Place Berney Arms Station code BYA DfT category F2 Number of platforms 1 Original company Eastern Counties Railway | Grid reference TG460053 Managed by Abellio Greater Anglia 2011/12 1,436 | |
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Address Great Yarmouth NR30 1SB, United Kingdom Similar Buckenham railway station, Great Yarmouth railway st, Brundall Gardens railway st, Somerleyton railway station, Cantley railway station | ||
Berney Arms railway station is on the Wherry Lines in the east of England, serving the remote settlement of Berney Arms on the Halvergate Marshes in Norfolk. It is 15 miles 71 chains (25.6 km) down-line from Norwich and is on a loop between Reedham and Great Yarmouth. It is managed by Abellio Greater Anglia, which also operates all trains serving the station. The limited number of services timetabled to stop do so on request only.
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Berney Arms is one of the most remote and least-used stations in the country. It is several miles from the nearest road and thus is accessible only by train, on foot, or by boat, as it is a relatively short walk from the River Yare, where private boats can moor. It was adopted in 2010 as part of the Station Adoption Scheme.
History
The Bill for the Yarmouth & Norwich Railway (Y&NR) received Royal Assent on 18 June 1842. Work started on the line in April 1843 and it and its stations were opened on 1 May 1844. Berney Arms opened with the line and is situated east of Reedham and west of Great Yarmouth (originally Yarmouth Vauxhall). The Y&NR was the first public railway line in Norfolk. A local landowner, Thomas Trench Berney, sold the land on the marshes to the railway company on the condition that Berney Arms station be built. A few years later, the railway stopped serving it, saying that there had been no agreement for trains to actually call at the station that they agreed to build. However, after lengthy legal proceedings, it was agreed to serve the station in perpetuity.
The Y&NR was the first public railway line in Norfolk. On 30 June 1845 a Bill authorising the amalgamation of the Y&NR with the Norwich & Brandon Railway came into effect and Berney Arms station became a Norfolk Railway asset.
The Eastern Counties Railway (ECR) and its rival the Eastern Union Railway (EUR) were both sizing up the NR to acquire and expand their networks. The ECR trumped the EUR by taking over the NR, including Berney Arms, effective 8 May 1848.
By the 1860s the railways in East Anglia were in financial trouble, and most were leased to the ECR, which wished to amalgamate formally but could not obtain government agreement for this until an Act of Parliament on 7 August 1862, when the Great Eastern Railway (GER) was formed by the consolidation. Actually, Berney Arms had become a GER station on 1 July 1862 when the GER took over the ECR and the EUR before the Bill received its Royal Assent.
The system settled down for the next six decades, apart from the disruption of World War I. The difficult economic circumstances that existed after the war led the government to pass the Railways Act 1921 which led to the creation of the so-called "Big Four" companies. The GER was absorbed into the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER). Berney Arms became an LNER station on 1 January 1923.
A generation later, in 1947, the government of the day passed the Transport Act which nationalised the rail companies and created British Railways (BR). On 1 January 1948 Berney Arms became a BR station.
The post office at Berney Arms Station, which had opened in 1898, was closed in 1967.
Following privatisation of the railways, Railtrack became responsible for infrastructure maintenance in 1994. Following Railtrack's financial problems, Network Rail took over operation of the infrastructure in 2002.
The operation of the line was privatised in 1997 when the franchise was awarded to Anglia Railways, which operated it until 2004, when National Express East Anglia won the replacement franchise, operating under the brand name 'one' until 2008. In 2012 Abellio Greater Anglia took over operating the franchise.
The former Berney Arms signal box is preserved at Mangapps Railway Museum in Burnham-on-Crouch, Essex.
Locality
The station is located around 600 metres (0.37 mi) from the River Yare in an area of exposed grazing marsh. The surrounding marshland is managed as the RSPB Berney Marshes reserve and is adjacent to Breydon Water, a major site for wildfowl. Berney Arms Windmill, owned by English Heritage, is located on the Yare near to the station, as is the Berney Arms public house, which has stood disused and vandalised since late 2015.
The Weavers' Way and Wherryman's Way long-distance footpaths both pass near the station.
Services
The line is on part of the Wherry Lines currently operated by Abellio Greater Anglia. Services are typically formed by Class 153, Class 156 or Class 170 diesel multiple units.
As of December 2015 the station is a request stop for two trains per day to Norwich and two to Great Yarmouth on each day apart from on Sundays, when the service is increased to four trains in each direction. Service frequencies generally increase slightly during the summer period, to three trains in each direction per day and five in each direction at the weekend.