Introduction
Brandon Station today is very different from how it looked to travellers departing or arriving even forty or fifty years ago. It was on 7 March 1967 that the station staff, apart from a single signalman, were withdrawn from this historic 1845 station. Since then the building has been rented out to various tenants and over the years became dilapidated and unwelcoming.
Since 2005 it has been empty, but nevertheless its prospects, as well as its appearance, are brighter now than they have been for a long time.
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Brandon Station - Down Line
to Norwich.
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Behind the boarded-up windows of the station buildings can be found the old booking hall and waiting room but this is no comfort to passengers who have to use the decrepit shelters with broken windows. (A new shelter was installed on the Norwich platform in 2007 but those on the Cambridge platform are still open to the elements). All this may be about to change if the Friends of Brandon Station achieve their aim of regenerating the station.
Launched at a meeting in the Flowerpot centre on 11 January 2006, the Friends set themselves the goal of turning the station back to something Brandon can be proud of. Stations in other places have been rescued, such as Halesworth in East Suffolk, and Wymondham station up the line to Norwich, which has won heritage awards for its oustanding restoration.
The Friends made a start by joining both ACorP, the Association of Community Rail Partnerships, and the Station Adoption scheme operated by National Express East Anglia, whose trains stop at Brandon. This involves keeping an eye on the station, finding ways of smartening it up and informing the company of any vandalism or other problems. Someone visits the station every day, and new incidents are reported as soon as they occur. But to go from reporting incidents to smartening up the station with, for example, planters and hanging baskets, the security of the station needs to be looked at, and the recent installation of CCTV is a first step. Deciding who will pay for this, though, is not a simple matter.
For all projects to move forward the problem is to get agreement among the large number of bodies who have a stake in the station. In British Rail days it was simple. Now there are Network Rail who actually own the building, National Express East Anglia who run the trains which stop there and lease the platforms and part of the car park from Network Rail, and four local authorities with various degrees of involvement. The station is actually in Norfolk - in the parish of Weeting. The county boundary passes behind the access road to the Cambridge platform, and then snakes across the level crossing - which means the signalbox is in Suffolk! Thus, two county councils, two district councils (Forest Heath and Breckland), plus Brandon Town Council and Weeting Parish Council, have an interest in what happens.
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The Main Station Building
at Brandon Station.
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The longterm goal is to raise funds to restore the building and have it available for a variety of uses: passenger facilities (Wymondham and Attleborough stations have recently re-introduced booking offices), small businesses such as a refreshment room, shops and offices, and a space available for hire for community events. But whatever happens to the building, Brandon is still a working station which is there to be used.
The Friends are helping to raise awareness of when the trains run and how much it costs to travel to Cambridge or Norwich. Timetables are put in local shops and on a notice board advertising the railway on Market Hill. After several years of one train every two hours to Cambridge and Norwich, May 2007 saw a doubling of the service to hourly. There are 17 trains to Cambridge and 18 to Norwich on weekdays, starting at 6.13 to Cambridge and 6.49 to Norwich. (See the link to the timetable.) All Cambridge trains stop at Ely, one of the best-connected stations in our area, perhaps in the country.
From Ely you can get direct trains to London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Stansted Airport, and many other places.
From Norwich you can change for the Norfolk coast, with trains to Yarmouth, Lowestoft, Cromer and Sheringham. At Wymondham there is a 15-minute walk to the Mid-Norfolk Railway station to catch a train for Dereham, and at Sheringham you can cross the road to catch a train to Holt on the North Norfolk Railway, the Poppy Line.
Station History
Brandon was the point where the first railway route from London to Norwich was completed. The line was built by two different companies, the Eastern Counties Railway from the Cambridge direction and the Norwich and Brandon Railway (which joined with the Norwich and Yarmouth to form the Norfolk Railway) from Norwich. They joined up in 1845, and the first London to Norwich trains ran on 30 July of that year.
Until 1849, when the line through Ipswich and Colchester opened, this was the only route from London to Norwich. The main station buildings are constructed with fine flint work in the great Brandon tradition. There were many more buildings which have disappeared, including the original goods shed (the foundations can be seen on the down side near the footbridge), a range of buildings on the Cambridge platform, including a W.H.Smith bookstall, and a locomotive shed which was still standing in the early 20th century.