Berney Armsrailway station is on the Wherry Lines in the east of England, serving the remote settlement of Berney Arms on the Halvergate Marshes in Norfolk. It is from and is on a loop between and. It is managed by Greater Anglia, which also operates all trains serving the station. The limited number of services timetabled to stop do so on request only. Berney Arms is one of the most remote and least-used stations in the country. It is several miles from the nearest road and thus is accessible only by train, on foot, or by boat, as it is a relatively short walk from the River Yare, where private boats can moor. It was adopted in 2010 as part of the Station Adoption Scheme.
History
The Bill for the Yarmouth & Norwich Railway received Royal Assent on 18 June 1842. Work started on the line in April 1843 and it and its stations were opened on 1 May 1844. Berney Arms opened with the line and is situated east of and west of . The Y&NR was the first public railway line in Norfolk. A local landowner, Thomas Trench Berney, sold the land on the marshes to the railway company on the condition that Berney Arms station be built. A few years later, the railway stopped serving it, saying that there had been no agreement for trains to actually call at the station that they agreed to build. However, after lengthy legal proceedings, it was agreed to serve the station in perpetuity. The Y&NR was the first public railway line in Norfolk. On 30 June 1845 a Bill authorising the amalgamation of the Y&NR with the Norwich & Brandon Railway came into effect and Berney Arms station became a Norfolk Railway asset. The Eastern Counties Railway and its rival the Eastern Union Railway were both sizing up the NR to acquire and expand their networks. The ECR trumped the EUR by taking over the NR, including Berney Arms, effective 8 May 1848. By the 1860s the railways in East Anglia were in financial trouble, and most were leased to the ECR, which wished to amalgamate formally but could not obtain government agreement for this until an Act of Parliament on 7 August 1862, when the Great Eastern Railway was formed by the consolidation. Actually, Berney Arms had become a GER station on 1 July 1862 when the GER took over the ECR and the EUR before the Bill received its Royal Assent. The system settled down for the next six decades, apart from the disruption of World War I. The difficult economic circumstances that existed after the war led the government to pass the Railways Act 1921 which led to the creation of the so-called "Big Four" companies. The GER amalgamated with several other companies to form the London and North Eastern Railway. Berney Arms became an LNER station on 1 January 1923. Upon nationalisation in 1948 the station and its services became part of the Eastern Region of British Railways. The post office at Berney Arms Station, which had opened in 1898, was closed in 1967. On privatisation the station and its services were transferred to Anglia Railways, which operated it until 2004, when National Express East Anglia won the replacement franchise, operating under the brand name 'one' until 2008. In 2012 Abellio Greater Anglia took over operating the franchise. The former Berney Arms signal box is preserved at Mangapps Railway Museum in Burnham-on-Crouch, Essex.
Locality
The station is located around from the River Yare in an area of exposed grazing marsh. The surrounding marshland is managed as the RSPB Berney Marshes reserve and is adjacent to Breydon Water, a major site for wildfowl. Berney Arms Windmill, owned by English Heritage, is located on the Yare near to the station, as is the Berney Arms public house. The Weavers' Way and Wherryman's Way long-distance footpaths both pass near the station.
Services
The line is on part of the Wherry Lines currently operated by Greater Anglia. Services are typically formed by Class 755s. As of December 2015 the station is a request stop for two trains per day to Norwich and two to Great Yarmouth; the service is increased on Sundays to four trains in each direction. Service frequencies generally increase slightly during the summer period, to three trains in each direction per day and five in each direction at the weekend. In October 2018 the line between Great Yarmouth and Reedham was closed for a major upgrade of the signalling system, as part of works on all the Wherry Lines. While the line was closed the station remained open, although no replacement service was available due to the remote location. Its reopening was delayed until February 2020, with the station reopening on 24 February 2020.
