Harwich International Railway Station - History

History

The port and station owe their origins to the Great Eastern Railway which opened them on a new track alignment built over reclaimed land in 1883 and named them after its chairman, C.H. Parkes. The original combined station building and hotel is still in existence although the hotel is now offices and part of the port terminal.

Prior to the station's re-development, and its revised layout, it consisted of two through platforms serving the then double track operation to Harwich Town. This was supplemented by a bay platform at the country end of the main platform which handled the Harwich to Parkeston 'local' service, which in the days of steam generally consisted of a J15 and later N2 or N7 tank engines and up to four coaches. This service was timed to suit shift times both on the quay and in the adjoining offices, the majority of workers being railway employees. The bay also had a loop allowing the running round of the locomotive. The main platform was and still is of sufficient length to accommodate a boat train of 10 or 11 coaches. The up through platform was shorter but this did not prevent it being used by the North Country boat train in the morning, which consisted of 11 or 12 coaches and would overhang the end of the platform considerably, but in those days there was no level crossing at the east end of the station.

The Manningtree to Harwich local service used the last one-third of the main platform using a third central access line, which joined the platform at that point allowing a ticket barrier to be used for that part of the platform exclusively. This arrangement allowed a five- or six-coach train to sit at the western end of that platform without the need for any shifting, whereas a full boat train would have to move temporarily towards the west to allow the local train access.

During the peak years of foot passenger movements through the quay, before the introduction of the roll-on/roll-off ferries and the rationalisation of the ferry services that followed, another station operated at the West end of Parkeston Quay, known as 'Parkeston Quay West'. It consisted of a single platform and was capable of handling a 10- or 11-coach boat train. It serviced the day service to the Hook of Holland and was also used by troop trains during the period when trooping was still a major operation through the port. Its position afforded exactly the same close proximity to the ferry as the main station.

Parkeston Quay was the base port for three troop ships serving the U.K.'s Rhine Army operation in Germany via the Hook of Holland. The vessels employed were Vienna, Empire Parkeston and Empire Wansbeck.

The extensive marshalling yard to the west of the main station provided stabling for the carriage sets which were used on the boat trains and local services, the large numbers of trucks used for servicing Parkeston Quay, and the huge throughput of export and import wagons which were shipped over the train ferry service from Harwich Town. Cargoes were assembled at Parkeston and brought to Harwich for a specific sailing, as there was no long term storage capacity at the ferry terminal. Import wagons were subject to customs clearance at Parkeston and delays could at times be considerable on individual wagons, cargoes having arrived from various Continental origins.

The type of unit passing through the marshalling yard changed towards the end of the century as container or freightliner flats and car flats replaced ferry wagons. The boat trains also declined as passenger trends changed and today there are no dedicated boat trains except for specials servicing cruise vessels.

East of the main station was a locomotive shed, shed code 30F, which was under Stratford's overall control. The shed was home for a mixture of locomotive types to service the mixed nature of the traffic, but by the mid- to late 1950es the number of steam locomotives had declined. Ian Allan's Locoshed Book listed just 24 on 11 May 1957, (9 x B1, 9 x J39, 3 x J15, 1 x J68 and 2 x N7). The numbers of shunting and tank engines had been reduced by the arrival of diesel powered units and DMUs. There were still 33 units allocated overall to the shed in 1959 but by 1967 the facility had been demolished.

The Thompson B1's were well suited to the boat train and fast freight traffics, although much of the motive power for the boat trains was provided by Stratford, including Britannia Pacifics when they became more available after the second large batch of the type had been delivered to the Eastern Region. They were regularly accommodated overnight.

The demolition of the locomotive shed allowed the construction of the new Freightliner terminal on the site, which opened in May 1968. The 'Seafreightliner' service operated two sailings per day to Zeebrugge and one sailing per day to Rotterdam, the latter in a joint service with its Dutch counterparts.