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I was 12 years old when we moved to King's Lynn in 1972 and we stayed there right through my teens until I left home for University in 1978. I have long thought about spending a little time reviewing the railway history of the town. This first post covers King's Lynn Harbour Branch which left the mainline just before that line entered the town in South Lynn
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The harbour branch left the mainline South of King's Lynn. The docks branch left the mainline close to King's Lynn Station. The post below includes a very short history of the harbour and docks and then covers the length of the branch from the station to John Kennedy Road.
The post covers the area around Bentinck Dock and has some detail about the Savage's Works on the East side of the dock. Savage's were internationally renowned for their steam-powered fairground attractions.
Roger Farnworth Member # 197595
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A few random bits and pieces which relate to the docks railways in King's Lynn ....
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One of the directors of the Docks and Harbour Railways in King's Lynn was William Burkitt, a self-made local business man who had the means to order his own locomotive from Alfred Dodman & Company of Kings Lynn. The loco was named 'Gazelle'. This is the story of that locomotive. It pulls, Colonel Stephens, King's Lynn and the Shropshire and Montgomery Light Railway into one story!
There is a significant length of the Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway, the branch to Hunstanton, the original length of the line from Gaywood towards Bawsey and a number of quarry and other short lines, without even considering the main line towards Ely.
When time permits. ..............
Roger Farnworth Member # 197595
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The Lynn and Fakenham Railway - Part 1. ...
This post results from reading Issue No. 30 of the "Railway Archive" Journal. It contains an article about the locomotives originally purchased for the Cornwall Minerals Railway. That company dramatically over-ordered motive power and when it lease was taken over by the GWR, 50% of its original order were returned to the manufacturer Sharp, Stewart of Manchester.
Eight if these locomotives found their way to the Lynn & Fakenham Railway and eventually onto the books of the Midland & Great Northern Joint Railway.
This first post about the Lynn & Fakenham Railway focusses on these locomotives. ...
quote: Although first mooted in the 1840s, the Lynn & Fakenham Railway was not opened, over its full length, until 1880. It only had a short independent life, being absorbed into the Eastern & Midlands Railway in 1883.
A look at the history of the line and it’s route through the Norfolk countryside is for a future post.
The Lynn & Fakenham Railway is mentioned in an article in the journal “Railway Archive.” Interestingly, that article is about the locomotives which were initially purchased for the Cornwall Minerals Railway.
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