Kirby Cross railway station turns 150 today (Sat).

To mark the event, Tendring Council’s Railway Liaison group, Abellio Greater Anglia, Network Rail, and the Ontrack Rail Users Association (RUA) and others will be unveiling a plaque at 2.30pm.

Kirby Cross was the temporary terminus of the Tendring Hundred Railway, which did not reach Walton until 1867. The Clacton line did not open until 1882.

Sadly, today, the station lies abandonned, with Abellio Greater Anglia looking to replace it with a temporary shelter, though it has offered Tendring Council the chance to lease it, something which Frinton and Walton Town Council has expressed an interest in.

Ontrack RUA chairman John Smock said the unveiling ceremony will also include members of the Kirby Cross Residents association, the Frinton Residents Association, former railway employees, Wivenhoe-based railway historian Peter Kay, plus representatives of Ontrack RUA and the Frinton and Walton Heritage Railway Trust Museum.

Ontrack RUA has prepared a detailed history of the line, which will be published in community journals and on the Ontrack RUA website.

John said the line from Colchester reached Wivenhoe in May 1863, arriving in Weeley in January 1866, and Walton in May 1867. However, Frinton Railway Station did not open until 1888.

The Great Eastern Railway Company ran the Tendring line until it was absorbed into the larger London and North Eastern Railway Line in 1923.

“It opened up the area. The big business then was agriculture,” John explained.

This meant a line to the port of Harwich had already opened before the Tendring line and there was even a planned line from Thorpe Le Soken to Mistley, work on which actually started but never finished.

Later, during the Second World War, the line to Clacton was double-tracked for ‘strategic reasons’ to help move about military and people.

In 1959, the lines were electrified, but it still takes around 90 minutes to get the 70 miles or so from Clacton to London, longer than it did 20-30 years ago.

John complains Tendring is ‘the poor relation’ to places like Newark on the East Coast Line, with faster and more regular services, despite it being a smaller town.

And despite a potential impending age of driverless cars, he argues rail still has a future.

“It’s all about moving large quantities of people,” he said.

A second celebration is planned for 150 years of Walton station in May 2017, to mark the completion of the Tendring Hundred Railway.