Stour Valley Railway

The Stour Valley Railway is a closed railway line that ran between Shelford, near Cambridge and Marks Tey in Essex, England, as part of the Great Eastern Railway. The line opened in sections and opened throughout on 9 August 1865. The route from Shelford to Sudbury closed on 6 March 1967 while the section from Sudbury to Marks Tey remains open as the Gainsborough Line.

History

Following acts of Parliament in 1846 and 1847 the Colchester, Stour Valley, Sudbury & Halstead Railway was authorised to construct a line from Marks Tey to Sudbury and then extend from Sudbury to Clare, with a branch line to Bury St. Edmunds forking off at Long Melford. Before construction was completed the company had changed hands twice and became part of the Eastern Union Railway. The Marks Tey to Sudbury section of the line opened on 2 July 1849 and ran for 5 years before being taken over by the Eastern Counties Railway on 7 August 1862cite book|author=R.S. Joby|title=Forgotten Railways East Anglia|year=1977|id=ISBN 0715373129|publisher=David & Charles] .

After several years of protracted legal disputes, the Great Eastern Railway (who had superseded the Eastern Counties Railway) opened a line from Shelford to Haverhill on 1 June 1865. On 9 August of the same year the line was extended to Sudbury, and a branch line from Bury St. Edmunds, joining the main line at Melford was also completed. At the same time the Stour Valley line was connected to the Colne Valley and Halstead Railway at Haverhill and Chappel and Wakes Colne, running via Halstead and Castle Hedingham.

The closure of the line was the subject of a protracted battlecite web|title=The Reshaping of the Stour Valley Line|url=http://www.stourline.co.uk/index.htm|accessdate=2008-03-10] and a proposal, led by Haverhill Urban Council, that local authorities subsidise the line.cite news|title=Valley line subsidy talks to continue|publisher="East Anglian Daily Times"|url=http://www.stourline.co.uk/page39.htm]

Traffic

Passenger

There were four trains each way on weekdays between Marks Tey and Sudbury in 1850, one of which went to Colchester. When services started between Cambridge and Haverhill there were three trains each way on weekdays. By the 1890s six passenger trains ran each way on a weekday with the majority going from Cambridge or Bury St Edmunds to Marks Tey or Colchester.cite book|author=Richard Spendlove|year=1992|title=Branch lines around Cambridge|publisher=HEGA publications]

In 1964 conductor guards collected fares on the trains and all stations on the line became unstaffed apart from Haverhill and Sudbury.

Prior to the closing of the line (1966–7) there were two trains a day between Sudbury and Cambridge, four between Colchester and Cambridge and six between Marks Tey or Colchester and Sudbury, with a similar number in the reverse direction. The service was operated by primarily by Class 105 and Class 108 Diesel Multiple Units, although some services were locomotive hauled.

Freight

Coal between Peterborough and Colchester and agricultural traffic where the main freight flows on the line.

Reopening

A study [cite news|title=Rail line could be reopened|publisher=BBC News|date=15 January 2004
url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cambridgeshire/3398721.stm
accessdate=2008-03-09] looked in to the possibility of reopening Cambridge to Haverhill and maybe the entire line. The campaign is now being taken up by the Cambridge to Sudbury Rail Renewal Association. [cite news|title=Full steam ahead to reopen old rail link|publisher="Cambridge Evening News"|date=26 October 2007|url=http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/cn_news_national/displayarticle.asp?id=284230|accessdate=2008-04-13]

References

* [http://www.subbrit.org.uk/sb-sites/stations/h/haverhill/index.shtml Stour Valley Railway] at Subterranea Britannica
* [http://www.bures-online.co.uk/rail/rail.htm Marks Tey–Bures–Sudbury Rail Line (1849–1990)]

External links

* [http://www.csrra.co.uk Cambridge-Sudbury Rail Renewal Association]