Valentines Day Trainspotting at Stowmarket, GEML | 14/02/19

This video is property of "Richard Chalklin"

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A busy evening peak at Stowmarket station on Thursday 14th February 2019. Due to a bridge strike at Needham Market earlier trains were cancelled or delayed.

Stowmarket info:

Stowmarket railway station is on the Great Eastern Main Line (GEML) in the East of England, serving the town of Stowmarket, Suffolk. It is 80 miles 9 chains (128.9 km) down the line from London Liverpool Street and is situated between Needham Market to the south and Diss to the north. It is also the junction where the Ipswich to Ely Line joins the GEML. Its three-letter station code is SMK.

The station is currently operated by Abellio Greater Anglia, which also runs all trains serving the station.

History:

The station was opened by the Ipswich & Bury Railway in 1846 with red brick main buildings in a flamboyant Jacobean manner by Frederick Barnes.

Building the railway from Ipswich to Bury St Edmunds proved challenging. When the Eastern Union Railway opened the line to Ipswich Stoke Hill railway station in 1846 this was located south of the existing tunnel. The Ipswich and Bury Railway built the tunnel which proved a challenge and then a further challenge awaited the railway’s engineers at Stowmarket area where local marsh swallowed up a lot of material with test probes finding the bog was 80 feet deep! The railway employed George Stephenson’s solution for the Chat Moss bog (a mere 40 feet deep) and a raft of brushwood and faggots was used to give the embankment a firm footing.

On 26 November 1846 the first test train ran to Bury St Edmunds with stops at most stations on the route, accompanied by the inevitable lavish celebrations. The official opening followed on 7 December 1846 when a special train ran from Shoreditch (later Bishopsgate railway station) to a temporary station at Bury St Edmunds. The Board of Trade inspection took place on 15 December 1846 and the line opened for traffic on 24 December.

The IBR and the EUR (they shared most of the directors anyway) were worked as one concern from 1847 and the following year the line from Haughley Junction (just north of Stowmarket) and Norwich opened in stages: from Haughley to Finningham (4 miles) on 7 June 1848, from Finningham to Burston (11 miles) on 2 July 1849 and finally through to Norwich Victoria (18½ miles) on 1 December 1849.

The EUR was in financial trouble and effectively hemmed in by the Eastern Counties Railway (ECR) making further expansion difficult. Following negotiations in 1853, The ECR took over the working of the EUR (and thus Stowmarket statin) on 1 January 1854, a situation formally sanctioned by the Act of 7 August 1854.

1854 also saw the completion of the link from Bury St Edmunds to Cambridge thus linking Ipswich and Stowmarket to Cambridge. By the 1860s the railways in East Anglia were in financial trouble, and most were leased to the ECR; they wished to amalgamate formally, but could not obtain government agreement for this until 1862, when the Great Eastern Railway was formed by amalgamation. .

Description:

As mentioned above the station buildings were listed in 1972 and restored in 1987. Historic England describes the station buildings thus:

"Red brick with gault brick dressings under roofs clad in machine tiles. 1-3 storeys on high basements. Composition, in Jacobean style, is symmetrical, comprising a central one storey and attic block linked by single-storey ranges to taller 2-3 storey side blocks. Central block with Dutch gables to west, north and south, the west one facing the entrance and with an attic window. Windows generally are ovolo-moulded cross casements, cornices are saw-toothed. 2 square one-storey pavilions flank main entrance right and left. Recessed linking blocks had retaining walls with taller central doorways enclosing forecourt, but this remains now only to south side. Main outer blocks with cross casements, Dutch gables to all faces (north return of north block with twin shaped gables), and frontal (west) polygonal towers with doors at the bases and pierced parapets at the top. Gabled roofs carry romantically-placed 2- and 3-flued stacks. Platform canopies supported on square section welded steel piers of late C20. The piers rise to timber braces within which are cast-iron scrolled brackets. Inner face of main west range with 4 arches right and left of central entrance to booking hall."

Services:

Greater Anglia operate services calling at Stowmarket, comprising services between London Liverpool Street or Ipswich and Norwich, and other trains between Ipswich and Cambridge (hourly) or Peterborough (two-hourly) via the Ipswich to Ely Line. Limited additional services to Liverpool Street start at Stowmarket during morning rush hour.