© Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans
George Bidder (1806–1868).
It would be difficult to conceive of a more violent collision … yet it is said that two gentlemen in the last carriage of one of the trains, finding it at a sudden standstill close to the place to which they were going, supposed it had stopped for some unimportant cause and concluded to take advantage of a happy chance which left them almost at the doors of their homes. They accordingly got out and hurried away in the rain, learning only the next morning of the catastrophe in which they had been unconscious participants.
The Great Eastern main line from Yarmouth heads to Reedham, distinguished by one of four swing bridges in the area. This bridge across the River Yare, and the one at Somerleyton – on the branch line that connects Reedham with Lowestoft – spanning the River Waveney were financed by Sir Samuel Morton Peto, entrepreneur and engineering enthusiast.
Both bridges are made from a stout collection of wrought iron, brick, cast steel and timber. When it is in place for trains, the bridge ends rest on piers by the river banks. If it is open for river traffic then the bridge pivots on a central pier using cast steel wheels with a diameter of 16 inches. The load of the open bridge is shouldered by two truss girders.
Even today the bridges are an object of wonder. The man who built the bridges, George Bidder, was equally remarkable. The son of a Devon stonemason, his natural ability with maths manifested itself before he could read or write and his father had him perform in shows around the country for money, under the title of ‘a calculating boy’. Fortunately, his potential was spotted by two benefactors, who ultimately paid for his education. In adulthood he teamed up with the great Robert Stephenson to work on major railway projects at home and abroad. Perhaps his proudest achievement was to build London’s Victoria docks.
© Alan Reed/Alamy
The Reedham railway swing bridge crossing the River Yare.
The man who financed the swing bridges has a story that perhaps even exceeds that of Bidder. Sir Samuel Morton Peto was born in Woking, Surrey, to a tenant farmer. After two years at boarding school he was made an apprentice to his builder uncle, Henry Peto. In 1830 he took over the business with his cousin Thomas Grissell, and together they changed the landscape of London by building the Houses of Parliament, Trafalgar Square and Nelson’s Column, among other landmarks. The business then became involved in building railways.
After he bought Somerleyton Hall in 1844, Peto invested heavily in the area, fashioning Lowestoft into a thriving port and town. He built the railway line to it from Reedham, which opened in 1847 after some two years in construction.
© Tom Mackie/Alamy
Somerleyton Hall, the home of Samuel Peto.
However, his partner Grissell was becoming nervous about what he perceived as reckless risks taken by Peto in pursuit of railway contracts. The partnership was dissolved and Peto began business anew with his brother-in-law Edward Betts in 1846. They also worked with engineer Thomas Brassey, a millionaire railway builder and civil engineer credited with an enormous number of projects. Previously Brassey had worked with George Stephenson and his acolyte Joseph Locke, and by the time he died Brassey had built a sixth of the railways in Britain and half of those in France.
The trio of Peto, Betts and Brassey built numerous railways at home and abroad. Peto earned the gratitude of Prince Albert by ensuring there were suitable rail links to the Great Exhibition at Crystal Palace in 1851. However, one of the most significant contributions Peto – with Betts and Brassey – made to history was to build a rail link in the Crimea, where Britain was at war with Russia.
© Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division
The inauguration of the Great Industrial Exhibition of 1851.
© Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans
British navvies commence work on the construction of a railway line between Balaclava and Sebastopol in the Crimea in 1855.
In a conflict ignited by Russian occupation of Turkish territories, British hopes of a swift victory were confounded by climate and disease. However, Britain and her allies got back on the front foot with the first strategic use of railways, built and paid for by Peto. A railway line to ferry men and supplies to the front line was in operation by 1855. Five months later the British target, Sebastopol, had fallen.
That same year Peto was given a baronetcy, and for 20 years he was an MP. But in 1866 his riskier ventures caught up with him as the frenzied speculation in railway building known as ‘railway mania’ reached its third crescendo and brought down a bank, Overend, Gurney & Company, to which Peto was deeply committed. With the bank entering liquidation in 1866 owing about £11 million, he was declared bankrupt. Peto moved to Budapest, hoping to spark railway building there, but he met with no success. He moved back to Britain but died in obscurity in 1889.
Peto had shouldered a lot of the small East Anglian lines into existence. In 1862 many of the small, east coast companies, including the Norfolk Railway, Eastern Union Railway, East Norfolk Railway, Newmarket & Chesterford Railway, Harwich Railway and the East Suffolk Railway, were mopped up by the Great Eastern Railway, along with the more major Eastern Counties Railway. Although they were now officially all one company, it took years for the competitive habit between lines to fall by the wayside.
The branch line to Lowestoft was not the only one to extend from the railway that linked Great Yarmouth to Ipswich. As Lowestoft’s fortunes increased, so Southwold further down the coast became the poorer. A lack of railway line was clearly a factor in any future prosperity the town might enjoy, so local people clubbed together to buy shares in the Southwold Railway Company that would join the main line at Halesworth.
After protracted negotiations, a 3-foot gauge was chosen for the route, which had a single track that ran for nearly nine miles. It opened on 24 September 1879. The locomotives that used the line were limited to a speed of 16 mph and before long it was quicker to cycle there than take the train. Coupled with a reputation for unreliability and a laissez-faire attitude among station staff, the line became something of a laughing stock and the subject of jokey postcards.
But there was plenty to recommend Southwold, including an attractive North Sea coastline and its proximity to Dunwich, the medieval city that was reclaimed by the sea after a series of violent storms. Victorian curiosity was piqued about the city, which by all accounts at one time had 52 churches, city walls, a Royal palace and a mint. In 1900 the railway carried 10,000 passengers, 90,000 tons of minerals and 600 tons of merchandise. It finally closed in 1929 in the face of fierce competition from buses.
Another branch line further south at Ipswich led to Felixstowe, today the nation’s biggest commercial port, which had its fate and fortunes defined by one man.
George Tomline was an enormously wealthy MP who made his home at nearby Orwell Park, named for the River Orwell, in Suffolk. After rebuilding the house he furnished it with fine art, an extensive library and even an observatory. He was known as ‘Colonel Tomline’ but the title was the result of a loose association with a regiment rather than distinguished military service.
Tomline conceived the plan for a railway line that would leave the main Great Eastern Railway at Westerfield and would