page_title: Felixstowe branch line
section_title: British Railways (1948–1997)
hierarchical_section_title: Felixstowe branch line / History / British Railways (1948–1997)
caption_attribution_description: English: Most of Felixstowe railway station was converted into a shopping centre in 1985. The one platform that was retained was cut in half to allow cars to reach the car parking area that was created from the second platform and goods yard. The canopy was retained and the truncated ends finished with the correct valencing.
context_page_description: The Felixstowe branch line is a railway branch line in Suffolk, England, that connects the Great Eastern Main Line to Felixstowe and its port.
  The line is 12 miles 5 chains in length from Westerfield to Felixstowe. The stations and all passenger services are currently operated by Greater Anglia. The passenger services originate at Ipswich but the branch itself starts one station further along at Westerfield. The line also carries freight trains operated by DB Schenker, Freightliner and GB Railfreight, to the port of Felixstowe.
  The line was opened by the Felixstowe Railway & Pier Company in 1877, although the first station in Felixstowe was not in the town but at the company's pier on the River Orwell. The railway was sold to the Great Eastern Railway in 1887. A station near Felixstowe town centre was opened in 1898 and this has been the only station in the town since 1967. Freight traffic has increased significantly since that time, leading to the opening of a second route to the port in 1987.
  As of December 2016 passenger service frequency on the line is typically one train per hour in each direction between Ipswich and Felixstowe.
context_section_description: In 1948 the LNER became the Eastern Region of British Railways. The docks were badly silted after the war and were damaged further by the fatal flood on 1 February 1953. Passenger trains to Felixstowe Pier had been withdrawn completely from 2 July 1951.
  The British Railways Modernisation Plan of 1955 proposed to electrify the branch in connection with similar work on the main line from Liverpool Street to Ipswich, although this failed to be completed north of Colchester at the time. Instead an accelerated diesel-powered service was introduced on 15 June 1959. Orwell station was closed, but the time from Ipswich to Felixstowe Town was reduced from 35 to 24 minutes which allowed a diesel multiple unit to work there and back within an hour. At the end of the year it was reported that the new service had increased the number of passengers carried by 70%. A further change was introduced on 2 November 1959 when daily services were withdrawn between Felixstowe Town and Felixstowe Beach, thereafter they were run only during the summer until the end of the 1967 season when it closed never to reopen. Earlier that year the branch had been converted to "Pay Train" operation, with all fares being collected by the guard so that staff were no longer needed at the stations other than signalmen.
  In 1964 it was reported that freight traffic on the branch included agricultural machinery, bricks, chocolate, coal and coke, custard and jelly, explosives, glassware, grain, motor cars scrap metal, sugar beet, and timber. Public freight facilities had been withdrawn from Westerfield and Trimley on 13 July 1964, and from both stations at Felixstowe on 5 December 1966.  The following year saw the completion of a new container terminal at the docks which was served by Freightliner trains. This helped to contribute to the docks handling 2,019,270 tons in 1969 which was more than nine times the traffic of ten years earlier. On 13 May 1970 a new direct line to Felixstowe Docks was opened. This used the same alignment as in 1877 to 1898 and removed the need of trains to reverse at Felixstowe Town. At the same time the station was reduced to just a single platform and the 1898 line from there towards the docks was closed.
  Freight traffic to Derby Road continued into the 1980s serving a domestic coal depot and a scrap yard. Rail traffic to Cranes finished in mid-1970s and to Ransome, Sims and Jefferies in 1980.
  The station buildings at Felixstowe were converted to shops after the railway stopped using them. They were listed Grade II on 23 December 1980.
  In 1981 the Felixstowe Dock and Railway Company obtained an Act of Parliament to allow it to construct 2,591 metres (1.610 mi) of new railways. The first part to come into use was an extension of the existing dock lines to a new Northern Freightliner Terminal. Work on the remainder started in March 1986. This saw the line extended to Trimley station. When it opened on 16 February 1987 it allowed trains to reach the new terminal without crossing a series of level crossings in the dock area and also the public level crossing at Felixstowe Beach. The line to Trimley involved heavy earthworks and cost £2,000,000 but the company received a 40% grant under Section 8 of the Railways Act 1974 as it would reduce road traffic.
caption: The platform at Felixstowe has been cut short to allow space for car parking.
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