British Railways The First 25 Years, Volume 13: East Anglia – Essex and Suffolk
This volume covers the former Great Eastern Railway lines in the southern half of East Anglia, concentrating on Essex and Suffolk, with short incursions over the border into Norfolk and Cambridgeshire to complete the routes. Until the mid-1950s, with the exception of a handful of L&NER-designed classes such as the ‘B17’ 4-6-0s and the arrival of the ‘Britannia’ Pacifics on the main line in 1951, this was still very much a Great Eastern railway. However, it would be completely transformed over the next decade with dieselisation and electrification, the introduction of DMUs and railbuses and the closure of most of the branch lines.
We begin our journey from Romford to Shenfield whose suburban services had been electrified in 1949, branching off to Southend where the trains remained steam operated until the end of 1956. On the way to Colchester, we again leave the main line to explore the branches from Witham to Maldon and Braintree, and from Kelvedon to Tollesbury.
From Colchester with its two stations, we take the important branch to Clacton-on-Sea and Walton-on-the-Naze and the lesser branch to Brightlingsea before resuming the main line to the junction at Manningtree. There we follow another significant branch, to Parkeston Quay and Harwich and then regain the main line to Ipswich. After visiting the shed and docks, we look at the curious geographical layout of the railways around the town, going firstly down the branch to Felixstowe and then continuing on the main line to Beccles where we fork right to Lowestoft and Yarmouth pausing to travel down another, lesser branch but one with an intriguing and continuing story, the line from Saxmundham to Leiston and Aldeburgh.
Next, we go west from Ipswich to Cambridge on the secondary main line via Stowmarket, Bury St. Edmunds and Newmarket. Further south is another west to east route, made up of several connected branch lines starting with the Stour Valley line from Marks Tey near Colchester to Haverhill and then on to Cambridge, stopping at Bartlow to go down the branch to Saffron Walden and Audley End. Finally, from Cambridge we take the Mildenhall branch back into Suffolk.
Pre-nationalisation motive power continued into the early 1950s with ex-GER and L&NER designs predominating, although a few intruders appeared in the shape of the NER ‘G5’ 0-4-4Ts and GNR ‘C12’ 4-4-2Ts. However, the ‘E4’ 2-4-0s, the ‘F4’, ‘F5’ and ‘F6’ 2-4-2Ts and the ‘J15’ 0-6-0s were predominant on the secondary and branch lines until the mid-1950s and ‘B12’, ‘D16’ and ‘B1’ 4-6-0s were the main support for the ‘Britannia’s on the main lines. Railbuses and Lightweight DMUs were introduced in a pre-Beeching attempt to reduce costs on the lightly used branch and secondary services. By the mid-1960s, Brush Type ‘2’ and English Electric Type ‘3’ diesel-electrics and later Class ‘47’s would become almost as ubiquitous as the former Great Eastern and L&NER classes.
Hardback, 208 pages, black & white photographs
ISBN: 9781915069320
Most orders are dispatched within two-three working days of receipt of cleared payment. If there is going to be a significant delay (more than 10 working days), we will contact you and, where possible, give you an estimated dispatch time.
Please be aware that advance orders will be sent as soon as the relevant book has been published.
When placing your order, please ensure that you add the correct full shipping address to your order. This includes house number, street name, zip code/post code. If parcels are returned on account of an incorrect shipping address we will contact you to seek the correct address and also ask that you pay a contribution towards posting the parcel to you a second time. Similarly, if a parcel is returned to us because the local mail service is unable to deliver it (or you do not collect it from the designated collection point), we will contact you and ask you for a contribution towards the cost of shipping to you for a second time.
The journey of a book from our shelves to the reader demands careful handling and the appropriate packaging. We recognise the need to ensure that books arrive at their destination in the same condition that they leave us. Our packaging solutions aim to accommodate books of all shapes and sizes. In a society where so much is thrown away, Rail-Books have a policy of reusing packing materials to pack your order wherever possible. Whilst this may generate a small saving in our packaging costs, the impact to the environment is a much greater saving. We also try to ensure that new packaging, such as boxes, book-wraps and envelopes, is made from recycled materials.
UK
All orders for UK addresses are normally sent via Royal Mail 48 Hour (the business equivalent of 2nd class mail) which is not tracked although Royal Mail do confirm delivery of parcels. Orders of £27.50 and over are sent post free. If you require tracking for your order, tracking & courier options are available for a small fee. The appropriate shipping option can be selected as part of the checkout process. If the service that you require is not shown, please get in touch with us and we can quote for your desired service.
Large, bulky or high value orders may be split in to multiple consignments or sent via courier. There is no additional charge for this and you will be advised at the order fulfillment stage if this happens.
Overseas
Overseas orders are charged based on weight, and postage will be automatically calculated at checkout. For a postage quotation, please add the items you want to your cart and proceed to the checkout. All orders are usually sent via Air Mail - this is not tracked. If you required your order to be tracked or sent by a different service, please contact us, preferably before checkout.
Royal Mail will only accept parcels up to 5kg in weight (2kg for Canada). If you are ordering multiple items that exceed these limits, please contact us first so that we can advise you of the appropriate shipping rate.
Due to the high volume of parcels going missing, we are no longer able to send untracked orders via third party mail handling services such as Parcel Motel. We are able to send untracked parcels to bona fide PO Box addresses, friends and family members and to work addresses.
Some countries charge import taxes and other taxes such as VAT; we suggest that in these cases, you asked for your order to be tracked so the local taxation authorities can trace your parcel.
Please note that courier services are unable to deliver to PO Box addresses. If you usually use a PO Box address, you will need to supply an alternative address if you require shipping by courier.
Our shipping rates are based on sending a 5kg/10kg parcel and will include insurance. We can often secure good rates by the use of booking agents and we will refund any excess paid by you.
Shipping to the European Union
From 1 July 2021, all EU countries will be imposing VAT on all imports. In the UK, books are zero-rated for VAT proposes so there is no VAT to deduct from the prices quoted on our website. All of our orders are usually sent "DDU" (Delivered Duty Unpaid) using a courier service and the shipping prices quoted are on a DDU basis. However, we are now able to offer limited "DDP" (Delivered Duty Paid) services to certain EU destinations. If you would like to purchase books on a DDP basis, please contact us before making your purchase and we will give you a DDP price. (Sometimes we can secure good DDP shipping rates - if this holds true, we will advise you if we are able to pay your taxes and/or whether is any additional payment required).
Therefore all DDU shipments to EU destinations will be held by the relevant customs authority until the customer pays any VAT that is due. We understand that if no payment is received by the relevant customs authority after 30 days, the package will be either returned or destroyed. Rail-Books will not be liable for any loss resulting from the destruction or return of goods where VAT has not been paid.
We recommend that customers in the EU follow the tracking data supplied to them once we dispatch your parcel and once the parcel is showing as arriving in the destination country, make contact with either the postal or customs authorities to pay the appropriate amounts of tax/duty.
Returned Parcels
On rare occasions, parcels will be returned to us. Where this happens we will refund the customer the cost of their order less any expenses incurred by ourselves (e.g. the initial cost of sending the parcel or costs relating to damage incurred in transit). If a customer requests that a parcel be shipped again for a second time, we request the customer to place a repeat order together with shipping costs. Repeat orders to UK customers will not be eligible for free shipping.
Updated: 2 April 2024