FAKENHAM - joining the Mid Norfolk Railway
Approaching Fakenham the old M&GN route faces its greatest obstacle - after closure extensive gravel extraction took place here and the flooded pits left behind now form the basis of the excellent Pensthorpe Waterfowl Park. However at this point the line is but a short distance from the old Great Eastern line from Wymondham and Dereham and a diversion would enable access to this route.
This would be doubly fortunate in that it is this line which the Mid Norfolk Railway plans to rebuild, and only the GER route offers a realistic prospect of creating a new station. The rival companies each had their own stations here and both have vanished but there should be space in what was formerly the approach to the GER station to create a new facility.
To understand this situation better visit Multimap.
The rivalry of the two railway systems serving Norfolk led to the situation that several market towns had two separate and rival stations. Thus the citizens of Fakenham were able to go to the East station for trains north to Wells or south to Wymondham; and to the West station to reach westawards to Lynn and beyond or east to Cromer, Norwich or Yarmouth.
Other towns blest with two stations included Lynn itself, Cromer, North Walsham, Aylsham, Yarmouth and of course Norwich.
Economically this was of course madness, though few of the towns would have envisaged losing both stations in the space of a few years.