King's Lynn Railway Station - Closures

Closures

At their peak, the railways in and around King's Lynn employed hundreds of people, but Britain's extensive railway cutbacks in the late 1950s and the following decades badly affected King's Lynn's railway services. The 1959 closure of the former M&GN's lines resulted in the closure of South Lynn railway station on 28 February that year, depriving King's Lynn of services to Norwich and Spalding. The dubious safety of a bridge over the Ouse, a very short way north-west of South Lynn station, was allegedly a significant factor in the closure of the whole route, and was demolished later that year. A section of this line about half a mile long was left open for freight into the 1980s, transporting materials like oil and limestone to the sugar beet factory (since closed).

Other services suffered a similar fate in the following years. Passenger services to Hunstanton were discontinued in 1969, services to Wisbech (via Magdalen Road) ended in 1968, and the line to Dereham was closed in the same year, save for a three-mile section for sand freight from King's Lynn to Middleton. The closure of these services left only one passenger route in operation—services to Ely and Cambridge on the Fen Line.

Freight services to King's Lynn were less swiftly, but even more extensively, affected by cutbacks. Campbell's made heavy use of rail transport after opening its factory in Lynn in 1959, its curtain-sided wagons being one of the more distinctive sights on the Fen Line; but with the withdrawal of Speedlink services in the early 1990s, this traffic was lost to road transport. The branch to the harbour was progressively shortened before its final closure at around the same time, and the line to the docks closed as well (except for a short stub allowing the aforementioned freight trains from Middleton to change direction), the last train passing over the line in June 1994. The station's once-extensive goods yard suffered the same fate, the site being taken over by the station's car park and two large shops.