Yarmouth and Norwich Railway

The Yarmouth and Norwich Railway was the earliest railway company in Norfolk, England, authorized by act of Parliament in June 1842 and opening a 20.5-mile line between Great Yarmouth and Norwich on 1 May 1844, with George Stephenson as chairman and his son Robert Stephenson as chief engineer. It was the first railway in the United Kingdom to install block signalling using the electric telegraph, but its independent existence was brief: on 30 June 1845 it merged with the Norwich and Brandon Railway to form the Norfolk Railway, whose network later passed into the Great Eastern Railway and today survives as part of the Wherry Lines.