The M&GN...

[ca55ie]

Has anyone heard of this small, extinct railway company?

Sam

[markw]

The Midland and Great Northern? Of course, I live about two miles from the the old trackbed which is now the A149, and the old station at Potter Heigham.

It served Great Yarmouth, North Walsham, Melton Constable, Peterborough, Norwich and King's Lynn and was an attempt by the GNR and Midland Railways to capture some of the agricultural and fish traffic, and later holiday traffic, from the Great eastern monopoly.

In the 1930's it was absorbed into the LNER, but as many of the locos were of Midland design it led to LMS type locos in LNER colours. It was largely single track and handled quite heavy passenger and freight traffic at it's peak, but was largely closed down in the mid 50's before Beeching. Shame really as I would have liked to have had a ride from Potter Heigham station. Two short sections remain - the "One" line from Cromer to Sheringham, and the North Norfolk Railway from Sheringham to Holt. Some sections of trackbed remain, and oddly enough the rail replacement bus still runs from Yarmouth to Cromer!

There's a lot more to the line than this, and I think I've got the basic story right, but I'm sure others will correct any errors I've made.

[ca55ie]

Yup, mostly right, except some of the lines survived 'till '64 as a frieght only, diesel route!

Sam

[arabiandisco]

didn't they have a station in norwich on the north side of the city? I forget what it was called...

[johndibben]

Yes and so do I

That part of the world was dieselised aerly and early DMU types worked the passenger services on the line

[ca55ie]

didn't they have a station in norwich on the north side of the city? I forget what it was called...

Yup, they certainly did, think it was just Norwich IIRC...

Yes and so do I

That part of the world was dieselised aerly and early DMU types worked the passenger services on the line

lol...yup, got plenty of shots of them!

Didn't realise so many people had a bit of the M&GN in their hearts lol!

Sam

[markw]

It was Norwich (City) and despite being rebuilt following war damage closed on 2 March 1959 when the line to Melton Constable closed. It's now the large Sainsbury's just off the inner ring road not far from the former Surrey Street bus station of Eastern Counties. The main station in Norwich which remains open is Thorpe, and there was another station in Norwich which closed in 1939 called Trowse, just before the swing-bridge, which was temorarily reopened when the bridge was rebuilt in the 1980's

Other closure dates (to passengers) are:
Melton Constable-Sheringham 6 April 1964
Great Yarmouth-Peterborough 2 March 1959
Sutton Bridge (w of King's Lynn)-Saxby and Spalding 2 March 1959

North Walsham MGNR station closed 30 September 1957 when a new link was built from the Great Eastern line to the MGNR for holiday camp expresses. This closed on 2 March 1959, which made it a bit of a waste of money, really.

Sheringham level crossing and main station (now the NNR station) closed 2 January 1967 when the new station, looking for all the world like a temporary station (probably because they were trying to close the Sheringham-Norwich line as well) opened.

Some local stations closed before the main closures, for example Hellesdon near Norwich on the Norwich to Melton line closed 15 September 1952.

There is a brief shot of the MGNR at Stalham (which would have been my local station, together with Potter Heigham) from a DMU on a British Transport film introducing diesel multiple units - it's an odd film called something like "Diesel train Ride" which has everyone jumping on board a Class 114 DMU, which spent virtually all their life in Lincolnshire/Humberside/S Yorks but which then has through the cab shots of not only Stalham on the MGNR (the Sutton Staithes look exactly as they are now) but mountains which most definately are not part of Lincolnshire or Norfolk, but which are probably in Wales. That was either one mother of a railtour or the editor's sense of geography was a bit out.

[Garthion]

I've heard of the M&GN, bought the Bachmann Limited eddition wagon for Sheringham a few years back, and my Garndmother used to live not far from the NNR. Haven't been recently (1996 last time) so would love to go again get some photos of the J15 that runs on the NNR and see if any of the old trackbed is accessible for walking on.

[markw]

I've heard of the M&GN, bought the Bachmann Limited eddition wagon for Sheringham a few years back, and my Garndmother used to live not far from the NNR. Haven't been recently (1996 last time) so would love to go again get some photos of the J15 that runs on the NNR and see if any of the old trackbed is accessible for walking on.

Within Norfolk a large part of the MGN was either converted to road (the A149 from Stalham to Potter Heigham, a section of A149 near North Walsham and part of the Holt by-pass) or cycleway (the Weaver's Way north of Stalham), a section remains of course as the North Norfolk Railway, and a small section is in daily use by the Bittern line trains of Oneglia from Sheringham to the outskirts of Cromer. Quite a bit between Potter Heigham and Martham returned to farmland, although on the edge of Yarmouth there is a stretch the back of the racecourse which can be traced. Yarmouth Beach station is now a coach park, but sections of canopy have been kept as a feature. The section from Beach station to Gorleston is now the A12 and a new lifitng bridge has replaced the old railway swing bridge. I think part of the Norwich to Melton Constable branch remains as foot and cycleway, certainly in Norwich

However, I don't know what remains of Melton Constable (in all the years I've been coming to or lived in Norfolk I've never been to the place!) or westward towards Peterborough/Saxby

[ca55ie]

MarkW, would you be interested in a trackplan of Potter Heigham and Stalham? I might also be able to get some pics...

Sam

[ca55ie]

MarkW, would you be interested in a trackplan of Potter Heigham and Stalham? I might also be able to get some pics...

Sam

Bump...

[markw]

Sorry, forgot to reply, thanks for the offer, I've got a couple of books with pictures of Potter Heigham and Stalham stations (although they are helping with the production of a forthcoming Making Tracks route at present...), and of course the real Stalham station buildings are now open on the North Norfolk railway at Holt since they were relocated there last year, but I've not seen a trackplan.

If they are scannable why not stick them in an atomic album with thumblinks posted here, then anyone else interested can have a look?

[ca55ie]

Non-premium member here I'd have to be thru fotopic, (if possible) do you wanna host?

Sam

[ceefax]

I've heard of the M&GN, bought the Bachmann Limited eddition wagon for Sheringham a few years back, and my Garndmother used to live not far from the NNR. Haven't been recently (1996 last time) so would love to go again get some photos of the J15 that runs on the NNR and see if any of the old trackbed is accessible for walking on.

The Times carried an "obituary" on the M&GN in 1959 - I suspect it was written by John Betjeman. I hope its not too long, but its a nice piece of writing:

The closing of railway lines in England grows apace. In many a country parish these last few years it has been the same; as the breaker's men rip the lead from the lord's house, the last train runs on the single track his great grandfather feared and fought, and soon rust will gather on the bright metals. The latest casualty - and a large one - is the former Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway. Tried and found wanting by the railway authorities, most of it (unless the local opposition to the proposed closure triumphs) seems likely to go the way that other "unremunerative" lines have gone before. " A product of the extravagant and over-optimistic period of railway development in the nineteenth century," said the indictment with the severity of a Silk prosecuting a swindling secretary, " it was not planned as a whole, but emerged as a through route from various amalgamations of local railways . . it has never paid its way...." Well, perhaps not, but did the companies in a larger way of business ? Certainly, for a railway born with a wooden spoon in its mouth and stingily treated by its owning partners, it did not do so badly. Controversy apart, what was it like, the old Muddle and Get Nowhere, as impious spirits called it ? One says " was," as though it were already dead, but the old M. & G.N. as many of us knew it, seems to have been gone a long time and the use of the past tense is occasionally unavoidable. NOT A MERE BRANCH Whatever else it was it was much more than a branch line; even the present owners admit that it became a through route. It was also the owner of 109 miles 18 chains of single line, 74 miles 14 chains of double, an engineering works, a small tunnel, two swing bridges, and some very pleasant scenery. But more than these earthly possessions it had a distinct personality which its name reflected. Midland and Great Northern. No doubt a system that passed through the green shires where hounds run all winter, through the Dukeries and the grey lands where coal is dug and iron smelted, a Notts and Derby line with a pied-a-terre in the West Riding? By no means; though there was territory in Lincolnshire and in Cambridgeshire, even a station in Northamptonshire, much of the line was in Norfolk - which only the B.B.C. includes in the Midlands. Yet the name was not altogether inapt for there were - and are - through trains to Birmingham and Leicester by way of Bourne, and to the North or London by way of Peterborough. And certainly in the heyday of the system there were through coaches in the summer from places as far afield as Manchester, Derby, and Sheffield. Travelling on the M. & G.N. you are treated to none of the renowned scenic splendour of the kind offered by the Big Four: no Lakes or Highlands, no Thames or Tweed, no mills darker or more satanic than those that ground corn in Cotman's day; but if unspectacular, the country is unspoiled. For 50 miles it runs over the fertile Fen plain, and here was trade that summer and winter sent trains rolling away over the dykes and drains bearing tulips and broccoli, cabbages and daffodils, strawberries and currants and the diamonds of the black soil, potatoes. From South Lynn you pass through "Kings Country," heather and pines and houses of ruddy local stone. "Hillington for Sandringham," says a station sign with a broad hint, hoping no doubt that one day a princeling would entrain not at Liverpool Street but at Kings Cross; perhaps one did: but the Royal themselves travelled Great Eastern and went to Wolferton when they came to Norfolk. Away eastward the line crosses good farming land by the broad acres of the Townshends of Raynham to Melton Constable, the "Crewe" of North Norfolk " the wags have called it; but it was scarcely that, for though they built locomotives there in happier days, and all around is unmellowed railway brick, Melton was never a railway town like Doncaster or Swindon. THE BURGH PARVA COWS From the main platforms at Melton you can still hear the Burgh Parva cows at milking time, the marshalling yards end in meadowland, and hard by is a noble beech hedge that flanks a road leading to Melton estate, the home for many years of the Lords Hastings. On any one of the three branch lines leading from Melton is something to please the eye; the sea at Sheringham and Cromer, the sea ultimately at Yarmouth, but on that line also Stalham, Potter Heigham, and the Broads. The third line goes south through woodland and arable to Hindolvestone, Guestwick (which Trollope borrowed for the Barset novels) Whitwell and Reepham, and Lenwade, that village beloved of Parson Woodforde who used to take his pleasure with rod and net in the Wensum near by; and so at length to Norwich and City Station, " the cathedral of the M. & G.N where a great bell tolled before the departure of trains." Such is the Midland Great Northern " political and physical," but any remembrance of it would be incomplete without a reference to its locomotives yellowish of complexion " picked out in blue with an elaborate achievement of arms upon the tenders, resplendent with fishes and keys in saltire looking as if they were By Appointment to the Holy See." But many were elegant without benefit of paint and livery for they were the creations of that artist among railway engineers, Samuel Johnson, of the Midland Railway who like J C Robinson of the Great Central never built an ugly engine. FAMILIES “ON THE LINE " Elegant yes, and of obsolete design. But nevertheless, in the summer season when holiday Brummagen came - and still comes - to Yarmouth and Cromer, they tackle trains of 400 and 450 tons weight, which speaks much for the standard of maintenance at Melton and South Lynn and for the driving and firing of engine crews. Indeed, one of the great strengths of the M. & G.N. was its servants. It used to be said that on arrival at Paddington you left London and entered Great Westernland where west country speech prevailed but on the M. & G.N. it was East Anglia almost all the way; the guard, the signalmen, the driver and the porter not only spoke the same tongue but were quite likely to be related by blood and marriage. When the railway broke into the countryside in the nineteenth century, families that had worked on the land time out of mind went "on the line" and there, with East Angolan conservatism they stayed so that there has been ever since a kind of feudal continuity of service. Whatever the fate of the railway, it is true to say that within its limitations - among them the elderly locomotives and an overdose of single track - it gave good service to East Anglia and in return East Anglia served it well.

[ca55ie]

The closing of railway lines in England grows apace. In many a country parish these last few years it has been the same; as the breaker's men rip the lead from the lord's house, the last train runs on the single track his great grandfather feared and fought, and soon rust will gather on the bright metals. The latest casualty - and a large one - is the former Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway. Tried and found wanting by the railway authorities, most of it (unless the local opposition to the proposed closure triumphs) seems likely to go the way that other "unremunerative" lines have gone before. " A product of the extravagant and over-optimistic period of railway development in the nineteenth century," said the indictment with the severity of a Silk prosecuting a swindling secretary, " it was not planned as a whole, but emerged as a through route from various amalgamations of local railways . . it has never paid its way...." Well, perhaps not, but did the companies in a larger way of business ? Certainly, for a railway born with a wooden spoon in its mouth and stingily treated by its owning partners, it did not do so badly. Controversy apart, what was it like, the old Muddle and Get Nowhere, as impious spirits called it ? One says " was," as though it were already dead, but the old M. & G.N. as many of us knew it, seems to have been gone a long time and the use of the past tense is occasionally unavoidable. NOT A MERE BRANCH Whatever else it was it was much more than a branch line; even the present owners admit that it became a through route. It was also the owner of 109 miles 18 chains of single line, 74 miles 14 chains of double, an engineering works, a small tunnel, two swing bridges, and some very pleasant scenery. But more than these earthly possessions it had a distinct personality which its name reflected. Midland and Great Northern. No doubt a system that passed through the green shires where hounds run all winter, through the Dukeries and the grey lands where coal is dug and iron smelted, a Notts and Derby line with a pied-a-terre in the West Riding? By no means; though there was territory in Lincolnshire and in Cambridgeshire, even a station in Northamptonshire, much of the line was in Norfolk - which only the B.B.C. includes in the Midlands. Yet the name was not altogether inapt for there were - and are - through trains to Birmingham and Leicester by way of Bourne, and to the North or London by way of Peterborough. And certainly in the heyday of the system there were through coaches in the summer from places as far afield as Manchester, Derby, and Sheffield. Travelling on the M. & G.N. you are treated to none of the renowned scenic splendour of the kind offered by the Big Four: no Lakes or Highlands, no Thames or Tweed, no mills darker or more satanic than those that ground corn in Cotman's day; but if unspectacular, the country is unspoiled. For 50 miles it runs over the fertile Fen plain, and here was trade that summer and winter sent trains rolling away over the dykes and drains bearing tulips and broccoli, cabbages and daffodils, strawberries and currants and the diamonds of the black soil, potatoes. From South Lynn you pass through "Kings Country," heather and pines and houses of ruddy local stone. "Hillington for Sandringham," says a station sign with a broad hint, hoping no doubt that one day a princeling would entrain not at Liverpool Street but at Kings Cross; perhaps one did: but the Royal themselves travelled Great Eastern and went to Wolferton when they came to Norfolk. Away eastward the line crosses good farming land by the broad acres of the Townshends of Raynham to Melton Constable, the "Crewe" of North Norfolk " the wags have called it; but it was scarcely that, for though they built locomotives there in happier days, and all around is unmellowed railway brick, Melton was never a railway town like Doncaster or Swindon. THE BURGH PARVA COWS From the main platforms at Melton you can still hear the Burgh Parva cows at milking time, the marshalling yards end in meadowland, and hard by is a noble beech hedge that flanks a road leading to Melton estate, the home for many years of the Lords Hastings. On any one of the three branch lines leading from Melton is something to please the eye; the sea at Sheringham and Cromer, the sea ultimately at Yarmouth, but on that line also Stalham, Potter Heigham, and the Broads. The third line goes south through woodland and arable to Hindolvestone, Guestwick (which Trollope borrowed for the Barset novels) Whitwell and Reepham, and Lenwade, that village beloved of Parson Woodforde who used to take his pleasure with rod and net in the Wensum near by; and so at length to Norwich and City Station, " the cathedral of the M. & G.N where a great bell tolled before the departure of trains." Such is the Midland Great Northern " political and physical," but any remembrance of it would be incomplete without a reference to its locomotives yellowish of complexion " picked out in blue with an elaborate achievement of arms upon the tenders, resplendent with fishes and keys in saltire looking as if they were By Appointment to the Holy See." But many were elegant without benefit of paint and livery for they were the creations of that artist among railway engineers, Samuel Johnson, of the Midland Railway who like J C Robinson of the Great Central never built an ugly engine. FAMILIES “ON THE LINE " Elegant yes, and of obsolete design. But nevertheless, in the summer season when holiday Brummagen came - and still comes - to Yarmouth and Cromer, they tackle trains of 400 and 450 tons weight, which speaks much for the standard of maintenance at Melton and South Lynn and for the driving and firing of engine crews. Indeed, one of the great strengths of the M. & G.N. was its servants. It used to be said that on arrival at Paddington you left London and entered Great Westernland where west country speech prevailed but on the M. & G.N. it was East Anglia almost all the way; the guard, the signalmen, the driver and the porter not only spoke the same tongue but were quite likely to be related by blood and marriage. When the railway broke into the countryside in the nineteenth century, families that had worked on the land time out of mind went "on the line" and there, with East Angolan conservatism they stayed so that there has been ever since a kind of feudal continuity of service. Whatever the fate of the railway, it is true to say that within its limitations - among them the elderly locomotives and an overdose of single track - it gave good service to East Anglia and in return East Anglia served it well.

Nice.

Sam