Needham Market railway station

Needham Market railway station is on the Great Eastern Main Line (GEML) in the East of England, serving the town of Needham Market, Suffolk. It is 77 miles 7 chains (124.1 km) down the line from London Liverpool Street and is situated between Ipswich to the south and Stowmarket to the north. Its three-letter station code is NMT.

Needham Market
LocationNeedham Market, Mid Suffolk
England
Grid referenceTM091548
Managed byAbellio Greater Anglia
Platforms2
Other information
Station codeNMT
ClassificationDfT category F2
Key dates
1846Opened as Needham
2 January 1967Closed
6 December 1971Reopened as Needham Market
Passengers
2015/16 88,242
2016/17 91,706
2017/18 100,648
2018/19 102,320
2019/20 100,754
Notes
Passenger statistics from the Office of Rail and Road

The station is currently operated by Abellio Greater Anglia, which also runs all trains serving the station. It sees regular services between Ipswich and Stowmarket, whereafter trains branch off to Cambridge via the Ipswich to Ely Line. No main line London trains call.

The station appears in Britain's 100 Best Railway Stations by Sir Simon Jenkins.[1]

History

The station was originally opened with the name Needham by the Ipswich & Bury Railway in 1846. The main building, described as "one of the best in East Anglia" by Biddle, was designed in a grand Jacobean style with decorative brickwork by Frederick Barnes and was completed by the contractor, Daniel Revitt, in 1849. It was later slightly simplified, and the platforms rebuilt, by the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER).

It was closed to passengers by the Eastern Region of British Railways in 1967 but reopened as Needham Market in 1971. The main building, now in alternative use, is a Grade II listed building.[2] It was restored in 2000 by Spacia Ltd, and won an award in the 2002 National Railway Heritage Awards. In April 2015 work commenced to improve the station, including the installation of an anti-slip composite fibreglass platform[3] with in-built water management and snow-melting capabilities. However, this did not include making the London-bound platform wheelchair accessible.[4][5][6]

Services

The following services typically call at Needham Market:

Operator Route Rolling stock Frequency
Abellio Greater Anglia Cambridge - Dullingham - Newmarket - Kennett - Bury St. Edmunds - Thurston - Elmswell - Stowmarket - Needham Market - Ipswich Class 755 1x per hour
Preceding station National Rail Following station
Abellio Greater Anglia
Historical railways
Great Eastern Railway

References
  1. Simon Jenkins (2017) Britain's Hundred Best Railway Stations Penguin Books, ISBN 978-0-241978-98-6
  2. Historic England. "Details from listed building database (1253684)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 5 April 2007.
  3. Dura Composites. Needham Market Case Study. 2015.
  4. http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/stations/nmt/details.html
  5. Biddle, Gordon (2003). Britain's Historic Railway Buildings. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-866247-5.
  6. Sore, Ray (January 1999). "The railway at Needham (Market)". Great Eastern Journal (97): 3–13.

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