Grid reference SE116902 Pre-grouping North Eastern Railway Platforms in use 1 | Original company Bedale | |
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Leyburn railway station wensleydale railway yorkshire
Leyburn railway station is on the Wensleydale Railway and serves the town of Leyburn in North Yorkshire, England. During the summer months it is served by at least three trains per day; at other times of the year the service is mainly at weekends and public holidays.
Contents
The Leyburn branch of the Wensleydale Railway Association (which incorporates the Friends of Leyburn Station-FOLS) meets monthly at the station.
The station postal address is Leyburn Station, Harmby Road, Leyburn, North Yorkshire, DL8 5ET.
History
The railway first reached Leyburn in November 1855, when the Bedale & Leyburn Railway opened its line from Leeming (where it made an end-on junction with the York, Newcastle and Berwick Railway branch from Northallerton). Passenger services commenced six months later, with a further extension westwards to Hawes being built by the North Eastern Railway in 1877/8 (the NER having also absorbed the B&L in 1857). At Hawes, another end-on junction was made with the Midland Railway branch from Hawes Junction that gave the NER access to the Settle-Carlisle Railway by means of running powers (which it made use of for passenger trains).
The branch became part of the LNER under the terms of the 1923 Grouping. For most of its life, the route had a basic service of five passenger trains each day along its entire length with one or two extras reaching Leyburn from Northallerton, along with a small number of parcels, milk and goods trains. Nationalisation followed at the end of 1947, but less than a decade later the station was closed when the Northallerton to Hawes route fell victim to road competition, services being withdrawn on 26 April 1954.
The line beyond Redmire closed completely in April 1964, but aggregate traffic from the quarry there kept the rest of the line open. Leyburn also retained its status as a goods depot until 1982 (and a passing loop and signal box), but latterly the entire route operated as a 'one train' single line. The limestone traffic to and from Teesside ended in December 1992 but after a spell of disuse, traffic resumed in the form of Ministry of Defence military equipment trains to Redmire (where they were transferred for onward movement to/from Catterick Garrison).
Occasional passenger specials ran along the line, such as the "Three Dales Tour" on 20 May 1967.
Preservation
The Wensleydale Railway reopened the station at Leyburn in May 2003 after leasing the line from Railtrack. The station buildings had survived after closure, which made the re-instatement of passenger facilities there straightforward.
Passenger trains initially ran eastwards from Leyburn to Leeming Bar, but these were extended on to Redmire in August 2004. The company plans to relay/re-instate a run-round loop trackbed (for heritage locos to run-round), but hopes to one day eventually rebuild and reopen the abandoned line westwards to Hawes and eventually to Garsdale and run trains along the full length of the entire Yorkshire dale from Northallerton to Garsdale — a trip of almost 40 miles (64 km) in length (which would nearly make the railway itself the longest heritage line in the UK).