Lowestoft Central

The Port of Lowestoft expanded rapidly to cover an area of 74 acres (30 hectares) in less than a century, which included over 6,000 feet (1,800 metres) of quay dealing in commodities and nearly 4,500 feet (1,400 metres) of quay dealing with fish traffic.[12] This resulted in track and signal alterations between Lowestoft and Coke Ovens Junction in 1885 which were carried out by the Great Eastern Railway,[25] which had taken over the Eastern Counties Railway in 1862.[23] The two single lines from the junction were turned into double track, and an extra (third) platform was added at the station.[26][10] Two new signalboxes were provided: one at Coke Ovens and the other on the north side of Lowestoft station.[26][10] Engine sheds and a turntable were also provided.[10]

The Great Eastern introduced the first direct services to and from London in 1863, with services leaving Bishopsgate railway station at 10.00am and taking 3¼ hours to complete the journey.[27] On 1 June 1872, a new curve between Marsh Junction on the Yarmouth to Beccles Line and Swing Bridge Junction on the Yarmouth side of Haddiscoe High Level railway station enabled direct services between Lowestoft and Yarmouth South Town via St Olaves.[28][27] The 1883 timetable shows eight stopping trains each way between Ipswich, Lowestoft and Yarmouth, with two or three services a day from London.[27] A Mondays only service ran from Liverpool Street with stops at Ipswich, Halesworth and Beccles.[27] The first non-stop express between London and Lowestoft ran in summer 1900 and by 1904 non-stop runs were provided on a regular basis during the summer period.[29][30][31][32][33] The traditional access to London was however by shuttle train connection out of the Yarmouth services at Beccles or by portions split and worked forward from there.[34] Nine or ten passenger services to Norwich operated on weekdays and four on Sundays in 1905, the frequency increasing to 12 each way on weekdays by 1921.[35]

Holiday traffic to Lowestoft prospered,[12] particularly after 13 July 1898 when the Norfolk and Suffolk Joint Committee opened a new line from Yarmouth Beach and Yarmouth South Town via Gorleston-on-Sea, Hopton-on-Sea and Corton to Lowestoft, where a second station serving the town, named Lowestoft North, was opened.[11][36][37][38] The opening of a second station in the town resulted in the main station being renamed Lowestoft Central in 1903.[39][17] The Great Eastern sought to foster the holiday traffic by providing a bus service to Southwold from 18 July 1904 to January 1913 and also one to Oulton Broad.[40][41][42][33] The increased naval activity brought on by the First World War saw the number of passengers using Lowestoft Central via the Norfolk & Suffolk double from a pre-war average of 25,000 per year to a near-record of 54,506 in 1918.[43] The record was reached in 1919 when 63,859 used the station.[44] In Summer 1924, a long-distance restaurant car express ran from Liverpool, Manchester and Sheffield to Lowestoft and Yarmouth, while an all-year round service began operating to and from York with portions for Lowestoft and Yarmouth dividing at Reedham.[35] The journey to York took just over six hours, while Liverpool was reached in seven hours.[35] A restaurant car was added to the York express by the early 1930s and the service remained in the timetable until the mid 1960s, although in its later years a buffet car was used instead.[35] The Holiday Camps Express ran via Lowestoft to serve the holiday camps along the coast from 1934 to 1939 and then after the war until 1958.[45][46] Another express, The Easterling, was introduced in June 1950 to run non-stop between Liverpool Street and Beccles where a portion would be detached for Lowestoft.