Ledston railway station was a railway station on the now disused Castleford–Garforth line in West Yorkshire, England. The station opened in 1878 and was closed in January 1951, well before the Beeching Axe took effect.
Ledston railway station | |
|---|---|
| General information | |
| Location | Allerton Bywater, City of Leeds England |
| Coordinates | 53°44′38″N 1°21′20″W / 53.7438°N 1.3555°W |
| Grid reference | SE425277 |
| Platforms | 1 |
| Other information | |
| Status | Disused |
| History | |
| Original company | North Eastern Railway |
| Pre-grouping | North Eastern Railway |
| Post-grouping | London and North Eastern Railway |
| Key dates | |
| 8 April 1878 | Opened to goods (as Ledstone) |
| 12 August 1878 | Opened to passengers |
| 1 July 1915 | Name changed to Ledston |
| 22 January 1951 | Closed to passengers |
| 30 September 1963 | Closed to goods |
History
editThe line between Garforth and Castleford was opened by the North Eastern Railway (NER) on 12 August 1878. The two intermediate stations on the line (Kippax and Ledstone) opened to passenger traffic at the same time (though goods had started in April 1878).[1]
The station was equipped with only one platform on the eastern side of the line (Kippax having the same arrangement).[2] The station was noted in the original NER architects drawings as being Allerton Bywater, but the NER had a common practice of not repeating station names across its network; they already had an Allerton station on the Harrogate to York line.[3] So it is believed that the station took its name from nearby Ledstone Hall, an estate a 1-mile (1.6 km) to the north-east.[2] Even so, in 1915, the spelling was changed again to Ledston.[4]
The station was laid out with a single track at the one platform; the entire line was without a passing loop. Services in 1914 were usually six trains each way, four of which ran through to Pontefract. By 1949, this had been curtailed to just three services a day which all terminated and started at Castleford.[5]
The station, and indeed the line, served a sparse population and so in 1951, just three years after nationalisation, the station was closed to passengers. Goods traffic continued in the station sidings until September 1963[6] and the line remained open through the station for freight trains to the adjacent Allerton Bywater colliery. Passenger excursion trains still used the station until the mid-1960s and advertised passenger trains were also diverted over the line and through Ledston when necessary.[7] The station buildings were still in situ in 1983 and the signal box was not demolished until 1988.[8] The station has since been demolished and a housing development now covers the site.
References
edit- ^ Body, Geoffrey (1989). Railways of the Eastern Region. Wellingborough: P. Stephens. p. 72. ISBN 1-85260-072-1.
- ^ a b Young 2015, p. 82.
- ^ "Disused Stations: Hopperton Station". www.disused-stations.org.uk. Retrieved 14 May 2019.
- ^ Burgess, Neil (2014). The Lost Railways of Yorkshire's West Riding: the Central Section Bradford, Halifax, Huddersfield, Leeds, Wakefield. Catrine: Stenlake. p. 31. ISBN 9781840336573.
- ^ Suggitt, Gordon (2015). Lost railways of South & West Yorkshire. Newbury: Countryside Books. p. 24. ISBN 978-1-84674-043-5.
- ^ Hoole, Ken (1985). Railway Stations of the North East. Newton Abbot: David & Charles. p. 174. ISBN 0-7153-8527-5.
- ^ Young 2015, p. 83.
- ^ Shannon, Paul (2006). Rail Freight Since 1968: Coal. Kettering: Silver Link. p. 84. ISBN 1-85794-263-9.
Sources
edit- Joy, David (1984). A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain, Volume 8; South and West Yorkshire (2 ed.). Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0-946537-11-9.
- Young, Alan (2015). Lost Stations of Yorkshire; the West Riding. Kettering: Silver Link. ISBN 978-1-85794-438-9.
External links
edit
| Preceding station | Disused railways | Following station | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bowers Line and station closed |
North Eastern Railway Castleford–Garforth line |
Castleford Line closed, station open |