Closures Begin

The first casualty in the 1960s was the passenger service between Long Melford and Bury St Edmunds, after becoming much reduced in frequency, it was finally closed to passengers on the 10th April 1961.

The Colne Valley Line was the next to be hit, the passenger service was withdrawn from this line from the 1st January 1962.
Freight continued to run along these two lines - between Bury and Lavenham and Chappel and Yeldham - during this period.
On 25th June 1962 Sturmer station lost its Freight Facilities.

28th January 1963 saw another major change for passengers, all stations on the line apart from Sudbury and Haverhill North became unstaffed halts, with the guard on the train collecting the fares from passengers.

March 1963 and British Railways' new chairman Dr Beeching who believed that the railway should be run like a business and not a public service, published his report- The Re-Shaping of British Railways.
This was a controversial report which suggested a massive closure programme of branch lines and cross country routes, with a total of 6,000 miles of railway to be closed.

The government accepted this report and claimed that running buses in place of trains would be more cost effective, however in reality these were unpopular as they took a lot longer than the rail service did.
It had been two years since any closure locally but on the 13th July 1964 freight facilities were withdrawn from Chappel and Wakes Colne and Welnetham stations.

The line via Saffron Walden from Audley End to Bartlow was closed to passengers on 7th September 1964, and closed completely by the end of that year.
The final freight service on what is now the Gainsborough Line ceased on the 28th December 1964, this was a daily freight service which ran between Sudbury and Bures when needed, there was however, still a freight service in the other direction to Cambridge. Also at this point Cavendish, Bartlow, White Colne, and Yeldham lost their freight facilities.

Lost Forever
19th April 1965 saw two line close completely, the freight services were withdrawn from the Colne Valley and Bury Lines, Stoke, Pampisford and Shelford also lost their freight facilities on this day. Bures signal box closely followed and was closed in September of the same year. One freight service now existed on the Stour Valley line, calling at all stations which had freight facilities.

Also in this month the inevitable happened, the British Railways Board applied to withdraw the passenger service on the entire line between Marks Tey and Great Shelford.
After a protracted struggle and over 1000 objections from local residents, permission was given to close the section between Sudbury and Shelford, but refused permission to close the original part of the line between Sudbury and Marks Tey on the account of its commuters and the future growth of Sudbury.

14th August 1966 saw Sudbury and Haverhill stations becoming unstaffed halts (see poster above) and all other stations lost their freight facilities.
The last freight service was then withdrawn from the Stour Valley line on the 31st October 1966 - this was a daily freight which ran from Cambridge to Sudbury and Haverhill.

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