Melton railway station is on the East Suffolk Line 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 village of Melton, Suffolk. It is down the line from and measured 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 ...

; it is situated between and . Its three-letter station code is MES. The station was opened in 1859 but was closed in 1955 and remained so until 1984 when, after a local campaign, it was reopened. Today it is managed by

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 ...

, which also operates all trains that call. It is 1.25 miles from the ancient

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...

burial site at

Sutton Hoo Sutton Hoo is the site of two early medieval cemeteries dating from the 6th to 7th centuries near the English town of Woodbridge. Archaeologists have been excavating the area since 1938, when a previously undisturbed ship burial containing a ...

, run by the

National Trust The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...

History

The railway line connecting the East Suffolk Railway (ESR) at to an extension of 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 ...

(ECR) at was built by the ESR. The line opened on 1 June 1859, and Melton station opened with the line. The ESR was absorbed by the ECR on opening day. On 1 July 1862, the ECR and other small railway companies amalgamated to become 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). At the

1923 Grouping The Railways Act 1921 (c. 55), also known as the Grouping Act, was an Act of Parliament enacted by the British government and intended to stem the losses being made by many of the country's 120 railway companies, by "grouping" them into four la ...

, the GER was amalgamated with other companies to form 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 ...

; this in turn was a constituent of

British Railways 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 ...

at the start of 1948. At the beginning of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, the 9th field company

Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is a corps of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces and is heade ...

were sent to Melton to prepare defences at the station and nearby Wilford Bridge (the first crossing point of the

River Deben The River Deben is a river in Suffolk rising to the west of Debenham, though a second, higher source runs south from the parish of Bedingfield. The river passes through Woodbridge, turning into a tidal estuary before entering the North Sea at Fe ...

) against possible invasion. The station is located outside the village centre and was vulnerable to bus competition which started in 1919. During

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 ...

Melton was the railhead for nearby

RAF Bentwaters Royal Air Force Bentwaters or more simply RAF Bentwaters, now known as Bentwaters Parks, is a former Royal Air Force station about northeast of London and east-northeast of Ipswich, near Woodbridge, Suffolk in England. Its name was taken fro ...

with a pipeline running from the station yard. This was supplied by tanker wagons kept in the yard. Remains of crashed aircraft from

Orfordness Orford Ness is a cuspate foreland shingle spit on the Suffolk coast in Great Britain, linked to the mainland at Aldeburgh and stretching along the coast to Orford and down to North Weir Point, opposite Shingle Street. It is divided from the m ...

and Sutton crash airfield were sent via Melton during 1943. The station closed to passengers on 2 May 1955; the goods yard closed on 1 June 1972, although private sidings remained open for domestic coal traffic and roadstone between 1972 and 1976. During this time a small

Ruston & Hornsby Ruston & Hornsby was an industrial equipment manufacturer in Lincoln, Lincolnshire, Lincoln, England founded in 1918. The company is best known as a manufacturer of narrow gauge railway, narrow and standard gauge diesel locomotives and also of ...

diesel shunter was based at the sidings. All freight traffic ceased in the early 1980s but after local campaigning the station was reopened for passengers on 3 September 1984. With the

privatisation of British Rail The privatisation of British Rail was the process by which ownership and operation of the railways of Great Britain passed from government control into private hands. Begun in 1994, it had been completed by 1997. The deregulation of the industr ...

, ownership of the line and station passed to

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 ...

on 1 April 1994. The franchise to operate the passenger services on this route was won by

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 ...

in 1997; in 2004 National Express won the franchise and operated services using the branding 'one', which was renamed

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 ...

in 2008.

was succeeded as the operator of the Greater Anglia franchise in 2012 by

Abellio Abellio (also Abelio and Abelionni) was a god worshiped in the Garonne Valley in Gallia Aquitania (now southwest France), known primarily by a number of inscriptions which were discovered in Comminges, in the Pyrenees. He may have been a god of ...

Services

the typical Monday-Sunday off-peak service at Melton is as follows: Trains direct to and from

were withdrawn in 2010. One weekday early-morning train is extended through to and there is a return from there in the evening.

Notes

References

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External links

{{Railway stations served by Abellio Greater Anglia Railway stations in Suffolk DfT Category F2 stations Former Great Eastern Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1859 Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1955 Reopened railway stations in Great Britain Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1984 Greater Anglia franchise railway stations