NEW APRIL 2016.  A copy of the 40-page 1898 Act authorising the South Norfolk Light Railway. This standard-gauge line, never built, was to start from a siding with the GER Cambridge line at Trowse. Seventeen miles five furlongs and nine chains later it would again meet up with the GER system at Beccles.

In between it was to pass through Arminghall, Poringland (where it might be suspected to be the origin of the strangely-named Railway Inn there, but apparently that dates right back to anticipation of an earlier abortive line, this time one to Bungay and Halesworth, proposed in the 'railway mania' of the 1840s), Brooke, Seething, Loddon and Gillingham.

There is no accompanying plan unfortunately, but the proposed route is described in great detail extending over nearly two pages. For example it goes "...thence in a south-easterly direction to a point in the public road leading from Norwich to Bungay at a distance of 100 yards or thereabouts measured in a south-easterly direction from the south corner of the Dove Inn..." and so on.

The directors of the new line are all named. It seems they had very high ambitions. In October 1899 our own summaries of the GER Board Minutes reveal that they were even planning an "extension ... to Lowestoft, from Stockton via Aldeby, Burgh St. Peter, Oulton to North Lowestoft ...and the erection of a new Pier and Harbour...; SNLRyC seek GERy support in application to the Light Railway Commissioners, GERy decide to oppose scheme."

The SNLR directors soon found themselves unable to raise the cash for just the basic approved scheme, let alone for these grandiose extras. According to the GER Board summaries, in October 1900 they now "suggested that GERy should work the line @ 55% of gross receipts less 10% on GERy's portion of through traffic, and that the line should be constructed by GERy with a Treasury grant as with the Kelvedon & Tollesbury line." The GER was less than enthusiastic, but conceded that "it might be worth building the line from Norwich to Loddon only, as a feeder, and to keep other Companies out of the district."

No Treasury grant was forthcoming, however, so the scheme was allowed to lapse. Instead the GER laid claim to the area by opening its bus garage at Loddon.

Then surprisingly the project raised its head again. As late as 30 July 1912 the GER Board reported that "Mr. G. Noble Fell, engineer, has asked if GERy would co-operate in reviving the scheme; GERy officials consider that the bus services suffice for the passenger traffic and doubt if extra goods traffic would justify the expenditure in the line; Board consider the scheme undesirable, GM to tell Mr. Fell so."

This file is word-searchable. As well as the full text of the Act itself, it contains an extract from a contemporary OS map which shows the Beccles field the line was due to finish in. It will be available to download as soon as payment has been made. You go to your account and click on ‘Downloads’. New customers create an account as they place their order.