Yarmouth-Beccles Line

The Yarmouth–Beccles line was a railway line which linked the Suffolk market town of Beccles with the Norfolk coastal resort of Yarmouth. Forming part of the East Suffolk Railway, the line was opened in 1859 and closed 100 years later in 1959.

The Halesworth, Beccles & Haddiscoe Railway was formed in 1851 to connect the river ports of Halesworth and Beccles. The scheme was promoted by Samuel Morton Peto who saw the opportunity to raise the status of Lowestoft by constructing a line which would give the town more direct access to London than the existing route via Norwich which he had also sponsored. On 20 November 1854, a single track line between Beccles and Halesworth opened to goods traffic, and then to passengers on 4 December. Worked by the Eastern Counties Railway, the line – now known as the East Suffolk Railway – connected with the Norwich route at Haddiscoe. Authorisation was obtained for an extension of the line north-east to Yarmouth and this was constructed by the newly formed Yarmouth & Haddiscoe Railway. This opened on 1 June 1859 at the same time as other sections of the East Suffolk Railway between Woodbridge and Ipswich and Beccles to Lowestoft. In 1862, the Eastern Counties was amalgamated into the Great Eastern Railway.

The main feature of the line was the pair of swing bridges over the River Waveney, the first at Beccles and the second between Haddiscoe and St Olaves. These were crossed at walking pace and were, until 1927, operated by signal boxes, with pilotmen on the footplate for the crossing. The initial service provided was praised by local newspapers for its punctuality and spacious coaches. The line's main revenue came from holiday traffic and by 1883, there were seven or eight daily services, with two or three London services in each direction. A curve installed at Haddiscoe in 1872 allowed through services between Yarmouth and Lowestoft via St Olaves, but the route was only a little less circuitous than the original route via Lowestoft, Somerleyton and the Reedham East Curve, entering Yarmouth Vauxhall via Berney Arms. Expresses from Liverpool Street covered the distance to Yarmouth in 2.5 hours in 1904, when regular summer services ferried passengers to the coastal resorts.

...
Wikipedia