The Lowestoft Central Project, together with the Wherry Lines Community Rail Partnership have completed another major milestone in their scheme to create a heritage quarter at Lowestoft station, which will focus on the former transportation of fish and aggregates.
Last week rail industry contractor Land Recovery Rail Ltd gifted a significant quantity of ballast which was delivered to the site by Holcim UK Ltd and was used to infill an area of railway sleepers located around former railway crossing gates being used as a 60ft backdrop to the area.
The project commenced a few years ago with the conversion of the former loading area south of the station into short stay drop off / pick up car parking for rail users followed by delivery of the former Chapel Rd Lingwood level crossing gates gifted by Network Rail and installed by a volunteer team from Balfour Beatty Rail. A volunteer team from Great British Railways helped with landscaping and installing sleepers in 2024, followed by restoration of the gates by engineers from property services company Bell, last Summer.
Recent efforts had been hampered by unauthorised dumping of business waste in the area, however, following a muti-agency response between the Wherry Lines CRP, East Suffolk Council and Greater Anglia in tackling the issue, the gifted ballast could be delivered and spread (the majority by hand) to fill the area around the gates which was completed after much physical effort by project volunteers.
Community Rail development officer Martin Halliday said; “We are hugely grateful to Land Recovery Rail and Holcim Ltd for the donation and delivery of several tonnes of railway ballast, and to the parties involved in tackling the problem of unauthorised business waste which was not only unsightly but becoming a major barrier to the projects progress.”
The next stage will be to install an historic semaphore signal behind the area before interpretation panels are added, telling the story of the former rail link from the station to the harbour which conveyed millions of tonnes of aggregates and fish for over 100 years, until road haulage took over in the 1970s.
In recent years, aggregates imported through the Port of Lowestoft have again been transported by rail, following the installation of new freight sidings at Lowestoft.
