Wisbech East railway station

Add links
Coordinates: 52°39′31″N 0°09′32″E / 52.6585°N 0.1590°E / 52.6585; 0.1590
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
This article is about the Great Eastern Railway station in Wisbech. For the Midland and Great Northern railway station, see Wisbech North railway station.

Wisbech East
General information
LocationWisbech, Fenland
England
Coordinates52°39′31″N 0°09′32″E / 52.6585°N 0.1590°E / 52.6585; 0.1590
Grid referenceTF462088
Platforms3
Other information
StatusDisused
History
Original companyEastern Counties Railway
Pre-groupingGreat Eastern Railway
Post-groupingLondon and North Eastern Railway
Eastern Region of British Railways
Key dates
1 March 1848Opened as Wisbeach
4 May 1877Renamed Wisbech
27 September 1948Renamed Wisbech East
9 September 1968Closed[1]

Wisbech East was a railway station in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire. It was opened in 1848 and became part of the Great Eastern Railway network, providing connections to March, Watlington and St Ives, as well as Upwell via the Wisbech and Upwell Tramway. The station closed in 1968 and no trace of it remains today. A freight-only line remains extant as far as a factory based in the station's former goods yard, and a heritage railway based in March is aiming to reinstate services to Wisbech and construct a new station as near as possible to Newbridge Lane crossing.

In June 2009 the

Association of Train Operating Companies published a report indicating that the reopening of the line to Wisbech and construction of a new station could be viable, in that the ratio of business, economic and social benefits to costs would be just over £1m.[2][3]

History

Opening

It was the Eastern Counties Railway which first reached Wisbech from the south in May 1847 with the opening of a line from St Ives via March; a temporary wooden station named Wisbeach was built on the site of the future Wisbech goods yard (at grid reference TF458093). The East Anglian Railways made its way from the east to Wisbech the following year with a line from Magdalen Road station; their station - on the site of the future Wisbech East station - was also a temporary structure named Wisbeach. A short curve joined the two lines.[4]

The two stations remained in use until at least 1851 when a lease was agreed between the two companies giving the operation of the East Anglian Railways to the Eastern Counties, the agreement taking effect at the beginning of 1852.[5] In 1862, the Great Eastern Railway (GER) acquired the line and subsequently closed the Eastern Counties' Wisbeach station to passenger traffic the following year. A line from the station to the harbour was laid in 1863.[6]

Wisbech and Upwell Tramway

It is not thought that the East Anglian Railways provided any accommodation at their primitive wooden station,

call for tenders in 1887 and accepted the offer of Harold Arnold & Son of Doncaster to build a station for £4,367.[8]

A new brick engine shed was also provided, with a 42 ft turntable, on a goods spur; initially it had only a single road to accommodate a trio of engines, but a second was added in 1893 to handle the station's growing traffic in perishables. This went out of use in the 1910s, with only the turntable remaining by 1925 when the London and North Eastern Railway had taken over responsibility for the line. Activities at Wisbech was by that time principally concerned with the tramway.[9] Tramway services departed from a specially-low platform at Wisbech.[10]

Decline and closure

The ABC Railway Guide for April 1956 shows a service of six trains a day from

London Liverpool Street between Monday and Friday, with an extra train on Wednesdays; seven trains called on Saturdays and three on Sundays. The journey time was around 4 hours and the fare was £1–9s–6d return for 3rd class travel.[11]

The tramway to Upwell was closed in 1966 (passenger services had been withdrawn in 1927), with the line from March to Magdalen Road via Wisbech following in September 1968. The section east of Wisbech was subsequently dismantled, but the rest of the route remained open for freight traffic (from

Crown Cork ) can factory and a coal depot.[12]
The line was singled in 1972 with the lifting of the down line.


Preceding station   Disused railways   Following station
Coldham
Line and station closed 		 
Bramley Line
   Walsoken
Line and station closed
Terminus   Wisbech & Upwell
Tramway 		  Elmbridge
Line and station closed

Present day

Nothing remains of Wisbech East, the station site having been entirely redeveloped and replaced by the Octavia Hill Centre for people who are disabled.[13] The Centre was itself subsequently demolished and replaced by housing.[14]

The old Wisbech East goods yard was acquired by Spillers from Railtrack in 1995 and was last used in 2000; most of the yard now forms part of the factory and its car park. The last pet food train called in Summer 2000, although the freight-branch remains in place and runs as far as Weasenham Lane in Wisbech where the former level crossing was tarmaced over in 2005.

Possible restoration

Main article:
Bramley Line

In 2003, the Bramley Line group was formed to investigate the possibility of reinstating the line from Wisbech to a new temporary station named "March Elm Road". The group propose to construct a new Wisbech East station. Alternative proposals have also been put forward by the local council and the

Association of Train Operating Companies
. In February 2017, plans to restore the route using 'ultra cheap' no frills trains were proposed by building a branch line to Wisbech.[15]

See also

References

  1. OL 11956311M
    .
  2. ^ "BBC NEWS - England - Operators call for new rail lines". BBC News. 15 June 2009. Retrieved 15 June 2009.
  3. Association of Train Operating Companies
    . June 2009. p. 20. Retrieved 7 September 2018.
  4. ^ 'Wisbech: Introduction', A History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely: Volume 4: City of Ely; Ely, N. and S. Witchford and Wisbech Hundreds (2002), pp. 238-243.
  5. ISBN 0-906867-40-1
    .
  6. ISBN 0-7110-3236-X
    .
  7. ^ Hawkins, C. and Reeve, G., p. 150.
  8. ISBN 0-906867-09-6
    .
  9. ^ Hawkins, C. and Reeve, G. (1986), p. 148-150.
  10. ISBN 0-946537-25-9
    .
  11. ^ Bramley Line, "Progress so far".
  12. ISBN 1-85306-595-1
    .
  13. ISBN 1-85895-056-2
    .
  14. ^ Cambridgeshire County Council, "The Historic Towns of Cambridgeshire, An Extensive Urban Survey", 10 May 2002, p. 25.
  15. ^ "No-frills mini trains offer route to reopening lines that Beeching shut".
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wisbech_East_railway_station&oldid=1164836536"