Bury St Edmunds railway station
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Bury St Edmunds railway station serves the town of
Bury St Edmunds Bury St Edmunds (), commonly referred to locally as Bury, is a historic market town, market, cathedral town and civil parish in Suffolk, England.OS Explorer map 211: Bury St.Edmunds and Stowmarket Scale: 1:25 000. Publisher:Ordnance Survey – ...
in
Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include Lowes ...
,
England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
. The station is on the
Ipswich–Ely line The Ipswich–Ely line is a railway line linking East Anglia to the English Midlands via Ely. There is also a branch line to . Passenger services are operated by Abellio Greater Anglia. It is a part of Network Rail Strategic Route 5, SRS 05.07 ...
and all trains calling there are operated by Greater Anglia.


History


Early history (1845–1862)

The Ipswich and Bury Railway Company (I&BR) was formed to build a line from Ipswich to Bury St Edmunds. Its Act of 21 July 1845 authorised capital of £400,000 and it shared many shareholders and directors with the
Eastern Union Railway The Eastern Union Railway (EUR) was an English railway company, at first built from Colchester to Ipswich; it opened in 1846. It was proposed when the earlier Eastern Counties Railway failed to make its promised line from Colchester to Norwich. T ...
(EUR), who were in the process of building their line from Colchester to Ipswich. The companies also shared the same head office location in Brook Street, Ipswich. The proposed line was long, with intermediate stations at
Bramford Bramford is a village in the Mid Suffolk district of Suffolk, England. It is three miles west of Ipswich of which it forms part of the wider Ipswich Built-up area. It was recorded in the Domesday Book as "Brunfort" or "Branfort". The River Gipp ...
, Claydon, Needham,
Stowmarket Stowmarket ( ) is a market town in Suffolk, England,OS Explorer map 211: Bury St.Edmunds and Stowmarket Scale: 1:25 000. Publisher:Ordnance Survey – Southampton A2 edition. Publishing Date:2008. on the busy A14 road (Great Britain), A14 trunk ...
, Haughley Road,
Elmswell Elmswell is a village and civil parish in the county of Suffolk, England.OS Explorer map 211: Bury St.Edmunds and Stowmarket Scale: 1:25 000. Publisher:Ordnance Survey – Southampton A2 edition. Publishing Date:2008. It is situated halfway be ...
and Thurston. The ground-breaking ceremony took place in Ipswich on 1 August 1845, where twelve local worthies (including the mayor of Ipswich, engineer
Peter Bruff Peter Schuyler Bruff (23 July 1812 – 24 February 1900) was an English civil engineer'Obituary. Peter Schuyler Bruff, 1812-1900', ''Minutes of the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers'', Volume 141 Part 3, 1900, (January 1900)pp. ...
and John Chevallier Cobbold) each filled a wheelbarrow with soil. Building the line was challenging, with problems at Ipswich with tunnel construction and at Stowmarket where the local marsh swallowed up a lot of material with test probes finding the bog was 80 feet deep! On 26 November 1846, the first test train ran to a temporary station at Bury St Edmunds, with stops at most stations on the route with the inevitable lavish celebrations. The official opening followed on 7 December 1846, when a special train ran from Shoreditch (later Bishopsgate railway station) to Bury. The Board of Trade inspection took place on 15 December 1846 and the line opened for traffic on 24 December. The existing station at Bury opened in November 1847. The EUR and I&BR were worked as one from 1 January 1847 and formal amalgamation was obtained by Act of 9 July 1847. The
Eastern Union Railway The Eastern Union Railway (EUR) was an English railway company, at first built from Colchester to Ipswich; it opened in 1846. It was proposed when the earlier Eastern Counties Railway failed to make its promised line from Colchester to Norwich. T ...
was taken over by the
Eastern Counties Railway The Eastern Counties Railway (ECR) was an English Rail transport, railway company incorporated in 1836 intended to link London with Ipswich via Colchester, and then extend to Norwich and Great Yarmouth, Yarmouth. Construction began in 1837 on t ...
in 1854. 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 The Great Eastern Railway (GER) was a pre-grouping British railway company, whose main line linked London Liverpool Street to Norwich and which had other lines through East Anglia. The company was grouped into the London and North Eastern R ...
was formed by amalgamation. Thus Bury St Edmunds became a GER station in 1862. The line was extended to join the Newmarket to Cambridge line in 1854.


Great Eastern Railway (1862–1922)

The line from Long Melford opened in 1865 and the line to Thetford opened in 1876. A direct link to Ely was provided in 1880 at Kennett. The Bury Yard signal box was opened in 1888. It was a GER Type 7 design with a Mackenzie and Holland frame.


London & North Eastern Railway (1923–1947)

Following the 1923 grouping, Bury St Edmunds became a LNER station. During World War 2, Bury was an important freight location for the many airbases in East Anglia.


British Railways (1948–1994)

In 1948, Bury St Edmunds became part of British Railways Eastern Region. According to the
Official Handbook of Stations The ''Official Handbook of Stations'' was a large book (, 494 pages) listing all the passenger and goods stations, as well as private sidings, on the railways of Great Britain and Ireland. It was published in 1956 by the British Transport Commiss ...
the following classes of traffic were being handled at this station in 1956: G (Goods), P (Passenger, Parcels & Miscellaneous), F (Furniture Vans, Carriages, Motor Cars, Portable Engines and Machines on Wheels), L (Livestock), H (Horse Boxes and Prize Cattle Vans) and C (Carriages and Motor Cars by Passenger or Parcels Train); there was a 9-ton crane. Private sidings were operated by
British Sugar British Sugar plc is a subsidiary of Associated British Foods and the sole British producer of sugar from sugar beet, as well as medicinal cannabis. British Sugar processes all sugar beet grown in the United Kingdom, and produces about two-thi ...
, Burlingham & Son, J Gough & Son, Ridley Coal & Iron and H A& D Taylor. The Bury St Edmunds to Thetford line closed to passengers on 8 June 1953 and to goods traffic on 27 June 1960. The line to Long Melford closed to passengers on 10 April 1961 and to freight on 19 April 1965. The engine shed closed in 1959. The railway bridge to the east of the station was Grade II listed in 1988.


Privatisation era (1994–present)

In April 1994,
Railtrack Railtrack was a group of companies that owned the track, signalling, tunnels, bridges, level crossings and all but a handful of the stations of the British railway system from 1994 until 2002. It was created as part of the privatisation of ...
became responsible for the maintenance of the infrastructure. Railtrack was succeeded by
Network Rail Network Rail Limited is the owner (via its subsidiary Network Rail Infrastructure Limited, which was known as Railtrack plc before 2002) and infrastructure manager of most of the railway network in Great Britain. Network Rail is an "arm's leng ...
in 2002. Passenger services have been operated by the following franchises: * April 1994 to December 1996 - Operated as a non-privatised business unit under the
InterCity InterCity (commonly abbreviated ''IC'' on timetables and tickets) is the classification applied to certain long-distance passenger train services in Europe. Such trains (in contrast to regional, local, or commuter trains) generally call at m ...
name * January 1997 to March 2004 -
Anglia Railways Anglia Railways was a train operating company in England, owned by GB Railways and later FirstGroup, that operated the Anglia franchise from January 1997 until March 2004. History The InterCity Anglia franchise was awarded by the Director of P ...
(owned by
GB Railways GB Railways was the parent company of a number of train operating companies, running the Anglia Railways franchise from January 1997 and launching Hull Trains and GB Railfreight. GB Railways was also involved in the management of the Estonian rai ...
but bought out by
FirstGroup FirstGroup plc is a British multi-national transport group, based in Aberdeen, Scotland.National Express East Anglia National Express East Anglia (NXEA) was a train operating company in England owned by National Express that operated the Greater Anglia franchise from April 2004 until February 2012. Originally trading as ''One'', it was rebranded National Exp ...
* March 2013 to present -
Abellio Greater Anglia Greater Anglia (legal name Abellio East Anglia Limited) is a train operating company in Great Britain owned as a joint venture by Abellio (transport company), Abellio, the international arm of the state-owned Dutch national rail operator Neder ...
Due to the freight train derailment on a bridge near Ely in June 2007, trains to Peterborough from London (via Ipswich) terminated at Bury St Edmunds while the bridge was rebuilt. Train services resumed on 21 December 2007. The yard signal box was Grade II listed in 2013. A £1 million restoration scheme was completed during 2016 on the Grade II listed station.


Train services

The following services currently call at Bury St Edmunds: Through trains to and from London Liverpool Street via the Great Eastern Mainline were withdrawn at the December 2010 timetable change.


Architecture and layout

Designed by
Sancton Wood Sancton Wood (27 April 1814 – 18 April 1886) was an English architect and surveyor, known for his work on railway buildings. Life and family Sancton Wood was born on 27 April 1814 in Nursery Place, Hackney Terrace, Hackney, London. He was ...
, the station was inaugurated formally in November 1847, eleven months after the opening of the
Eastern Union Railway The Eastern Union Railway (EUR) was an English railway company, at first built from Colchester to Ipswich; it opened in 1846. It was proposed when the earlier Eastern Counties Railway failed to make its promised line from Colchester to Norwich. T ...
's line from
Ipswich Ipswich () is a port town and borough in Suffolk, England, of which it is the county town. The town is located in East Anglia about away from the mouth of the River Orwell and the North Sea. Ipswich is both on the Great Eastern Main Line r ...
. Wood was also the architect of
Ipswich Ipswich () is a port town and borough in Suffolk, England, of which it is the county town. The town is located in East Anglia about away from the mouth of the River Orwell and the North Sea. Ipswich is both on the Great Eastern Main Line r ...
and
Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
railway stations, as well as many stations in
Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
, including that of
Heuston Station Heuston Station ( ; ga, Stáisiún Heuston; formerly Kingsbridge Station) also known as Dublin Heuston, is one of Dublin's largest railway stations and links the capital with the south, southwest and west of Ireland. It is operated by Iar ...
,
Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...
. The most noteworthy feature of the station, which is constructed of red brick with stone dressings, is a pair of towers on either side of the tracks at the eastern end of the layout; these were linked originally by an overall roof, removed in 1893. It was built first as a terminus; the station had four tracks, although in practice only one platform was used before the line was extended to Newmarket in 1854. Today, a wide space separates the two surviving through tracks, which serve platform 1 (for trains towards Cambridge or Peterborough) and platform 2 (for trains towards Ipswich and Harwich International). Early photographs show the station with the overall roof. Later photographs indicate major alterations had taken place, with a westward extension of the platforms; the join is readily apparent in the back walls to the platforms today, with the roof removed, extra rooms at platform level added to the west of the station master's house and alterations to the frontage of that house. Interestingly, the tall decorative upper chimneys are also shown as having been removed down to the basic rectangular stacks and conventional pots installed. The semi-elliptical brick arch bridge over Northgate Road, to the east of the station, is a Grade II
listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
like the station itself; it has been credited to Frederick Barnes, who was a partner of Sancton Wood and Charles Russell. The two platforms are connected by a subway.


Goods facilities

A goods yard was situated to the west of the station, on the down side. A substantial new goods depot was opened in 1953; it was converted later to a roller skating venue.


Engine shed

The first engine shed was located immediately west of the railway station when Bury St Edmunds was a terminus station for the Ipswich and Bury Railway. The opening of the line to Cambridge in 1854 saw the end of this first shed as it was in the way of the new line. A new engine shed of wooden construction was established on the north side of the line again west of the station. This shed deteriorated over the years and inclement weather in 1901 finished the structure off. The Great Eastern Railway, often parsimonious in matters relating to the locomotive department, left it until 1904 before a new three-road brick built shed with a north-light roof was built. As part of the Ipswich district in 1914 the shed had 30 men under a fitter-in-charge. The allocation on 1 January 1922 consisted of: In 1931 during London & North Eastern Railway operation (1923-1947) 17 locomotives were allocated to Bury St Edmunds and Bury was re-allocated to the Cambridge district. At this time it acquired two sub-sheds at Sudbury and Haverhill. By 1950 under British Railways this had fallen to 14 but increased to 16 in 1954. The shed had been re-roofed by July 1943 (dated USAAF aerial photograph) It was closed to traffic on 5 January 1959. The raised smoke hood was removed from the roof later that year, but the remainder survived for some time thereafter - until April 1961 at least (dated photographs). The turntable remained in use to turn locomotives on local freight services. The detached single storey office block remained extant until at least mid-1975. In the early 1970s, to release land for the new by-pass, the down goods loop was realigned to run adjacent to the down line on the site of the former engine shed. Shortly thereafter a short lived ready-mix concrete batching plant was established on much of the rest of the land formerly occupied by the shed.


References

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External links


Bury St Edmunds station on navigable 1946 O.S. map
{{Railway stations served by Abellio Greater Anglia Railway stations in Suffolk DfT Category C2 stations Grade II listed railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1847 Former Great Eastern Railway stations Greater Anglia franchise railway stations Bury St Edmunds 1847 establishments in England Railway depots in England