Reedham railway station is a stop on the

Wherry Lines The Wherry Lines are railway branch lines in the East of England, linking with and . There are 14 stations on the lines, including the three termini. They form part of Network Rail Strategic Route 7, SRS 07.11 and are classified as a rural ...

in the

East of England East is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sunrise, Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fact ...

, serving the village of Reedham,

Norfolk Norfolk ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in England, located in East Anglia and officially part of the East of England region. It borders Lincolnshire and The Wash to the north-west, the North Sea to the north and eas ...

. It is down the line from ; it is situated between to the west and, to the east, on the branch to or on the branch to . It is commonly suffixed as Reedham (Norfolk) in order to distinguish it from the station of the same name in south London. Its three-letter station code is REE. The station is currently managed by

Greater Anglia Greater Anglia (legal name Transport UK East Anglia Limited) is a British train operating company owned as a joint venture by Transport UK Group and Mitsui & Co. It operates the East Anglia franchise, providing the commuter and inter-city se ...

, which also operates all trains serving the station. The majority of services run between Norwich and Lowestoft, but three trains per day run to and from Great Yarmouth via the remote Berney Arms station. Services are operated by the brand new

Stadler FLIRT Stadler FLIRT (, ) is a passenger multiple unit trainset made by Stadler Rail of Switzerland. The baseline design of FLIRT is an electric multiple unit Articulated car, articulated trainset that can come in units of two to twelve cars with two t ...

Class 755 bi-mode multiple units, which entered service on the Wherry Lines in autumn 2019.

History

The Bill for the

Yarmouth & Norwich Railway The Yarmouth and Norwich Railway (Y&NR) was the earliest railway in Norfolk, England. It was formed after it became apparent that it would be a number of years before the Eastern Counties Railway would extend their railway into Norfolk. Its a ...

(Y&NR) received Royal Assent on 18 June 1842. Work started on the line in April 1843 and the line and its stations were opened on 1 May 1844. Reedham station opened with the line and was, as it is now, situated east of Cantley station and west of Berney Arms station. The Y&NR was the first public railway line in Norfolk. On 30 June 1845 a Bill authorising the amalgamation of the Y&NR with the

Norwich & Brandon Railway The Norwich and Brandon Railway (N&BR) was the second railway in Norfolk, England, after the Yarmouth & Norwich Railway (Y&NR). Its act of Parliament, the , on 10 May 1844 authorised it to build a line between Norwich and the small town of Bra ...

came into effect and Reedham station became a Norfolk Railway asset. In 1845 an Act incorporated the Lowestoft Railway & Harbour Company (LR&HC). In 1846 the LR&HC was leased to the Norfolk Railway (NR) and work started on building a line from Lowestoft, in Suffolk to join the Yarmouth & Norwich line South-East of Reedham. On 1 July 1847 the NR opens the Lowestoft to Reedham line. The station south-east of Reedham on the line to Lowestoft was Haddiscoe. A couple of months after the Lowestoft line opened, the next station west, , was closed by the Norfolk Railway. The

Eastern Counties Railway The Eastern Counties Railway (ECR) was an English railway company incorporated in 1836 intended to link London with Ipswich via Colchester, and then extend to Norwich and Yarmouth. Construction began in 1837 on the first at the London end. Co ...

(ECR) and its rival 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) were both sizing up the NR to acquire and expand their railway empire. The ECR trumped the EUR by taking over the NR, including Reedham Station on 8 May 1848. The ECR reopened Cantley in 1851, once again making it the next station west. By the 1860s the railways in East Anglia were in financial trouble, and most were leased to the Eastern Counties Railway, which wished to amalgamate formally but could not obtain government agreement for this until an Act of Parliament on 7 August 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 ...

(GER) was formed by the amalgamation. Actually, Reedham became a GER station on 1 July 1862 when the GER took over the ECR and the EUR before the Bill received the Royal Assent. By the first decade of the last Century the GER started building new stations at Reedham and at Haddiscoe. On 9 May 1904 Haddiscoe Station was closed and replaced by Haddiscoe Low Level on a new site. On 1 June 1904 the GER opened today's Reedham Station and closed the Y&NR station which was 300 metres East of the new station. The system settled down for the next 17 years, apart from the disruption of the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

. The difficult economic circumstances that existed after the war led the Government to pass the

Railways Act 1921 The Railways Act 1921 ( 11 & 12 Geo. 5. c. 55), also known as the Grouping Act, was an act of Parliament enacted by the British government, and was intended to stem the losses being made by many of the country's 120 railway companies, by "grou ...

, which led to the creation of the Big Four. The GER amalgamated with several other companies to form the

London and North Eastern Railway The London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) was the second largest (after London, Midland and Scottish Railway, LMS) of the "Big Four (British railway companies), Big Four" railway companies created by the Railways Act 1921 in Britain. It ope ...

(LNER). Reedham became a LNER station on 1 January 1923. In 1928 the LNER renamed Reedham as ''Reedham (Norfolk)'' to distinguish it from the Southern Railway) station of Reedham-Surrey. At

nationalisation Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization contrasts with priv ...

in 1948, the station and its services were transferred to the

Eastern Region of British Railways The Eastern Region was a region of British Railways from 1948, whose operating area could be identified from the dark blue signs and colour schemes that adorned its station and other railway buildings. Together with the North Eastern Region (w ...

. Following the

privatisation of British Rail The privatisation of British Rail was the process by which ownership and operation of the Rail transport in Great Britain, railways of Great Britain passed from government control into private hands. Begun in 1994, the process was largely compl ...

Railtrack Railtrack was a group of companies that owned the railroad, track, railway signalling, signalling, tunnels, bridges, level crossings and all but a handful of the railway station, stations of the Transport in England#Rail, British railway syste ...

became responsible for infrastructure maintenance in 1994. Following Railtrack's financial problems

Network Rail Network Rail Limited is the owner (via its subsidiary Network Rail Infrastructure Limited, which was known as Railtrack plc before 2002) and railway infrastructure manager, infrastructure manager of most of the railway network in Great Britain. ...

took over operation of the infrastructure in 2002. The station and its operations came under the

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 Anglia franchise was awarded by the Director of Passenger Ra ...

franchise in 1997. Subsequently,

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 Expres ...

, then known as ''One'', took over management in 2004. The station, along with its services, were transferred to

Abellio Greater Anglia Greater Anglia (legal name Transport UK East Anglia Limited) is a British train operating company owned as a joint venture by Transport UK Group and Mitsui & Co. It operates the East Anglia franchise, providing the commuter and inter-city se ...

in 2012. In October 2018, Network Rail remodelled the Reedham Junction layout and begun the resignalling process, temporarily closing the Berney Arms line to Great Yarmouth. It reopened on 24 February 2020.

Services

The typical daytime off-peak service at Reedham is: * One train every two hours in each direction between and , with some additional services during the day * Two trains per day in each direction between and Norwich; there is an additional return service on Saturdays. On Sundays, there are hourly services to and from Norwich, with eastbound services alternating to Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft. All trains are operated by

References

External links

{{Railway stations served by Greater Anglia Railway stations in Norfolk DfT Category F1 stations Former Great Eastern Railway stations Railway stations served by Greater Anglia Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1844