It was built by the Great Eastern Railway between Wisbech, Isle of Ely, Cambridgeshire, and Upwell, now in Norfolk, to carry agricultural produce.

The Great Eastern Railway (GER) promoted the idea of a tramway between Wisbech and Upwell, and permission to construct the line was obtained by W. L. Ollard in 1873, but he failed to raise the finance to build it.

[1] The GER were still in favour of the line, and authorisation to construct it was enshrined in the Great Eastern Railway Act 1881.

c. 78),[2] with the support of the Board of Trade, to demonstrate that such construction could bring railways to rural areas which could not otherwise benefit from the new mode of transport.

The process of buying land began in February 1882, and building the tramway across the flat terrain proceeded rapidly.

[2] Rolling stock consisted initially of four coaches originally built for the Millwall Extension Railway, two dating from 1871 and two from 1872.

Between 1903 and 1921, the Great Eastern Railway built a fleet of twelve GER Class C53 0-6-0T tram engines, up to five of which were based at Wisbech – the others worked at Yarmouth, Colchester and Ipswich.

Coach 8 appeared in the 1953 film The Titfield Thunderbolt after passenger services were withdrawn on the Kelvedon line in 1951, and was scheduled for preservation, but was subsequently scrapped.

The line did not survive the Beeching cuts of the 1960s, and was officially closed on 23 May 1966, although the last train, consisting of Drewry Shunter D2201, three wagons and a brake van ran on 20 May.

From the Upwell depot, which was the southern terminus of the tramway, the trains headed northwards to the village of Outwell, crossing Small Lode and passing a farm before emerging on Low Side which was the final request stop.

[13] Outwell Village depot was located by the old course of the River Nene and adjoined by St Clement's church on the other side.

W. Awdry was the vicar of Emneth, a village near Wisbech, and he drew much inspiration from the tramway for stories in his Railway Series children's books.

[22] Toby subsequently appeared in many more of the books and also became one of the main characters in the spin-off television series Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends.