The Railway Buildings at East Norton

The station buildings at East Norton were typical of the line. There were two platforms either side of the tracks on which stood buildings of red brick and slate construction with wooden canopies on iron supports. The latter extended over the platforms for protection against wet weather. The platform buildings housed waiting rooms, offices and toilets. A weighbridge office stood in the goods yard and a signal box was situated to the north of the station on the east side of the tracks.
Outside of the station on the Leicester to Uppingham road there were three terraced company cottages, which were demolished in April 2007, and the station Master’s House, which is still occupied.

The three station Cottages awaiting demolition. The blue brick wall of the old bridge can be seen with the Station Master's House at the far end

The station platforms and buildings were demolished in the mid 1970s when the site was being used for domestic refuse landfill by the Harborough District Council.
The main Leicester to Uppingham road crossed over the railway at the station and both walls to this bridge remained until the wall on the south side was demolished to widen the road in the 1980s.

About a mile south of the station is the East Norton tunnel which is no longer accessible. It is around 144 yards in length and southbound trains leaving the tunnel began the long descent into the Welland valley. This descent was once, around 1960, the scene of a runaway freight train which could have caused a serious accident had it not been for an alert signalman at the Welham Junction box who managed to stop a Northampton to Peterborough express on a collision course.
To the north of the station was a blue-brick viaduct built in 1877 by Logan and Hemingway of Market Harborough to cross the valley of the Eyebrook. The 13 arch structure was demolished in 2001 by Coleman & Co. of Birmingham, having been declared unsafe and the victim of a failed bid to be listed by English Heritage as an important historical structure.

The demolition of the viaduct