the Act stipulated that no dividend might be declared unless the company proceeded with the promotion of the Wisbech line in Parliament. This was attempted in 1860 but rejected in Parliament, and again in 1862 and 1863. The GNR agreed to extend the working arrangement to ten years from 1 November 1861 for 50% of receipts and to carry out some permanent way improvements on the original section. The Sutton Bridge station was on the site of the later goods station, west of the River Nene. The extension to Holbeach was completed and opened on 1 July 1862. Peterborough, Wisbech and Sutton Bridge The line connecting Wisbech to Sutton Bridge was considered important because Sutton Bridge was an important inland port further downstream on the River Nene than Wisbech port. Wisbech would have been reached by a southward branch of the Norwich and Spalding Railway, but now an alternative means of making the connection was brought forward. On 28 July 1863 the authorising Act for the Peterborough, Wisbech and Sutton Bridge Railway was passed. Capital was to be £180,000. In 1871 Richard Young a local shipowner (and later director of the Great Eastern Railway) was chairman of the company. The Eastern Counties Railway had just been transformed into the Great Eastern Railway, and powers were to be sought by the PW&SBR to connect to the GER line at Wisbech. The Norwich and Spalding Railway was given running powers between Sutton Bridge and Wisbech. It was the Midland Railway, not the GNR, that secured the contract for operating the new railway for 50% of receipts. Lynn and Sutton Bridge Railway The next section of the future M&GNJR to be built was the Lynn and Sutton Bridge Railway, which was authorised on 6 August 1861 with capital of £100,000. It was to connect with the Eastern Counties Railway (soon to be GER) at South Lynn, near the major port of King's Lynn. The authorisation obliged the company to construct a new rail and road bridge at Sutton Bridge, but this was modified by an Act in 1863 which permitted the railway to purchase the existing road swing bridge, built in 1850, and adapt it for railway use as well. The line was opened for goods traffic throughout in November 1864 from a junction some distance south of King's Lynn station. Passenger trains provided by the GNR began on 1 March 1866. Spalding