Kirkstall Forge railway station is a suburban station serving the

Kirkstall Kirkstall is a north-western suburb of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, on the eastern side of the River Aire. The area sits in the Kirkstall ward of Leeds City Council and Leeds West parliamentary constituency, represented by Rachel Reeves. Th ...

area of

Leeds Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by populati ...

West Yorkshire West Yorkshire is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. It is an inland and upland county having eastward-draining valleys while taking in the moors of the Pennines. West Yorkshire came into exi ...

, England. It is on the Leeds to Bradford Line between

Leeds City Leeds City Football Club was the leading professional club in Leeds, England, before the First World War. It was dissolved in 1919 due to financial irregularities, after which Leeds United was established as a replacement. History The club was ...

and Shipley and was opened on 19 June 2016, near the site of an earlier station with the same name.

History

The original station opened on 1 July 1860 and closed on 31 July 1905. During 1905, the line between

and was quadrupled, which involved slewing the line and building new bridges in several places. It was not considered worthwhile rebuilding it when the line was diverted onto a new bridge over the canal. A new station could provide opportunities for travel when space became available with the

Kirkstall Forge Engineering Kirkstall Forge is a 57-acre mixed-use development located in Kirkstall in Leeds, West Yorkshire. The site is one of the oldest most continuously used industrial sites in England. It was operated by Kirkstall Forge Engineering, a metalworking bus ...

closing in stages during the 1980s, 1990s and the early 2000s. The new station, near the site of the original, opened on 19 June 2016.

Metro Metro, short for metropolitan, may refer to: Geography * Metro (city), a city in Indonesia * A metropolitan area, the populated region including and surrounding an urban center Public transport * Rapid transit, a passenger railway in an urba ...

, the

Passenger Transport Executive In the United Kingdom, passenger transport executives (PTEs) are local government bodies which are responsible for public transport within large urban areas. They are accountable to combined authorities, which were created between 2011 and 2016 ...

for West Yorkshire, opened the station having already overseen the opening of nearby

Apperley Bridge Apperley is a village in Gloucestershire, England, about southwest of Tewkesbury, south of Deerhurst and east of the River Severn. It is the largest settlement in Deerhurst civil parish. In 2020 it had an estimated population of 625. The p ...

in December 2015. Go-ahead for construction at Kirkstall Forge and Apperley Bridge was given in the National Infrastructure Plan released on 29 November 2011.National Infrastructure Plan 2011
HM Treasury

Facilities

New Kirkstall Forge station (geograph 4977010)

New path to a new station (geograph 4977004)

The station has two platforms, with a footbridge and lifts linking them. A bus stop, 127 car parking spaces and secure cycle storage were also constructed along with the station. Ticket vending machines are available and there are digital information screens and a P.A. system provided for train running information provision.

Services

Though it is sited on the

Airedale Airedale is a geographic area in Yorkshire, England, corresponding to the river valley or dale of the River Aire. The valley stretches from the river's origin in Aire Head Springs, Malham which is in the Yorkshire Dales, down past Skipton on ...

and Wharfedale lines, the station was to be served by trains between and providing two trains per hour in each direction. The May 2016 timetable, published by Network Rail and Metro, shows the station as being served by one train per hour between Leeds and , with a limited number of additional calls (peak hour & late night) provided by Airedale Line services to/from Skipton & Bradford. On Sundays Leeds to Bradford Forster Square trains call once per hour each way. In November 2017 the frequency of services was raised in the House of Commons by the local Member of Parliament and plans were subsequently announced to double the frequency between Kirkstall Forge and Leeds to 2 trains per hour from 20 May 2018 (though services were cut back again for several months in 2020 due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

). Services to/from Ilkley no longer now stop at Kirkstall as a result of this change, with regular timetabled calls now provided by the Leeds - Bradford Forster Square trains (Ilkley connections are now available at Shipley). Certain Skipton services also stop in the weekday peak and after 19:30 Mondays to Saturdays when the Bradford - Leeds service does not operate. Sunday services remain unchanged.

Planning and construction

In 1999,

announced that Kirkstall Forge and Apperley Bridge were among five new or reopened stations which they wished to see achieved over the ensuing five years.

Glasshoughton Glasshoughton is a neighbourhood of Castleford in West Yorkshire, England, that borders on Pontefract. The appropriate Wakefield ward is called Castleford Central and Glasshoughton. It is home to the Xscape leisure centre and ski slope, the J ...

opened in 2005. In July 2007,

Leeds City Council Leeds City Council is the local authority of the City of Leeds in West Yorkshire, England. It is a metropolitan district council, one of five in West Yorkshire and one of 36 in the metropolitan counties of England, and provides the majority of l ...

approved a planning application to redevelop the Kirkstall Forge site, and the developer, Commercial Estates Group, committed £4 million to build a railway station and provide new rolling stock. In September 2008, the West Yorkshire PTE announced that the Yorkshire & Humber Regional Transport Board had approved funding for its "rail growth programme" which included stations at Apperley Bridge and Kirkstall Forge. A public exhibition of the plans took place in June 2009 with the planning application submitted to

in March 2010 and approval being granted in June 2010. Despite significant private sector funding, the larger Rail Growth Programme including Apperley Bridge was listed as a schemes under government review in June 2010. Following the Comprehensive Spending Review in Autumn 2010 the Leeds Rail Growth Package was included in the "Development" pool of schemes. Metro submitted a "Best & Final Funding Bid" in September 2011 and funding was confirmed November 2011 as part of the National Infrastructure Plan. On 29 May 2014 the

Department for Transport The Department for Transport (DfT) is a department of His Majesty's Government responsible for the English transport network and a limited number of transport matters in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland that have not been devolved. The d ...

committed £9.5 million from a total of £16 million towards the ''Leeds Rail Growth'' scheme which included both Kirkstall Forge and

stations. Works began in November 2014 by designers Amey Plc and the principal contractor C Spencers Ltd on behalf of Network Rail with completion of both stations expected by winter 2015. Partly due to flooding, work for the wider non-rail Kirkstall site ran behind schedule and its opening was delayed until June 2016. It eventually opened on 19 June.

References

External links

{{West Yorkshire railway stations Railway stations in Leeds Category;DfT Category F2 stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 2016 Railway stations opened by Network Rail Northern franchise railway stations Kirkstall