Clacton-on-Sea railway station is one of the two eastern termini of the

Sunshine Coast Line The Sunshine Coast Line is the current marketing name of what originally was the Tendring Hundred Railway Line, a branch off the Great Eastern Main Line in the East of England. It links to the seaside resorts of and, via a branch, . The line ...

, a branch of the

Great Eastern Main Line The Great Eastern Main Line (GEML, sometimes referred to as the East Anglia Main Line) is a major railway line on the British railway system which connects Liverpool Street station in central London with destinations in east London and t ...

, in the

East of England The East of England is one of the nine official regions of England. This region was created in 1994 and was adopted for statistics purposes from 1999. It includes the ceremonial counties of Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire ...

, serving the town of

Clacton-on-Sea Clacton-on-Sea is a seaside town in the Tendring District in the county of Essex, England. It is located on the Tendring Peninsula and is the largest settlement in the Tendring District with a population of 56,874 (2016). The town is situated a ...

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

. It is down the line from

London Liverpool Street Liverpool Street station, also known as London Liverpool Street, is a central London railway terminus and connected London Underground station in the north-eastern corner of the City of London, in the ward of Bishopsgate Without. It is the t ...

. Its three-letter station code is CLT. The preceding station on the line is . The station was opened in 1882 with the name Clacton. It is currently managed by Greater Anglia, which also operates all trains serving the station. The branch diverges from the

at whence trains run to either , or Clacton-on-Sea. Clacton is on a spur from Thorpe-le-Soken which was built by the Clacton-on-Sea Railway and originally operated by 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 ...

. It opened some 15 years after the branch to Walton was opened. On 1 January 1923 the station passed to the

London and North Eastern Railway The London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) was the second largest (after LMS) of the " Big Four" railway companies created by the Railways Act 1921 in Britain. It operated from 1 January 1923 until nationalisation on 1 January 1948. At th ...

following the 1921 Railways Act. After

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

and following nationalisation, it fell under the auspices of British Railways (Eastern Region). Services were steam-operated until the line was electrified, with Clacton first seeing electric trains on 16 March 1959. Initially, the line was only electrified as far as Colchester, as part of

British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...

ways' experiments with 25 kV AC electrification, rather than the previously preferred 1500 V DC system. Through electrified services to Liverpool Street were introduced on 7 January 1963. Clacton station has a sizeable concourse sheltered by a glazed roof. Platforms 1 and 3 have an operational length for ten-coach trains and platforms 2 and 4 have an operational length for twelve-coach trains. There is a traction

depot Depot ( or ) may refer to: Places * Depot, Poland, a village * Depot Island, Kemp Land, Antarctica * Depot Island, Victoria Land, Antarctica * Depot Island Formation, Greenland Brands and enterprises * Maxwell Street Depot, a restaurant in ...

just outside the station, with some stabling sidings alongside the station itself. Its name was changed to Clacton-on-Sea in May 2007.

Services

Clacton-on-Sea - Greater Anglia 321335 and 321443

As of December 2018, the typical service is one train per hour to

, calling at , , , , , , , and London Liverpool Street. During peak hours the service level is increased to approximately four trains per hour. The first and last trains of the day start and terminate at Colchester. Trains are usually formed of

electric multiple unit An electric multiple unit or EMU is a multiple-unit train consisting of self-propelled carriages using electricity as the motive power. An EMU requires no separate locomotive, as electric traction motors are incorporated within one or a numbe ...

References

External links

{{Railway stations served by Abellio Greater Anglia

Railway Station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

Railway stations in Essex Former Great Eastern Railway stations Greater Anglia franchise railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1882 DfT Category C1 stations