Wickham Market 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 ...

, located in

Campsea Ashe Campsea Ashe (sometimes spelt Campsey Ash) is a village in Suffolk, England located approximately north east of Woodbridge, Suffolk, Woodbridge and south west of Saxmundham. The village is served by Wickham Market railway station on the Ipswic ...

, Suffolk, approximately east of

Wickham Market Wickham Market is a large village and electoral ward situated in the River Deben valley of Suffolk, England, within the Suffolk Coastal heritage area. It is on the A12 trunk road north-east of the county town of Ipswich, north-east of Wood ...

itself. The station 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 Melton and . Its three-letter station code is WCM. 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. Wickham Market was formerly a junction for the Framlingham branch line. The branch closed to passenger services in November 1952, and to freight in April 1965.

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, as was the Framlingham branch. The main line and the Framlingham branch both opened on 1 June 1859, and Wickham Market station opened at the same time. The ESR was absorbed by the ECR on opening day. On 1 July 1862, the ECR and other small railway companies were amalgamated to form 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). Upon 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 combined with other railways into 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. The Framlingham branch closed to passenger trains in November 1952; it retained freight services until April 1965. In the meantime, the goods yard at Wickham Market closed in July 1964. 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 National Express Group is a British multinational public transport company headquartered in Birmingham, England. It operates bus, coach, train and tram services in the United Kingdom, Ireland (National Express operates Eurolines in conjunction ...

won the franchise and operated services using the brand name '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. In February 2012, the operation of the train service was taken over by

, a company run 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 ...

, the trading name of Dutch railways.

Services

the typical Monday-Sunday off-peak service at Wickham Market 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

* * *

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wickham Market Railway Station Railway stations in Suffolk DfT Category F1 stations Former Great Eastern Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1859 Greater Anglia franchise railway stations