Gainsborough line

The Stour Valley Railway opened on 9 August 1865, linking near Cambridge with in Essex, with 13 intermediate stations along the line. The first section between and Marks Tey was opened as the Colchester, Stour Valley, Sudbury & Halstead Railway on 2 July 1849 and was taken over by the Eastern Counties Railway on 7 August 1862. The section between Shelford and Sudbury was closed on 6 March 1967 following the Beeching cuts, leaving and as the only stops between the termini. In 2005 the line received around £3 million of investment, which saw around of old jointed track replaced with new continuous welded rail. Further investment was made in 2006 to replace around of track, leaving just the Chappel viaduct and Lamarsh to Sudbury sections in need of modernisation. This work was completed in 2007. In 2006 the line was designated as a community railway by the transport minister and is part of the Essex and South Suffolk Community Rail Partnership. The current name of the line commemorates the painter Thomas Gainsborough, who was born in Sudbury; the previous name was the Lovejoy line, after the television series Lovejoy, which was filmed in the Sudbury area. All passenger services on the line are currently operated by Greater Anglia, which runs an hourly service in each direction. The last departure from Sudbury at the end of each day is extended to . ==Notable sight==

The line runs across the Chappel viaduct, which has 30 arches each with a span, with a maximum height of , and was the longest viaduct on the Great Eastern Railway. The East Anglian Railway Museum is located alongside the station at . ==Infrastructure==

The line is single track throughout, has a loading gauge of W6, and a maximum speed of . Unlike other branches in the area, such as the Braintree branch line and Mayflower line to , the Gainsborough line is not electrified. New bi-mode trains started operating on the line in January 2020. Stations The following table summarises the line's four stations, their distance measured from , and estimated number of passenger entries/exits in 2018–19: == Accidents and incidents ==

• On 12 July 1887 one person was killed at when part of a runaway train collided with a crossing gate. • On 27 January 2006 at least four passengers were slightly injured when a train ran into the buffer stop at . The 6:05 pm service from was travelling at a speed at the time of the collision of approximately six miles per hour. An investigation determined that the driver failed to apply the brakes in a "timely and appropriate manner". • On 17 August 2010 the Little Cornard derailment occurred when the 5:31 pm service from Sudbury collided with a lorry that had entered a level crossing without permission. The train driver and four passengers were seriously injured in the accident. ==References==