Halifax railway station

Halifax
Train at Platform 1 at Halifax railway station
Location
Place	Halifax
Local authority	Calderdale
Coordinates	53°43′14″N 1°51′14″W / 53.720650°N 1.853790°W / 53.720650; -1.853790Coordinates: 53°43′14″N 1°51′14″W / 53.720650°N 1.853790°W / 53.720650; -1.853790
Grid reference	SE097249
Operations
Station code	HFX
Managed by	Northern Rail
Number of platforms	2
Live arrivals/departures and station information from National Rail Enquiries
Annual rail passenger usage*
2004/05	0.940 million
2005/06	0.978 million
2006/07	1.049 million
2007/08	1.099 million
2008/09	1.491 million
2009/10	1.481 million
2010/11	1.803 million
2011/12	1.857 million
Passenger Transport Executive
PTE	West Yorkshire (Metro)
Zone	4
History
Original company	Manchester and Leeds Railway
Pre-grouping	Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway
Post-grouping	London, Midland and Scottish Railway
1 July 1844	First station opened as Halifax Shaw Syke
7 August 1850	Resited and named Halifax
23 June 1855	Permanent buildings opened
1885–86	Rebuilt and enlarged
June 1890	Renamed Halifax Old
30 September 1951	Renamed Halifax Town
12 June 1961	Renamed Halifax
National Rail – UK railway stations
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
* Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Halifax from Office of Rail Regulation statistics. Methodology may vary year on year.
UK Railways portal

Halifax railway station serves the town of Halifax in West Yorkshire, England. It lies on the Caldervale Line and is 17 miles (27 km) west from Leeds.

Platform 2 heads eastbound, towards Bradford while Platform 1 heads westbound towards Brighouse, Huddersfield, Sowerby Bridge and Manchester Victoria. The two routes divide about a mile south of the station at Dryclough Junction.

To the east, the line also divided with the current line passing into Beacon Hill tunnel and a disused line via Halifax North Bridge to Ovenden, then going on to a junction at Holmfield with the Halifax High level line which had stations in Pellon and at St Paul's, Queens Road; and via Queensbury to Bradford and Keighley, for destinations in the North-West.

Description

Leeds Bound Platform

The station has a car park, bicycle parking and a pick up point, like many other stations. There is also a staffed ticket booth with option of paying for a ticket using a ticket machine. A lift to the platform is available for wheelchair users, but there are currently no lower counters for easier access to buy tickets.^[1]

Entry to the station is via a cobbled road bridge from opposite the bottom of Horton Street. Passengers arriving by foot who have walked down Winding Road from the bus station are forced to cross over this bridge to access the right hand pavement, which is the only pedestrian access. The decision to allow car parking on the left side some years ago makes for safety issues at peak period times.^{[citation needed]}

A campaign, run by the local newspaper the Halifax Evening Courier was started to get the station refurbished. The paper said that it wanted a station fit "for the 21st century" and that its current state was "disgraceful".^[2] Due to the amount of support generated, Network Rail and Northern Rail agreed to do so.^[3]

Work on a £2.5 million refurbishment scheme has seen the station footbridge and canopies repaired, new glazing and lighting installed and repainting of the structures and was begun in May 2009.^[4] The second phase of the refurbishment, covering the platform and the concourse, was completed in November 2010.^[5]

History

The Victorian and adjoining modern stations

The original station was built at Shaw Syke, approximately 220 yards (200 m) west of the current location^[6] and opened on 1 July 1844 by the Manchester and Leeds Railway as the terminus of a branch off their main line from Manchester to Normanton.^[7][8] With the opening of the line between Halifax and Bradford on 7 August 1850, a new station was opened on the current site; this had temporary wooden buildings.^[8][9] The station at Shaw Syke was then extended and used as a goods depot^[10] The permanent buildings at the current site were designed by Thomas Butterworth^[11] and opened on 23 June 1855.^[12] This Grade II listed building now houses the nursery associated with the Eureka! Children's Museum.

Railway clearing house map showing lines north of Halifax in 1913

A new line was constructed by the Great Northern Railway in the mid-1870s from the main station over a long viaduct to a station at North Bridge, and then across and indeed partly in tunnel beneath the hilly terrain north of the town to an unusual triangular station at Queensbury, where the line divided into track for Keighley (and Skipton, Carlisle and Morecambe) to the north-west, and Bradford in the east.

Halifax station was redesigned during 1884–85, and completely rebuilt during 1885–86. Part of the new station opened on 25 October 1885, and the remainder on 30 May 1886. The new station had separate accommodation for LYR and GNR trains, the latter being on the west side.^[13]

The Halifax High Level Railway was a related branch line opened in 1890, leading from Holmfield near Ovenden, on the line to Queensbury, through a half-mile tunnel through the ridge and across the Wheatley Valley on a ten arch viaduct past Samuel Webster's brewery, to Pellon, where there were sizeable goods facilities and then to St Paul's railway station in Queens Road. This branch line gradually fell into disuse, losing its regular passenger service as early as 1917. The last goods train ran in 1960 and the line was then dismantled, leaving the viaduct standing as a reminder of the former freight link.

The Queensbury branch as a whole was closed in stages from 1955 onwards although many of its engineering features remain. The route has lately been adopted and to an extent brought back into public use and attention by Sustrans as a walking and cycle route. The principal structure on the line, Queensbury Tunnel, was, at its opening, the longest on the GNR system at 2,511 yards (2.296 km). It is currently derelict, partially flooded and impassible.

To distinguish it from Halifax St. Paul's and Halifax North Bridge stations, the main station was known from June 1890 as Halifax Old Station. On 30 September 1951 the name was changed again to Halifax Town, and on 12 June 1961 it reverted to Halifax.^[8]

Services

Eastbound: Monday to Saturdays there is a train every 15 minutes heading to Bradford Interchange and Leeds with two trains per hour going beyond Leeds to York and Selby respectively. During the evenings and on Sundays it is half-hourly to Leeds and hourly to York.

Westbound: Monday to Saturday daytimes there is a half-hourly service to Manchester Victoria (hourly evenings), one train an hour to Blackpool North and one per hour to Wakefield Westgate via Huddersfield and Brighouse. One of the two Manchester trains is semi-fast (calling only at Hebden Bridge, Todmorden and Rochdale), whilst the other calls at all intermediate stations to Rochdale.

On Sundays there is an hourly service to Manchester Victoria and to Blackpool North and one train every two hours to Huddersfield.

London services

The station now sees regular services to London Kings Cross via Pontefract and Doncaster. In January 2009, Grand Central had their application for train paths to run a Bradford Interchange to London service accepted by the Office of Rail Regulation.^[14] Three trains per day operate now that full approval for the service has been granted ^[15] - these use Class 180 units and started running from the 23 May 2010.^[16] A fourth service to and from London is due to commence at the December 2013 timetable change^[17]

British Rail operated a through service to London Kings Cross which ceased in the 1970s. In 1973 a train of five coaches hauled by a diesel engine left Halifax Mondays to Fridays at 08:35 calling at Huddersfield and Wakefield Westgate where it was attached to the rear of the 09:20 Leeds-Kings Cross. To do this the engine ran round the train at Huddersfield and Wakefield Kirkgate, so the train reversed three times. Patronage was low.^{[citation needed]} There were two through trains from London Kings Cross at 17:30 and 22:50. These only reversed once (at Huddersfield) as the train split at Doncaster.

Gallery

• 

  The front entrance of Halifax railway station

• 

  A Class 144 train approaching Halifax

• 

  A Brush Class 31 awaits departure with the 0835 train to London at Halifax

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Halifax railway station.

• Train times and station information for Halifax railway station from National Rail

Preceding station	National Rail			Following station
Sowerby Bridge		Northern Rail Caldervale Line		Bradford Interchange
Brighouse		Northern Rail Caldervale Line
Brighouse		Grand Central London-Bradford		Bradford Interchange
	Disused railways
Copley		Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway		North Bridge
Greetland				Hipperholme

[ v t e ] Calderdale Lines (Past, present and future)

Legend ( To Bradford ) ( To Bradford ) Queensbury Holmfield Bailiff Bridge Lightcliffe / Clifton Road Wheatley ( To Kirklees ) Ovenden Brighouse North Bridge Hipperholme Pellon Elland Power Station St Pauls Elland Halifax South Parade Greetland Shaw Syke Rochdale Road Halt Copley West Vale Stainland and Holywell Green Sowerby Bridge Watson's Crossing Halt Luddendenfoot Triangle Ripponden and Barkisland ( To Burnley ) Rishworth Portsmouth Mytholmroyd Cornholme Hebden Bridge Stansfield Hall Eastwood Todmorden Walsden ( To Rochdale )