As well as serving Fisons chemical (fertilizer) works, the line also served the adjacent Burwell Brick Company brickworks, a cement works, and local fruit growers and farmers.
The discovery of the commercial viability of this process (by a Saxmundham bone merchant, Edward Packard) led to what has been dubbed "the Suffolk Gold Rush", and local fortunes were made (Packard established what was to become the fertiliser company Fisons, now part of AstraZeneca).