Hadleigh Railway
The Hadleigh Railway was a long single track branch railway line in Suffolk, England, that connected Hadleigh to the main line railway network at Bentley Junction. It was built by the nominally independent Eastern Union and Hadleigh Junction Railway company and opened in 1847. By the time of opening it had been taken over by the larger Eastern Union Railway. It was never successful commercially, nor in reviving the fortunes of Hadleigh itself, and passenger services were withdrawn in 1932, followed by total closure in 1965. The northernmost two mile stretch of the trackbed, from the station site in Hadleigh to the site of Raydon Wood Station, now forms the Hadleigh Railway Walk. Unfulfilled schemes At the time of the earliest railways, the town of Hadleigh was an important centre of the wool and clothing industry. The Eastern Counties Railway was incorporated in 1836 to build a railway from London to Yarmouth; the capital was £1.6 million. This was a prodigious project, and in fact the actual cost greatly overran, so that all the money was spent and the railway only reached Colchester. When the ECR reappraised its plans, it proposed to build from Colchester to Bury St Edmunds through