The Gainsborough line is the current marketing name of the Sudbury branch line, a railway

branch line A branch line is a phrase used in railway terminology to denote a secondary railway line which branches off a more important through route, usually a main line. A very short branch line may be called a spur line. Industrial spur An industr ...

off 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 th ...

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 ...

, that links in

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 ...

with in

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include L ...

. It is in length and single-track throughout. The line's Engineer's Line Reference is SUD. Prior to the

Beeching cuts The Beeching cuts (also Beeching Axe) was a plan to increase the efficiency of the nationalised railway system in Great Britain. The plan was outlined in two reports: ''The Reshaping of British Railways'' (1963) and ''The Development of the M ...

initiated in the 1960s, the line, then known as the Stour Valley Railway, continued beyond Sudbury to in Cambridgeshire. Today the line is part of the Network Rail Strategic Route 7, SRS 07.10, and is classified as a rural line. As of December 2016 the stations and all trains serving them are operated by

Greater Anglia Greater Anglia (legal name Transport UK East Anglia Limited) is a British train operating company owned as a joint venture by Transport UK Group and Mitsui & Co. It operates the East Anglia franchise, providing the commuter and inter-city ser ...

. The typical service frequency is one train per hour in each direction, with a timetabled journey time between one terminus and the other of 19 minutes.

History

The Stour Valley Railway opened on 9 August 1865, linking near Cambridge with in Essex, with 13 intermediate stations along the line. The section between Shelford and was closed on 6 March 1967 following the

, leaving and as the only stops between the termini. In 2005 the line received around £3 million of investment, which saw around of old jointed track replaced with new continuous welded rail. Further investment was made in 2006 to replace around of track, leaving just the

Chappel viaduct The Chappel Viaduct is a railway viaduct that crosses the River Colne in the Colne Valley in Essex, England. It carries the Gainsborough Line which now is a short branch linking in Essex to in Suffolk. The line previously, however, extend ...

and Lamarsh to Sudbury sections in need of modernisation. This work was completed in 2007. In 2006 the line was designated as a community railway by the transport minister and is part of the Essex and South Suffolk Community Rail Partnership. The current name of the line commemorates the painter

Thomas Gainsborough Thomas Gainsborough (14 May 1727 (baptised) – 2 August 1788) was an English portrait and landscape painter, draughtsman, and printmaker. Along with his rival Sir Joshua Reynolds, he is considered one of the most important British artists of ...

, who was born in Sudbury; the previous name was the Lovejoy line, after the television series '' Lovejoy'', which was filmed in the Sudbury area. All passenger services on the line are currently operated by

, which runs an hourly service with frequency increasing slightly during peak hours. The last departure from Sudbury at the end of each day is extended to . There are plans to expand more services from Sudbury through to Colchester and using new bi-mode trains.

Notable sights

The line runs across the

, which has 30 arches each with a span, with a maximum height of , and was the longest viaduct on 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 ...

. The East Anglian Railway Museum is located alongside the station at .

Infrastructure

The line is single track throughout, has a

loading gauge A loading gauge is a diagram or physical structure that defines the maximum height and width dimensions in railway vehicles and their loads. Their purpose is to ensure that rail vehicles can pass safely through tunnels and under bridges, and ke ...

of W6, and a maximum speed of . Unlike other branches in the area, such as the Braintree branch line and Mayflower line to , the Gainsborough line is not

electrified Electrification is the process of powering by electricity and, in many contexts, the introduction of such power by changing over from an earlier power source. The broad meaning of the term, such as in the history of technology, economic histor ...

. New bi-mode trains started operating on the line in January 2020.

Stations

The following table summarises the line's four stations, their distance measured from , and estimated number of passenger entries/exits in 2018–19:

Accidents and incidents

*On 12 July 1887 one person was killed at when part of a runaway train collided with a crossing gate. *On 27 January 2006 at least four passengers were slightly injured when a train ran into the

buffer stop A buffer stop, bumper, bumping post, bumper block or stopblock (US), is a device to prevent railway vehicles from going past the end of a physical section of track. The design of the buffer stop is dependent, in part, on the kind of couplings ...

at . The 6:05 pm service from was travelling at a speed at the time of the collision of approximately six miles per hour. An investigation determined that the driver failed to apply the brakes in a "timely and appropriate manner". *On 17 August 2010 the

Little Cornard derailment The Little Cornard derailment occurred on 17 August 2010 when a passenger train collided with a road vehicle on a level crossing on the Gainsborough Line near Little Cornard, Suffolk, and partly derailed. The vehicle, a tanker lorry, had begun ...

occurred when the 5:31 pm service from Sudbury collided with a lorry that had entered a

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

without permission. The train driver and four passengers were seriously injured in the accident.

References

External links

Complete history of the branch line from 1849
Bures web site {{Railway lines in the East of England Rail transport in Essex Rail transport in Suffolk Community railway lines in England Railway lines in the East of England Standard gauge railways in England