Halesworth railway station

Halesworth
Location
Place	Halesworth
Local authority	Waveney
Grid reference	TM388778
Operations
Station code	HAS
Managed by	Abellio Greater Anglia
Number of platforms	2
DfT category	F1
Live arrivals/departures, station information and onward connections from National Rail Enquiries
Annual rail passenger usage*
2010/11	73,212
2011/12	76,676
2012/13	84,350
2013/14	93,962
2014/15	94,702
History
Original company	East Suffolk Railway
Pre-grouping	Great Eastern Railway
Post-grouping	London and North Eastern Railway
4 December 1854	Opened
National Rail – UK railway stations
* Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Halesworth from Office of Rail and Road statistics. Methodology may vary year on year.
UK Railways portal

Halesworth is an unmanned railway station serving the town of Halesworth in Suffolk, England. The station is located on the Ipswich-Lowestoft East Suffolk Line. In 2015 an automatic ticket machine was installed enabling advance ticket purchases alongside tickets from train staff.

It is the nearest railway station to the town of Southwold, although some passengers from Southwold prefer to use Darsham railway station.

Anglian Buses service 88A^[1] to Southwold via Wenhaston and 88 Bungay, Norwich connects with the trains from the stop on Bramblewood Way (the Ipswich platform).

The railway station is served by Abellio Greater Anglia, who operate services between Ipswich and Lowestoft.

Halesworth railway station was formerly situated on a level crossing. However, it was unusual in that the railway station platforms swung across the road rather than having the more typical gates.^[2] The crossing is now permanently closed.

The cabin from the mechanical signal box at Halesworth has been preserved at the County School railway station on the Mid-Norfolk Railway in Norfolk.

At 13:55 on 18 December 1941 a German Dornier bombed the station house^[3] killing the stationmaster, his wife and their young maid. The station house was rebuilt but reduced in size.

The Halesworth and District Museum^[4] now occupies the station, as well as the offices of Halesworth Area Community Transport.^[5]

The station has been 'adopted' by volunteers from the East Suffolk Lines Community Rail Partnership^[6] who maintain the planting and remove litter.

Services

The following services currently call at Halesworth:

• 1 train per hour (each way) local service between Ipswich and Lowestoft

A two-hourly service in each direction runs on Sunday.^[7]

Southwold Railway

From 1879 to 1929 Halesworth was also the western terminus of the 3 ft (914 mm) gauge Southwold Railway which ran to Southwold 8 ³⁄₄ miles (14.1 km) away.^[8]

The terminus was located alongside the mainline railway station, allowing cross platform interchange of passengers and having transfer sheds for the exchange of goods between the narrow gauge wagons of the Southwold Railway and the standard gauge wagons used on the main line.^[8]

Disused terminal platforms of the former Southwold Railway at Halesworth, 1940

References

1. "88 | X88 | 88A : anglianbus". www.anglianbus.co.uk. Retrieved 2016-01-17.
2. http://www.dudleymall.co.uk/loclrail/lowipswich.htm#stat5
3. "Roll of Honour - Suffolk - Halesworth". www.roll-of-honour.com. Retrieved 2016-01-17.
4. "Halesworth Museum, Suffolk. Index Page". halesworthmuseum.org.uk. Retrieved 2016-01-17.
5. "Halesworth Area Community Transport and bus hire, the 511 Community Bus serving Haleworth, Holton and district". www.hactbus.co.uk. Retrieved 2016-01-17.
6. "East Suffolk Line - Community Rail Partnership". www.eastsuffolkline.com. Retrieved 2016-01-17.
7. Table 13 National Rail timetable, May 2016
8. Mitchell, Vic; Smith, Keith (1984). Branch Line to Southwold. Middleton Press. ISBN 978-0-906520-15-4.

External links

• Train times and station information for Halesworth railway station from National Rail

Coordinates: 52°20′49″N 1°30′22″E / 52.347°N 1.506°E