Does anyone know the name of a railway that would be going through/near Hadleigh in 1851 with the initials E U?
To simplify a somewhat complex situation -
The first railway to head from London into East Anglia was the 1836 Eastern Counties Railway (ECR) which planned a line from London to Norwich and Yarmouth via Ipswich. Unfortunately, by 1843 it had only reached Colchester but had run out of money. In a second attempt to achieve its objectives, the ECR proposed to extend its line to Thetford. This would have run via Hadleigh and Bury St Edmunds, with a branch to Ipswich from Hadleigh.
The business community in Ipswich was none to keen on their town being served by a mere branch line and came up with their own scheme for a Eastern Union Railway (EUR) running from Colchester to Ipswich (which opened in 1847) with a later extension on to Norwich. This left Hadleigh unserved by rail, so the idea of a branch line to the town was put forward. This became the ponderously named Eastern Union & Hadleigh Junction Railway, following the great British railway tradition that the shorter the line, the longer the name. The branch also opened in 1847, but not before it had been taken over by the EUR.
In 1862 most of the railway companies operating in East Anglia merged to become the Great Eastern Railway.
The Hadleigh branch, as it became known, closed to passengers in 1932, the victim of more convenient direct bus services to both Ipswich and Colchester. Freight services lasted until 1965. I have recently been tracing the remains of the line; my photographs will shortly appear at:
http://ronstruttsrailwaypics.fotopic.net
