and Lowestoft, one of which included through coaches to and from Manchester Central. The joint line's direct access to Lowestoft was was lost with the closing, in 1953, of the Breydon Swing Bridge, at Yarmouth, but the other towns were served (directly or by connection) by one daily express right up to the closure.
Except for short lapses during industrial disputes, the "Leicesters" had run daily, except Sundays, without a break since the early 1890s. On summer Saturdays, and at holiday times, they took their place in a procession of heavy and well-filled trains working to a schedule which had complications little short of marvellous : one engine failure, or a defective set of points, early in the day could lead to chaos and the mounting delay of over a hundred miles. The peak of this cross-country traffic probably was attained in the years between the world wars, and it is not surprising that the L.M.S.R., which was responsible for the working up to 1936, aimed at having a pair of reliable class "4" 0-6-0s on every through train at weekends.
Latterly the up "Leicester" consisted of two seperate portions leaving Yarmouth (9.20 a.m.), and Cromer Beach (9.40 a.m.), which joined up at Melton Constable. There was a connection leaving Norwich at 9.34. Leicester (144 miles from Yarmouth) was reached at 1.42 p.m. Onwards to Birmingham New Street, where it was due at 3.38 p.m., the train deteriorated into a typical semi-fast. The coaches probed still further westwards as they then formed a stopping trin to Gloucester, from which station the train returned to East Anglia the following day. A secondary Midland goods or tank engine worked beyond Birmingham, although on some occasions a compound 4-4-0, a class "2" 4-4-0 or (latterly) a standard class "5" ran from Leicester to Gloucester throughout.
The down service departed New Street at 1.45 p.m., and Leicester 3.15 p.m., and the Yarmouth portion reached home at 7.35 p.m. An Eastern Region buffet car, attatched to the morning service as far as Leicester, worked back on the down train, thus completing a long day of 289 miles. Three rather old cars - one Great Northern and two Great Eastern - shared the buffet in turn, and the regular steward avowed that his was the roughest riding job on British Railways, especially west of Spalding, going up yo Leicester, when the car brought up the rear of the train and vigorously "wagged its tail".
The standard make-up of the "Leicesters" on post-war weekdays has been either seven or eight former L.M.S.R. vehicles , strengthened to as many as twelve when necessary. Alas, that their distinctive "Birmingham - Cromer" and "Birmingham - Yarmouth" headboards will now be things of the past.
In the Midland and Great Northern era, the trains were made up of the incomparable smooth-running Bain clerestory stock of the Midland Railway, and when at one time they halted at Sutton Bridge to attatch or detatch some teak panelled Great Northen through coaches from Kings Cross via Peterborough and Wisbech, the amalgam was a correctly Midland and Great Northern Joint effort.
As regards motive power, the story of the "Leicesters" is indeed a record of assortment, except for a lengthy middle period when the task was a monopoly of the Midland-type 4-4-0s, designed by S.W. Johnson, initially in small-boilered form, and then as rebuilt between 1909 and 1915 with the much larger Derby "G7" Belpair boilers. Away back in the earlt 1890s the Joint Committee borrowed several Midland 2-4-0 passenger engines, some of which were stationed at Yarmouth for working the through trains. At first the Yarmouth engines were changed for Midland locomotives at Bourne. Then, early in the present century, M.G.N.R. engines went right through to Leicester from the East Coast, although at another period South Lynn was used as a change-over point.
A fourth, and as it turned out final, alteration became necessary in 1956 when, after years of agitation, the "Leicesters" were given a stop at Spalding, which they had always passed over the avoiding spur, except for some emergence workings. This additional stop entailed reversal of the train, so the Yarmouth engine was replaced by one shedded at Spalding.
The M.G.N. engines, elderly and un-superhated, although excellently maintained, became strained in efforts to keep time, and in the last days of the lines independent existence, the L.M.S.R. was approached, and a couple of the class "3" 4-4-0s (also designed by S.W. Johnson) took over the Leicester run ; one was shedded at South Lynn and the other at Yarmouth. They were regarded as very successful, but when in 1936 the joint line came under the aegis of the London and North Eastern Railway, they were returned to the L.M.S.R. and replced by Gresley class "K2" 2-6-0s and several Robinson Great Central class "D9" 4-4-0s.
The 4-4-0s enjoyed the longer reign, and it was during the period 1936-7 that a "Leicester" had the distinction of being in the hands of a named engine, when No. 6021, Queen Mary, took a turn for some weeks. the joint line drivers considered the elegant "D9"s a trifle inferior to the L.M.S.R. "3"s, but better than the Moguls, and the rebuilt Great Eastern "Claud Hamiltons" which they were next to try. It should be mentioned that the limitations imposed by a bridge over the South Ouse near King's Lynn precluded the use of more modern and capable engine-power on this service. The increasing weakness of the same structure has, in fact, been given as one of the reasons for the ultimate closing of the line.
It was a natural transition from the "Clauds" to the Holden 4-6-0s, as rebuilt by Sir Nigel Gresley, and these had the job well in hand for some years, in fact right up to the insertion in the timetable of the Spalding stop. By then, a fair number of L.M.S.R. class "4" 2-6-0s had replaced the Great Central and Great Northern engines nearly everywhere on the joint line, and it became the practice for the Yarmouth 4-6-0 to be replaced by a local Mogul for the run from Spalding to Leicester. As the G.E.R. 4-6-0s came to be withdrawn in increasing numbers, a small link of specially clean and "tuned up" class "4"s took over the eastern workings as well, so that in it's final form the "Leicester" was in Ivatt 2-6-0 hands throughout, except for the Leicester to Birmingham leg.
One interesting and significant exception was throughout Christmas Week, 1958, when the train had to be made up to eleven or twelve coaches : Spalding borrowed an Immingham "B1", No. 61159, and some excellent time-keeping resulted, apart from delays caused by fog on one or two of the runs. For the first time ever, the "Leicester" was hauled over part of its route by a comparatively modern large engine, although because of the bridge at South Lynn, the moderately dimensioned Moguls had to struggle on eastwards from Spalding. One extra-heavy Christmas train last year was awarded a pilot engine in the shape of a G.E.R. class "J17" 0-6-0.
Although on paper, and perhaps from the comfort of a corner seat in a Midland or L.M.S.R. coach, the "Leicesters" seemed leisurely and comparatively simple to work, that was far from the case, in view of the moderate power available. It is a tribute to the expert footplatemen, for whom it represented the top link in their area, both up and down trains were excellent timekeepers. Workers on the land and in the many glasshouses adjoining the line in Lincolnshire and Norfolk would use them as a time-check day by day in all weathers.
It was my privilege to observe what transpired to be the very last "Leicester" to be hauled by one of the original M.G.N.R. 4-4-0 class, only slightly different from its 1894 guise. I had expected to see a "D9", as it was during their period of working, but when the up train rumbled over the Welland girder bridge at Spalding, and only at 25 m.p.h., with the curved gradient of 1 in 66 facing it to climb over the Doncaster - March and Grimsby to Peterborough lines, I was thrilled and astonished to count eight coaches and the buffet car being well mastered by a small black antique, newly numbered 013 by the L.N.E.R. The train was only one minute late, and 013 was showing the white feather at the old Johnson-type Salter valve on its dome, and the driver gave me a grin as he passed by - always a good sign. Alas, shorly after that memorable noonday, No. 013 made its last journey to Stratford Works.
In the mid-January of the present year, only a few weeks before the Birmingham - Yarmouth trains were withdrawn, a former L.M.S.R. class "2" 4-4-0, No. 40452, provided yet another, and very surprising, addition to their long record of varied motive power. Thus, a rebuilt Johnson engine of modest dimensions returned to the duty performed by the M.G.N.J.R. 4-4-0s of similar type from 1893 to 1937. By the end of January, motive power was again provided, after 23 years, by Gresley "K2" 2-6-0s, No. 61771 of Boston shed being the most regular performer.
So has ended a long-lived and useful cross-country service which in itself was obviously a paying one. It seems to former users of the "Leicesters" like the chaotic end of an epoch, apart from being a great inconvenience. But as it has been decided that much of the track they traversed for so long is to be closed down entirely and other sections kept only as freight spurs, any restoration is out of the question. Even ghostly Johnson 4-4-0s in gleaming yellow-ochre livery can hardly be expected to haunt a line when the river bridges have gone, unless the latter are adapted for motor traffic, which has already been proposed.
Norfolk Railway Society Tour
September 1957, Railway Magazine, p.664
A tour including lines normally closed to passenger traffic is being arranged by the Norfolk Railway Society for Saturday, September 14. The special train will depart from Norwich Thorpe at about 1 p.m. and travel via Wroxham, Reepham (subject to the approval of the Civil Engineer), Cromer High, the Cromer Beach avoiding line and Melton Constable, returning to Norwich City at about 6 p.m. The locomotive will be an ex-G.E.R. class "J15" 0-6-0. The fare will be 16s. and an itinery price 1s. Applications for further details and tickets (enclosing envelopes) should be made to the Fixtures Secretary, Mr. B. Harrison, 5, Somerleyton Street, Norwich.
Wymondham - Forncett line
September 1957, Railway Magazine, p.668
The now-abandoned line, 6.5 miles long, from Wymondham to Forncett, in Norfolk, was authorised by the Great Eastern Railway Act of June 27, 1876, and opened on May 2, 1881. The only intermediate station was at Ashwellthorpe. The track was doubled for military traffic during the first world war. The line was closed completely on September 7, 1939, and the track was removed later in the second world war. This cross-country connection was used by main-line traffic for several weeks after the disasterous floods in East Anglia in the summer of 1912. On August 26, a bridge was washed away between Forncett and Flordon, on the main line from Ipswich to Norwich, and was not replaced until October 2. The Wymondham - Forncett line was damaged by floods on August 26, but was re-opened within a few hours. Services were resumed between Wymondham and Norwich on August 28, and trains were then able to run between Ipswich and Norwich by reversing at Wymondham.
PASSENGER CLOSURE OF WROXHAM TO COUNTY SCHOOL LINE
1952