The stour valley line station by station

49 min read

A 43 mile single-track cross-country route, Stanley C Jenkins takes us west from Marks Tey, through Chappel & Wakes Colne, Sudbury, Long Melford, Haverhill North and a host of quieter rural stations through to the Cambridge main line.

Heading a Colchester to Cambridge service via the Stour Valley, Holden ‘E4’ 2-4-0 No 62789 leaves the Norwich main line at Marks Tey on an afternoon in most likely the summer of 1956 or 1957. Photographer Bill Aves is standing at the north end of the up main line platform and beyond North Lane overbridge we glimpse the signal box at the down side sidings. Operationally speaking, these acted as a turn-back point for Stour Valley duties not covering the main line leg beyond Marks Tey, so any inward passengers would use Marks Tey as the branch interchange. The Colchester-Cambridge service was the core passenger duty, which included about 8½ miles of main line running, five of which were at the eastern end. The 2-4-0 in view was built as Great Eastern Railway ‘T26’ No 497 (Stratford Works No 893 of July 1896), a member of the class perhaps most associated with the Stour Valley route thanks to its prolific use here from pre-Grouping days until the later 1950s. W A T Aves

Having outlined the origins and history of the Stour Valley route within ‘The Stour Valley railway and associated lines’ (Steam Days, August 2023), it is now appropriate to examine the stations and other infrastructure in greater detail. The following section will therefore take the form of a trip along the cross-country route from Marks Tey, on the Ipswich and Norwich main line, through to Shelford Junction on the Cambridge main line. For our purposes, the datum point for calculation of distances is Marks Tey station, although in practice many Stour Valley services commenced their journeys at the main line station of Colchester, some five miles to the north-east.

Marks Tey

This medium-sized junction station had up and down platforms for main line passenger traffic and an additional platform for the Stour Valley line – the former were staggered to accommodate the junction, the up main line platform being the more northerly, while the lengthy and curving Stour Valley platform was arranged on a diverging alignment at the rear of the down main platform. The main line through Marks Tey dates from 29 March 1843 – opened by the Eastern Counties Railway with its Brentford to Colchester extension – and the junction status was gained from 2 July 1849 upon opening of the

This article is from...

Steam Days Magazine

17 October 2023

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