Great Yarmouth railway station, formerly known as Yarmouth Vauxhall railway station, is in Great Yarmouth in the English county of Norfolk. The station is one of the termini of the Wherry Lines 18 1⁄4 miles (29.4 km) from Norwich. There are two routes to Norwich, one via Acle and Lingwood and the other via Reedham, Berney Arms and Cantley. The two routes join up at Brundall railway station where they continue to Norwich.
The station is served by Abellio Greater Anglia who operate an hourly service to Norwich each day of the week, with the service becoming half hourly during peak periods. As of May 2011 there are frequent weekend Saturday services to/from London Liverpool Street to cater for tourists heading to the town. Most services travel via the Acle branch with only a few services operating via the remote village of Berney Arms and Reedham.
Facilities on offer at the station include a ticket office, a small newsagents and coffee kiosk, a burger van, public telephones, waiting room, toilets (disabled), bicycle and taxi ranks, bus stop and a taxi office.
The station was opened by the Yarmouth and Norwich Railway (Y&NR) on 1 May 1844, and was originally named Yarmouth Vauxhall. The Y&NR line to Norwich through Reedham was one of the first railways in the county to open. The Y&NR was later absorbed by the Great Eastern Railway, which amalgamated with several other railways on 1 January 1923 to form the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER). On 1 January 1948, the LNER itself amalgamated with other railways to create British Railways (BR). The station name was simplified to Yarmouth by BR at some point between 1953 and 1962. The station was extensively damaged in World War II and was rebuilt in 1960.
Before rail closures of the 1950s and the later Beeching Axe the station was the largest of three major railway stations in the town. Yarmouth Beach station was located on Nelson Road and was owned by M&GN who ran services up the Norfolk coast to Melton Constable and Peterborough. It was closed in 1959 and is now a coach station although plans exist to turn the area into offices. Yarmouth South Town railway station was owned by the Great Eastern Railway but operated as the a Norfolk and Suffolk Joint Railway and ran services through Gorleston and Lowestoft to join with the current East Suffolk Line for a mainline service to London. It was closed in 1970.
Yarmouth Vauxhall, named Great Yarmouth since 16 May 1989, is the only station to remain open. There used to be large sidings and an engine shed before they were demolished to make way for the new Asda superstore and bypass.
With the closure of Yarmouth Beach station in early 1959, Vauxhall became the focus of the summer Saturday traffic for Great Yarmouth. The station had always had a number of summer Saturday trains up to this point but this hike in numbers had led to some re-modelling of the station layout - platform lengthening and changes to carriage stabling - in order to cope with the additional traffic.
A typical summer Saturday saw an additional 24 timetabled passenger trains from locations including York, Derby, Sheffield, Manchester, Leicester and Sunderland. In addition on 25 July 1959 there were an extra eight holiday relief workings that ran. Some local workings were cancelled to cope with this influx of trains, but it indicates the significant numbers of UK holiday makers still travelling by train and still holidaying in Great Yarmouth at this time.
Details of the train service between Great Yarmouth and Norwich via the Acle or Berney Arms routes can be found on table 15 of the Great Britain Public Timetable.
Generally there is one train each hour although there is a slight improvement in frequency during the morning and evening peaks. Most trains run via Acle although there are still a number that run via Berney Arms.
Sunday services tend to be hourly and up to 1600 every other service runs via Berney Arms.
A number of summer weekend services operate to/from London Liverpool Street.
All services are operated by the Greater Anglia Franchise
A campaign has recently been launched to bring Great Yarmouth Station up-to-date. The "Fix Great Yarmouth Station" campaign has been created to bring one of Norfolk's popular sea-side towns' railway station in the 21st century. Spencer McCormack, of BWell gyms, who has helped to co-ordinate the campaign, which has attracted more than 3,000 pledges of support since it was launched in February, said plans were progressing for a volunteer day on 19 June.
A Facebook group has also been created making it easy to get involved and find out whats happening.
During 2012 Great Yarmouth Community Trust, in partnership with Greater Anglia, provided a welcoming and information service at the station for incoming holidaymakers and tourists. This service was operated as 'Welcome Host' and will continue in 2013. The service was run on a voluntary basis.