Great Yarmouth, and Gorleston are towns with their own character, remote in geography but yet not isolated although the railway links have been seriously degraded, for both passengers and freight. This page and its links are intended to provide a short photographic history of some of the town's rail connections.

Great Yarmouth and Gorleston once had seven stations and halts, these being:

* Gorleston Links Halt was also closed temporarily between May 1918 and August 1919.

** The Norfolk & Suffolk Joint Railway was a joint working of the GER and M&GNJR.

The map left shows the positions of Yarmouth's three main stations, Gorleston's two stations and the two halts, one at Yarmouth Newtown and the other at Gorleston Links. From Beach station a M&GN link line crossed Breydon Water and the GER line to Norwich on the five span Breydon Viaduct. At Gorleston North junction this line was joined by a GER line from South Town station and became the Norfolk & Suffolk Joint Railway which ran along the coast to Lowestoft via Hopton and Corton.

Also shown are the lines to the quays, from Yarmouth Beach and Yarmouth Vauxhall via the still existing bridge over the Bure.

Yarmouth Vauxhall Station is now the only station in the town, serving Norwich and Lowestoft (via Reedham). It also now serves as the town's only rail link to London after the closure of Yarmouth South Town. The other terminus in the town, Yarmouth Beach was the destination of thousands of holiday makers from the midlands during the 30's, 40's and 50's up to its closure just prior to the Beeching era in the early 1960's. These pages also detail a pictorial & cartographical tour of the old M&GN route from Yarmouth Beach to North Walsham, of which sadly, little can now be seen.

In addition to the freight facilities at the major stations, there was also an extensive freight tramway system on the quays serving the Fisherman's Wharf on the Yare via a girder bridge over the Bure from Vauxhall station. This tramway network also linked in to the M&GN system at Yarmouth Beach via a line which ran from the east end of the Bure bridge, along North Quay, past the White Swan Inn and along the backs of the houses in Alderson Road, joining the line to Lowestoft just west of a bridge over Caister Road. This link line, the Yarmouth Union Railway, was just over a mile in length and opened in 1882 being intended to handle fish traffic, although the majority of that went via the Great Eastern station at Yarmouth Vauxhall due to its more direct situation. Great Yarmouth's rail freight facility disappeared in 1984 although there have been rumours regarding a limited reopening.

An item of related railway interest on this site is a section dedicated to the visit by the Royal Train to Yarmouth Vauxhall during August 1985. In addition to this there is a page showing a number of items of railwayana relevant to Norfolk and the Yarmouth area. Further reading on the railways around Great Yarmouth can be found by looking at my bibliography.