Low Moor railway station
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Low Moor railway station serves the villages of Low Moor and Oakenshaw in the south of Bradford,
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 England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
. The station is situated on the
Calder Valley Line The Calder Valley line (also previously known as the Caldervale line) is a railway route in Northern England between the cities of Leeds and Manchester as well as the seaside resort of Blackpool. It is the slower of the two main rail routes ...
between Bradford Interchange and Halifax. The present station at Low Moor was opened on 2 April 2017. One train per hour serves the station in both directions, and there are also four direct Grand Central services to London King's Cross each day. Station facilities include 128 car parking spaces, CCTV, accessible platforms, waiting shelters, passenger information displays and public address system.


Transport links

The station is promoted as a
Park and Ride A park and ride, also known as incentive parking or a commuter lot, is a parking lot with public transport connections that allows commuters and other people heading to city centres to leave their vehicles and transfer to a bus, rail system ( ...
facility, being close to the M62 and
M606 The M606 is a short stretch of motorway in West Yorkshire, England. Called the Bradford Spur motorway, the M606 leaves the M62 motorway at junction 26, near Cleckheaton, and heads into Bradford, to join the A6177 Bradford Ring Road. It is offi ...
motorways. There is also direct access to the Spen Valley Greenway cycle track, part of
National Cycle Route 66 National Cycle Network (NCN) Route 66 is a Sustrans National Route that runs from Kingston upon Hull to Manchester via Beverley, York and Leeds. Between Pocklington and York it forms part of the Way of the Roses challenge route. In 1998 the secti ...
. Bus service 268, operated by
Arriva Arriva plc is a British multinational public transport company headquartered in Sunderland, England.Cleckheaton Cleckheaton is a town in the Metropolitan borough of Kirklees, in West Yorkshire, England. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, it is situated south of Bradford, east of Brighouse, west of Batley and south-west of Leeds. It ...
,
Liversedge Liversedge is a town and former parish of Birstall, in the metropolitan borough of Kirklees, West Yorkshire, England. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, Liversedge lies between Cleckheaton and Heckmondwike. The Kirklees ward ...
,
Heckmondwike Heckmondwike is a town in the metropolitan borough of Kirklees, West Yorkshire, England, south west of Leeds. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, it is close to Cleckheaton and Liversedge. It is mostly in the Batley and Spen pa ...
and Dewsbury.


Original station

The original station at Low Moor was situated at the junction of two routes - the line to Halifax and Greetland through the Calder Valley and that via the Spen Valley to via , both built by the
Manchester and Leeds Railway The Manchester and Leeds Railway was a British railway company that built a line from Manchester to Normanton where it made a junction with the North Midland Railway, over which it relied on running powers to access Leeds. The line followed the ...
. It opened in 1848 and initially acted a terminus for both lines, as the continuation towards
Bradford Exchange The Bradford Exchange is an American producer and seller of collectible goods, jewelry, sports memorabilia and apparel. Now part of the Bradford Group, it was founded in 1973 as The Bradford Gallery of Collector's Plates by J. Roderick MacArthur. ...
was not yet complete (the tunnels north of the station and at Bowling were still under construction at this point). Through running to Bradford eventually began in 1850, to
Manchester Victoria Manchester Victoria station in Manchester, England is a combined mainline railway station and Metrolink tram stop. Situated to the north of the city centre on Hunts Bank, close to Manchester Cathedral, it adjoins Manchester Arena which was co ...
in January 1852 and to Leeds via (over the
Leeds, Bradford and Halifax Junction Railway The Leeds, Bradford and Halifax Junction Railway (LB&HJR) was an English railway company. It built a line between Bradford and Leeds, and had running powers over the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway to Halifax. It opened its main line in 1854 ...
) in 1854. Low Moor quickly became an important interchange station, as there was initially no direct route between Bradford Exchange and the LB&HJR route to Leeds and so many trains to/from Halifax and Manchester carried portions for both cities that were attached or joined here (a practice that continued even after Exchange was expanded and linked to the Leeds route in 1867). A connection to was later built by the GNR in 1892 and facilities extended accordingly - by the turn of the century there were four platforms in use, along with a large goods yard and loco depot. The introduction of DMUs over the Calder Valley route in January 1962 saw the loss of much of its interchange traffic and in June 1965, it was closed to passenger traffic under the Beeching axe along with the Spen Valley Line. Goods traffic ceased two years later and the station was then demolished. The station site was later used for the
Transperience Transperience was a short-lived museum of passenger transport located at Low Moor, in the south of Bradford in West Yorkshire, Northern England. It opened in July 1995, but closed only 2 years later in October 1997, with debts of over £1  ...
museum which was open for a brief period in the 1990s. The Spen Valley Greenway was built on the route of the Spen Valley line after its closure to freight in 1981, as far as Thornhill Junction in Dewsbury.


Present station

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 urb ...
planned to build a new station at Low Moor by 2011–2012. A lack of capacity on the line meant that development was put on hold through 2008–09, until track improvement work at Mill Lane Junction in Bradford was completed and a new timetable introduced. In June 2009, £5.5 million funding was allocated for the station and it was announced that a detailed design plan and business case would be developed. These were completed in May 2010, confirming the station's location on New Works Road. After the 2010 general election and subsequent
Spending Review A spending review, or occasionally a comprehensive spending review, is a governmental process in the United Kingdom carried out by HM Treasury to set firm expenditure limits and, through public service agreements, define the key improvements that t ...
, a further assessment of the West Yorkshire Strategic Programme of Schemes confirmed that the new station at Low Moor remained a key priority within the transport aspirations of West Yorkshire. The public consultation for the scheme was held in November 2011. Estimated completion was delayed into 2015, as the curvature of the track led to complications meeting engineering safety requirements for the new platforms. West Yorkshire Integrated Transport Authority (WYITA) released funding for the station in March 2014 and submitted a planning application to Bradford Council. There were further delays during construction of the car park over suspected disused mine workings. Exhaustive surveys initially could not verify their precise locations, but two were eventually discovered under the station site. Opening was delayed to summer 2016, and then to May 2017. This date was revised again, and the station opened to passenger trains on Sunday, 2 April 2017. The total cost of the project was £10.8 million.


Service pattern

Currently, Low Moor has the following service pattern: *One train per hour to *One train per hour to via *Four trains per day to only *Four direct trains per day to
London Kings Cross King's Cross railway station, also known as London King's Cross, is a passenger railway terminus in the London Borough of Camden, on the edge of Central London. It is in the London station group, one of the List of busiest railway stations in ...
via From the winter 2019 timetable change, the Huddersfield service will start/terminate at Bradford rather than running through to Leeds on weekdays and Saturdays, but to compensate for this the hourly Leeds -
Manchester Victoria Manchester Victoria station in Manchester, England is a combined mainline railway station and Metrolink tram stop. Situated to the north of the city centre on Hunts Bank, close to Manchester Cathedral, it adjoins Manchester Arena which was co ...
- Chester service will start calling throughout the day. This improves the overall service pattern at the station to two departures per hour to both Halifax and Bradford, with hourly through trains to Leeds and Manchester.Northern Timetable 45: Leeds to Hebden Bridge and Huddersfield 15 December 2019 - 16 May 2020
''Northern''; Retrieved 29 November 2019
Sunday services remain unchanged.


References


External links


Plan of Low Moor station in the 1950s


{{Railway stations served by Northern Trains Railway stations in Bradford Former Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1848 Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1965 Beeching closures in England Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 2017 Railway stations served by Grand Central Railway Railway stations opened by Network Rail Northern franchise railway stations Reopened railway stations in Great Britain