Great Eastern Railway

From Railways

The Great Eastern Railway (GER) was formed in 1862 as an amalgamation of the Eastern Counties Railway; and also with several other smaller railways: the Norfolk Railway, the Eastern Union Railway, the Newmarket, the Harwich, the East Anglian Light Railway and the East Suffolk Railway; among others. In 1902 the Northern & Eastern Railway also joined the GER.

Among the principal towns served from its London terminus at London Liverpool Street by the GER were Southend-on-Sea, Chelmsford, Colchester, Ipswich, Lowestoft, Yarmouth, Norwich and Cambridge, besides many of the East Anglian coast seaside resorts. It also served a busy suburban traffic area.

It was grouped with other railways to form the London & North Eastern Railway (LNER) in 1923. The GER had owned over 1200 miles of line.

[edit] Great Eastern Railway Constituent Companies

Tracing the initial components of the GER is complex as they had a mix of relationships. In many cases what were legally independent companies were actually operated by the ECR (with or without the sanction of Parliament). This probably happened more extensively among this group of companies than anywhere else in the UK. Part of this is undoubtedly a result of the machinations of George Hudson attempting to kill (or at least emasculate) the Great Northern Railway of Edmund Denison.

It is also possible to view the 'merger' as actually being a renaming of the ECR and associated takeover of the other companies, certainly it gives a more accurate picture of what happened given the relationships that existed beforehand.

Components at formation

• East Anglian Railways
• Eastern Counties Railway
• Eastern Union Railway
• Norfolk Railway
• Wells and Fakenham Railway

Components added after formation

• Colchester, Stour Valley, Sudbury and Halstead Railway
• Ely & Newmarket Railway
• Ely & St Ives Railway
• Northern and Eastern Railway
• Wivenhoe & Brightlingsea Railway
• Ely and Newmarket Railway