Woodbridge 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 town of

Woodbridge Woodbridge may refer to: Places Australia *Woodbridge, Western Australia formerly called ''West Midland'' *Woodbridge, Tasmania Canada *Woodbridge, Ontario England *Woodbridge, Suffolk, the location of ** Woodbridge (UK Parliament constituency ...

, 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 Melton. Its three-letter station code is WDB. The station was opened in 1859. Today it is managed by Abellio Greater Anglia, which also operates all trains that call.

History

The railway line connecting the East Suffolk Railway (ESR) at with the

Eastern Union Railway The Eastern Union Railway (EUR) was an English railway company, at first built from Colchester to Ipswich; it opened in 1846. It was proposed when the earlier Eastern Counties Railway failed to make its promised line from Colchester to Norwich. T ...

(EUR) (although since 1854 this had been leased by 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 ...

) at was built in two parts: the portion of this line south of Woodbridge was built by the EUR; Woodbridge station and the portion of line north of there was built by the ESR. The line opened on 1 June 1859, and Woodbridge station opened with the line. The ESR was absorbed by the ECR on opening day. The station buildings were designed by Frederick Barnes, who also designed other Suffolk stations such as , and . 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. On 1 January 1927 there was a train crash at Woodbridge station. A wagon coupling had broken at Bealings and when the engine stopped at Woodbridge, the rear portion running downhill smashed into the back of the stationary train. Only one minor injury was recorded. The station's goods yard closed on 18 April 1966. The ticket office closed with the introduction of Paytrains on 7 March 1967. 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 in 2008. In 2012, the franchise passed to the current operator, Abellio Greater Anglia. On 28 January 2003 a train collided with a car on the ungated

level crossing A level crossing is an intersection where a railway line crosses a road, Trail, path, or (in rare situations) airport runway, at the same level, as opposed to the railway line crossing over or under using an Overpass#Railway, overpass ...

leading to the marina. On 13 December 2010 a train hit a car on a level crossing close to Woodbridge station. In spring 2021 due to increasing number of people using the crossings, the barriers at Haywards and Ferry Lane level crossings were upgraded to full barriers making them safer.

Services

, the typical Monday-Sunday off-peak service at Woodbridge is as follows: Direct trains to and from

were withdrawn in 2010. One weekday early-morning train is extended through to , with a return journey in the evening.

Notes

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External links

{{Railway stations served by Abellio Greater Anglia 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 Woodbridge, Suffolk