The lost Cambridgeshire railway station that was rebuilt in a museum rarely opened to the public

There have been many railway stations in Cambridgeshire that have closed down over the years. Most stopped serving passengers in the 1960s as part of the Beeching cuts while others shut even before that.

While some of these stations provide no trace of their existence today, there are a handful that present reminders of what they once were. One such example is Somersham, which was operated by Great Eastern Railway.

The station opened on March 1, 1848, and was a stopping point on the line between St Ives and March. It closed more than a decade later and since relocated to a private museum.

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Somersham railway station was built as an intermediate station between the two towns. It became a junction on September 16, 1889, when the branch from Somersham to Ramsey opened.

Passenger traffic was always light on the line as only market towns and villages were served. There were few through trains with expresses usually using the Ely line with Ely becoming the main GER interchange station in northern East Anglia.

In the 1960s, there were a total of 80 trains a day that were timetabled, with the last working steam train passing in 1963. On March 6, 1967, the station and the line both closed to passengers.

The station has since been demolished, but it was rebuilt in the grounds of the private Fawley Railway Museum. The museum is only open to the public three or four times a year.

As for the site itself, there are no remaining traces of the station, apart from a concrete level crossing gate post. The majority of the area has been taken up by housing, but there are still reminders of what used to be there.

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