Silly Season on the Sunshine Coast

As the world’s media feasts on the ultimate silly season story and predicts a close race between Reform leader Nigel Farage and Count Binface in the comical and record breaking Clacton-on-Sea by-election, what better time than now to take a first ever trip along the Sunshine Coast Line.

There are very few parts of our national rail network I have not travelled, but one missing link until now has been the 18-mile double track route from Colchester to the Essex resort, along with the five-mile single-track offshoot from Thorpe-le-Soken to Frinton-on-Sea and Walton-on-the-Naze.

So armed with a £40.60 off-peak day return I set off from Haslemere to Clacton on Thursday, 23 July 2026, in the hope that my 3½-hour journey via Waterloo and Stratford would help me gain some insight into this hotbed of Reform, as well as photographing the local railway scene and sampling some local beer.

Exactly three weeks before polling day on 13 August, and with a record 34 names going onto ballot papers, I felt sure an afternoon in Clacton would give me some sense of how things were shaping up, and that I may even stumble across one of two of those with hats (or a bin) in the ring.

For those, like me, who have not travelled the Sunshine Coast Line, the route diverges from the East Anglian main line to Norwich via a dive-under just east of Colchester station, with the hourly London Liverpool Street-Clacton services then calling at the first two intermediate stations, Hythe and Wivenhoe, before running fast to Thorpe-le-Soken and Clacton.

Also running hourly are stopping services between Colchester and Walton-on-the-Naze, which will first go into Colchester Town station, before reversing and continuing all stations to Thorpe-le-Soken, where they wait for ten minutes to make a cross-platform connection with the Liverpool Street-Clacton services.

The Sunshine Coast Line has an interesting history, with the Walton line having opened in May 1867 and the route to Clacton completed 15 years later in July 1882. It became the first route in the UK to be powered by 25kV AC overhead electrification when electric services began in 1959 and for three decades (1962-1992) the route was worked by the popular Class 309 EMUs. 

Clacton-on-Sea’s four-platform station was also notable for some classic signalling, having been home to the last Westinghouse “searchlight” signals on the national railway network until their replacement five years ago (2021) and long after completion of a major re-signalling of the line that was carried out between 2006-2009.

Services along the Sunshine Coast Line are currently formed of Greater Anglia Class 720 five-car units, with a single unit working the Walton stopping services, while most, but not all, Liverpool Street-Clacton services are ten-car formations. 

Arriving into Clacton on schedule at 12.44, I began by walking to a footbridge just north of the station, from where I hoped to photograph the railway scene, before heading into town, in the hope of detecting some election fever in the area around the town’s pier and the Wetherspoon-owned Moon & Starfish, reputedly a Farage favourite.  

My walk towards the pier and town centre down Station Road took me past the impressive Town Hall, where all eyes will be trained on the election count during the night of 13/14 August, with the local Conservative Party office opposite looking distinctly deserted.

Passing an impressive two surviving banks in the town centre (Lloyds and NatWest) my route to the Moon & Starfish then took me down a street full of amusement arcades, but still there was no sign of any election fever, canvassers, posters, or any of the 34 candidates. 

Nor, alas, was there any sign of election fever in the Wetherspoon pub itself, (pictured below) which was doing predictably brisk business at the start of the peak summer season. Adding insult to injury, nor was there any locally-brewed beer on tap, with the best I could come up with being a decent pint of Oakham Ales’ JHB (3.8%/£3.09).