Eastern Union Railway
The Eastern Union Railway was an English railway company, at first built from Colchester to Ipswich; it opened in 1846. It was proposed when the earlier Eastern Counties Railway failed to make its promised line from Colchester to Norwich. The businessman John Chevallier Cobbold and the engineer Peter Bruff were prominent in launching the company. The allied but nominally independent Ipswich and Bury Railway built a line onwards to Bury St Edmunds, also opening in 1846, and soon amalgamated with the EUR.
Norwich was connected to the EUR in 1849 by the EUR building a line on from Haughley to a terminus at Norwich, named Victoria. By this time the Eastern Counties Railway had reached Norwich via Ely by leasing the Norfolk Railway; the ECR was established at Thorpe station. The EUR also had a branch to Hadleigh, and leased a branch to Sudbury.
The EUR suffered by being dependent on the ECR for through traffic from Colchester to London, and the ECR used many predatory methods to the disadvantage of the EUR, and the latter became subject to serious financial difficulties. It leased its line to the ECR in 1854, and the ECR thereby increased its dominance in East Anglia. The EUR remained an independent company, but not operating any railway, until 1862 when it and the ECR were amalgamated with other networks to form the new Great Eastern Railway.
The main line from Colchester to Norwich remains in use today, except that the Victoria station has closed; the route forms the Great Eastern Main Line. The Sudbury branch is also still in use.
Early schemes
The first railway scheme for East Anglia was proposed in 1825 when a scheme known as the Norfolk and Suffolk Rail-Road was being promoted by John Wilks. This venture failed to attract much interest and was widely believed to be a swindle.Also in 1825 a scheme was proposed to link the port of Ipswich with market towns in the hinterland; the route was to link Diss and Eye to Ipswich. This scheme too foundered without much further development.
The first authorised railway through Ipswich was the Eastern Counties Railway, which obtained its authorising act of Parliament, the Eastern Counties Railway Act 1836, on 4 July 1836; it was to be built from London to Yarmouth, a distance of 126 miles. Share capital was £1.2 million. Land acquisition soon proved to be hugely more expensive than had been expected; the first portion of line, from Romford to Mile End, opened on 20 June 1839, but the project ran out of money. It was cut back to open only between London and Colchester, on 29 March 1843; surveying for the onward route as far as Ardleigh, less than 3 miles away, had been completed.
The Eastern Union Railway conceived
had been working as an engineer on the construction of the Eastern Counties Railway. It appears that there was friction between him and the company's chief engineer, John Braithwaite. Braithwaite had designed the Eastern Counties Railway with magnificent, but very costly, viaducts and earthworks. Braithwaite estimated that £800,000 was needed to extend the line from Colchester to Ipswich. Bruff believed that a cheaper scheme was more practicable. Bruff was discharged from the service of the Eastern Counties Railway in 1842, but he maintained contact with John Chevallier Cobbold, a director of that company. Cobbold became the driving force in promoting a new railway to connect Ipswich and Colchester, and at a public meeting in Ipswich on 8 August 1843 Bruff explained his scheme. The line would be called the Eastern Union Railway, and would be much more cheaply built than the Eastern Counties Railway's proposed line. With the impetus of Cobbold's support and Bruff's engineering competence, it was shown to be practicable and affordable to extend to Ipswich.The meeting determined that the scheme was to be supported, and parliamentary authorisation was sought in the 1844 session; the bill received royal assent as the on 19 July 1844. The authorised capital was £200,000. The project was for a single line railway, but earthworks for a double line were constructed, anticipating the route becoming a trunk line in due course. Joseph Locke agreed to be the engineer for the works, and Bruff became the resident engineer. The Eastern Counties Railway had already purchased some land for their line, between Colchester and Ardleigh; moreover they had not relinquished their powers to make a railway, and now made difficulties for the EUR in following the same route.
Opening
Construction of the line commenced on 1 October 1844 near Bentley; plant and materials had already been landed at Cattawade on the River Stour. The main contractor was Thomas Brassey who sub-let parcels of work to sub-contractors.On 11 December 1844 the board resolved to lay double track; this would incur an additional £50,000 of expenditure, and this was authorised by act of Parliament, the on 21 July 1845. The Eastern Counties Railway had resumed construction north of Colchester, in an attempt to resurrect their Harwich branch, already rejected by Parliament. It was being laid in defiance of the alignment defined in the act and had excessive gradients. The EUR petitioned to adopt the works and build the line themselves to their own specification, but the matter went to arbitration, and was resolved only by the EUR purchasing and completing the works, at a heavy cost.
By May 1845 the earthworks were complete between Ipswich and Ardleigh, and the timber viaducts across the Stour were completed in December, although the embankments each side were not completed until May 1846. The directors were then able to traverse the line by special train on 2 May 1846. It ran from Ipswich to Colchester, taking an hour and a half to complete the journey.
Revenue earning goods services commenced on 1 June 1846; on 4 June Major General Pasley visited the line to carry out the Board of Trade inspection; approval was required to start passenger operation. Pasley was satisfied and a ceremonial opening took place on 11 June 1846: a train departed from Ipswich for Colchester, where it picked up a number of notaries, including George Hudson, chairman of the ECR, and Joseph Locke. On return to Ipswich lavish celebrations took place for all involved in the railway and in the evening a balloon ascent over the town was made by a famous balloonist, Charles Green.
The line opened for public passenger service on 15 June 1846 from an end-on junction with the ECR at its Colchester station to a terminus at Ipswich, a distance of 17 miles; there were three intermediate stations, Ardleigh, Manningtree and Bentley. It was the first railway to reach Ipswich.
Ipswich and Bury Railway
From the earliest days, the EUR had intended to extend beyond Ipswich, to Bury and to Norwich. This was opposed by the ECR, which planned to be the sole connection to Norwich when their line from Ely was completed. A number of other competing schemes went to the 1845 session of Parliament, and key among these was the EUR's Bury extension railway. This was promoted as a nominally independent company, the Ipswich and Bury Railway Company. This was incorporated on 21 July 1845 with share capital of £400,000 to build from Ipswich to Bury St Edmunds. The proposed line was 26 miles long, following the Gipping Valley. Once again Thomas Brassey was given the contract for construction; an elaborate ground breaking ceremony took place on 1 August 1845.The EUR Ipswich station was a terminus, at the corner of Wherstead Road and Croft Road, and was unsuitable for continuing northwards. The new line diverged from the earlier route at Halifax Junction, a little to the south of the station. The planned line was to pass through a tunnel under Stoke Hill.
The tunnel was to be 361 yards in length; it was Bruff's first tunnel, and it proved very difficult to build, particularly due to ground water, and at one stage Bruff considered abandoning the tunnel, but it was completed in September 1846 and on 19 September 1846 a celebratory dinner was held in the tunnel.
A further challenge for construction was in the Stowmarket area, where there was marshy ground; indeed the bog was ascertained to be 80 feet deep. The EUR employed George Stephenson's method for building across the Chat Moss bog, and a raft of brushwood and faggots was used to give the embankment a firm footing. The River Gipping was also diverted to aid the project.
On 26 November 1846 the first test train ran to Bury St Edmunds with stops at most stations on the route. The Bury station had not been completed, so a temporary station on the Ipswich side of an uncompleted road bridge was used. An elaborate celebratory meal was given. Goods operation on the line started on 30 November 1846, and a formal opening followed on 7 December 1846, when a special train ran from Shoreditch to Bury. The Board of Trade inspection took place on 15 December 1846 and the line opened for traffic on 24 December. The permanent station at Bury opened in mid-November 1847, after a bridge over the main road had been finished, enabling the short extension.
The EUR Ipswich station was a terminus on a short spur, by-passed by the Ipswich and Bury Railway main line, so trains to and from Bury St Edmunds reversed from that station to the point of junction. It was not until 1860 that the through station was provided.
Extending to Norwich, and amalgamation
Norwich was now the objective sought by many railway interests. At this time the Railway Mania was at its height, and several schemes to reach Norwich were deposited for the 1846 session of Parliament, including projects in which the Eastern Counties Railway had an interest. The Ipswich and Bury Railway promoted a line from a triangular junction north of Stowmarket to Norwich by way of Diss, and it was this that gained royal assent on 27 July 1846 as the Ipswich and Bury Railway Act 1846. A branch from Bentley to Hadleigh was also authorised.The was authorised to take additional capital of £550,000, and the Ipswich and Bury Railway Act 1846 permitted amalgamation with the Eastern Union Railway. Shareholders' meetings of both companies were held on 8 December 1846, and the amalgamation was approved, to take practical effect on 1 January 1847. The combined company would be called the Eastern Union Railway. The authorised capital of the was £1,266,666 and that of the EUR was £400,000. However most of the capital had not yet been subscribed, so a complex capital structure in the new company had to be formulated. The arrangements were ratified by the Eastern Union Railway Act 1847 of 9 July 1847, and, after considerable delay, by the railway commissioners in February 1848.
The Railway Mania had expired suddenly, and in the slump that followed money was extremely difficult to come by, so that construction to Norwich was slow, not beginning until 1848.