THIS year marks the 150th anniversary of the opening of one of Colchester’s main railway stations.

It is also a quarter of a century since the station, which up to that point had been known as St Botolph’s Station, was re-named as Colchester Town.

But when it opened in 1866 St Botolph’s was actually Colchester’s third station.

The first station was where today’s North Station is, on the main line from London, and the first steam train arrived there from the capital on March 29, 1843.

Four years later Hythe Station opened after the line from Colchester was extended eastwards to serve the town’s port, with tracks either side of the River Colne.

It opened for goods on April 1, 1847, and for passengers on May 8, 1863 – the same day as the extended line to Wivenhoe opened - and has operated throughout a century and a half including playing its part in both world wars.

Three years later, the single-track St Botolph’s branch line was built, linking the town centre to the mainline station to the west and Hythe to the east.

The first train to St Botolph’s ran on March 1, 1866.

A second track was laid alongside it in 1886.

In August 1914, at the outbreak of the First World War, soldiers from Artillery Barracks, marched with guns and horses to St Botolph’s station to travel by train around London to the English Channel and be ferried to France.

Throughout the war, until the Armistice in November 1918, St Botolph’s regularly received troop trains, carrying the wounded from the Western Front, in Belgium and France.

At the outbreak of the Second World War, in 1939, St Botolph’s was the designated railhead to receive 14,000 evacuees from London.

A year later 13,000 children left Colchester on special trains of their own.

St Botolph’s was once a bustling station with extensive goods yards, stretching up to Brook Street.

These closed in 1982 and it became known as Colchester Town station in 1991.