Norwich railway station (formerly Norwich Thorpe) is the northern terminus of the Great Eastern Main Line in the East of England, serving the cathedral city of Norwich, Norfolk. It is 114 miles 77 chains (185 km) down the main line from London Liverpool Street, the southern terminus.

It is also the terminus of numerous secondary lines: the Breckland Line to Cambridge; the Bittern Line to Sheringham; and the Wherry Lines to Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft.

The station is currently managed by Greater Anglia, which also operates the majority of the trains that call. East Midlands Railway operates services to Liverpool Lime Street, via Nottingham, Sheffield and Manchester Piccadilly.

At one time, there were three railway stations in Norwich. Norwich Thorpe is the current and only remaining station and still known locally as "Thorpe station". Norwich Victoria was the terminus for some passenger services from London until 1916, as well as being a goods station until its demolition in the 1970s. Norwich City was the terminus of the Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway line from Melton Constable until it was closed to passengers in 1959.

The original station was opened by the Yarmouth & Norwich Railway (Y&NR), which was the earliest railway in Norfolk. The YNR's Act of Parliament of 18 June 1842 authorised the issue of £200,000 worth of shares to build a line between the two towns, via Reedham and the Yare valley. The chairman was George Stephenson and the chief engineer was his son, Robert Stephenson. Construction started in April 1843 and the 20+1⁄2-mile (33 km) line was completed within a year. There was an inspection and inaugural run on 12 April 1844 and a ceremonial opening on 30 April 1844, followed the next day by the beginning of regular passenger services.

On 18 May 1844, 17 days after the Y&NR started running train services, Parliament gave the Royal Assent to the Norwich & Brandon Railway (N&BR). This was part of a plan to link the Y&NR with London, by linking up with the Eastern Counties Railway (ECR) being built from Newport, Essex, to Brandon, Suffolk. Work started quickly during 1844 and went on into 1845. On 30 June 1845, a Bill authorising the amalgamation of the Y&NR with the N&BR came into effect and Norwich station became a Norfolk Railway asset.

The N&BR line arrived at the station on 15 December 1845, which offered a route to Shoreditch in London via Cambridge and Bishop's Stortford. The Eastern Union Railway (EUR) was building a line towards Norwich and that led to great rivalry between the EUR and the ECR. The ECR trumped the EUR by taking over the Norfolk Railway, including Norwich station, on 8 May 1848. The following year, the EUR started services to Norwich Victoria. The opening of Norwich Victoria on 12 December 1849 led to the ECR naming its station Norwich Thorpe. On 27 August 1851, EUR services from Ipswich started serving the better-placed Thorpe station.

By the 1860s, the railways in East Anglia were in financial trouble and most were leased to the Eastern Counties Railway. They wanted to amalgamate them formally, but government agreement could not be obtained until an Act of Parliament on 7 August 1862, when the Great Eastern Railway (GER) was formed by the amalgamation. Actually, Norwich Thorpe and Norwich Victoria became GER stations on 1 July 1862, when the GER took over the ECR and the EUR before the Bill had received the Royal Assent.