Halesworth
General information
Location	Halesworth, East Suffolk England
Grid reference	TM388778
Managed by	Greater Anglia
Platforms	2
Other information
Station code	HAS
Classification	DfT category F1
History
Original company	East Suffolk Railway
Pre-grouping	Great Eastern Railway
Post-grouping	London and North Eastern Railway
Key dates
4 December 1854	First station opened
15 May 1858	Closed
1 June 1859	Re-sited and re-opened
Passengers
2018/19	102,016
2019/20	99,838
2020/21	15,854
2021/22	84,792
2022/23	99,576
Notes
Passenger statistics from the Office of Rail and Road

Halesworth railway station is on the East Suffolk Line in the east of England, serving the town of Halesworth, Suffolk. It is also the nearest station to the seaside town of Southwold. It is 31 miles 74 chains (51.4 km) down the line from Ipswich and 100 miles 53 chains (162.0 km) measured from London Liverpool Street; it is situated between Darsham and Brampton. Its three-letter station code is HAS.

It is managed by Greater Anglia, which also operates all trains that call.

History

The first station at Halesworth was opened in 1854 but closed four years later and a new station opened in 1859 on an adjacent site.^[1] The station was formerly situated on a level crossing. However, it was unusual in that the platforms swung across the road rather than having typical crossing gates.^[2] The crossing is now permanently closed, although the platforms are still in use.

The cabin from the mechanical signal box at Halesworth has been preserved at the Mangapps Railway Museum.

On the afternoon of 18 December 1941, a German Dornier bombed the station house,^[3] killing the stationmaster, his wife and their young maid. The station house was rebuilt at a reduced size.

The Halesworth and District Museum^[4] and the offices of Halesworth Area Community Transport^[5] now occupy the station building.

The station is unstaffed but has been "adopted" by volunteers from the East Suffolk Lines Community Rail Partnership^[6] who maintain the plantings and remove litter.

Services

As of December 2019^[update] the typical Monday-Sunday off-peak service at Halesworth is as follows:

Trains direct to and from London Liverpool Street were withdrawn in 2010.

One weekday early-morning train is extended through to Harwich International and there is a return from there in the evening.^[7]

Southwold Railway

From 1879 to 1929 Halesworth was also the western terminus of the 3 ft (914 mm) gauge Southwold Railway which ran to Southwold.^[8]

The terminus was located alongside the main railway station, allowing cross-platform interchange of passengers and having transfer sheds for the exchange of goods between the narrow gauge wagons of the Southwold Railway and the standard gauge wagons used on the main line.^[8]

In 1933 a siding was laid to serve the dairy (the big building in the picture) and milk tanks ran from Halesworth to Ilford (London) on a daily basis. The dairy closed on 30 April 1968 although rail traffic may have ceased before that date.^[9]