Norwich Victoria railway station

Norwich Victoria
Location
Place	Norwich
Area	City of Norwich
Grid reference	TG227080
Operations
Pre-grouping	Eastern Union Railway Eastern Counties Railway Great Eastern Railway
Post-grouping	London and North Eastern Railway Eastern Region of British Railways
Platforms	2
History
12 December 1849	Opened
22 May 1916	Closed to passengers
31 January 1966	Closed as goods depot
September 1986	Coal Concentration depot and branch closed
Disused railway stations in the United Kingdom
Closed railway stations in Britain A B C D–F G H–J K–L M–O P–R S T–V W–Z

Norwich Victoria was a railway station in Norwich in Norfolk and the former terminus of the Great Eastern Main Line. There were at one time three railway stations in Norwich, the others being Norwich City and Norwich Thorpe. Currently, only the former Thorpe station, now known simply as "Norwich", remains in use.

The station was opened by the Eastern Union Railway (EUR), with regular passenger services commencing on 12 December 1849. The booking hall of the station had once housed a circus which formed an entertainment centre known as Ranelagh Gardens. The circus on the site had been operated by a Spanish-sounding gentleman named Pablo Fanque (in reality a Mr Darby from Norwich) and when the EUR purchased the site they then sold the various circus fittings.

The station had two platforms arranged in a V-shape, with the V at the south end and the rotunda (or pantheon) containing the ticket office at the north end. A small garden was located between the two platforms. According to the 1914 Ordnance Survey plan of the site, there was a two-road engine shed (which measured 136 feet by 40 feet) and a turntable to the west of the station, and goods facilities to the east.

The station was not well sited, in that passengers wishing to continue a journey beyond Norwich had to transfer to Thorpe station. On 8 September 1851 a link opened from the EUR line to the Norwich-to-Ely line, and most Ipswich services then used Thorpe station, Victoria being left with four or five trains each day.

The EUR was taken over by the Eastern Counties Railway (ECR) in 1854. However, by the 1860s the railways in East Anglia were in financial trouble, and most were leased to the ECR. It wished to amalgamate formally but could not obtain government agreement for this until 1862, when the Great Eastern Railway (GER) was formed by the amalgamation. Thus Norwich Thorpe and Norwich Victoria became GER stations in 1862.

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Wikipedia