History
The Great Eastern Main Line between London and Ipswich was completed by 1843 and was extended to Ipswich in 1846.
The first short section of the Sunshine Coast Line was built by the Colchester, Stour Valley, Sudbury and Halstead Railway to the port of Hythe opened for goods on 31 March 1847. In 1859 the Tendring Hundred Railway Company was formed to extend the line from Hythe to Wivenhoe which opened on 8 May 1863 for both passenger and goods services from Colchester. By the time the Wivenhoe extension open the line was operated by the GER Great Eastern Railway.
The line was then extended to Weeley on 8 January 1866, to Kirby Cross on 28 July 1866, and on to its terminus at Walton-on-the-Naze on 17 May 1867. In the meantime, a short branch to a new, more central station at Colchester St Botolphs opened on 1 March 1866. This station was renamed Colchester Town on 8 July 1991.
A second company, the Wivenhoe & Brightlingsea Railway, had been incorporated in 1861 to build a line from Wivenhoe to Brightlingsea which opened on 17 April 1866. There were also proposals to build a line to Clacton as early as 1866, but nothing came of them until 1877, when the Clacton-on-Sea Railway was incorporated. The connection from Thorpe-le-Soken to Clacton opened on 4 July 1882, also operated by the GER.
The GER soon negotiated to buy both the Tendring Hundred Railway and the Clacton-on-Sea Railway, and both became part of the GER on 1 July 1883. The Wivenhoe & Brightlingsea was absorbed by the GER on 9 June 1893.
A section of the line between Frinton-on-Sea and Walton-on-the-Naze had to be re-sited in 1929 due to fears of coastal erosion on the original alignment.
Electrification of the line commenced in the 1950s and by January 1959 the line was electrified as far as Great Bentley. The first trial train to run on the newly electrified section departed Colchester on 18 January 1959 and terminated at Great Bentley. The line was the first to be electrified at 25 kV AC, using overhead wires, with electrified services inaugurated on 13 April 1959.
Passenger services have been operated by two different franchises since privatisation in 1997, First Great Eastern ran the services until 31 March 2004 when the National Express Group took over the franchise, with the company branded one Railway until February 2008, at which time it was rebranded to National Express East Anglia.
When First Great Eastern won the franchise in 1997, they overhauled the timetables and increased the number of trains that run non-stop between Thorpe-le-Soken and Wivenhoe which resulted in a reduced level of service at various intermediate stations on the line such as Great Bentley and Alresford. The current operator, Greater Anglia, has maintained this policy and the current timetable sees trains running fast from Thorpe-le-Soken to Wivenhoe and vice-versa without calling at the village stations.
Read more about this topic: Tendring Hundred Railway
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