Low Moor railway station serves the villages of Low Moor and Oakenshaw in the south of

Bradford Bradford is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in West Yorkshire, England. It became a municipal borough in 1847, received a city charter in 1897 and, since the Local Government Act 1972, 1974 reform, the city status in the United Kingdo ...

West Yorkshire West Yorkshire is a Metropolitan counties of England, metropolitan and Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire to the north and east, South Yorkshire and De ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

. 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 Bradford Interchange is a transport interchange in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, which consists of a railway station and bus station adjacent. The Interchange, which was designed in 1962, was hailed as a showpiece of European design and wa ...

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 transport, r ...

facility, being close to the M62 and M606 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 sect ...

. Bus service 268, operated by

Arriva Arriva Ltd. is a British multinational public transport company headquartered in Sunderland, England. The company was originally established on 24 October 1938 as T Cowie Ltd. Initially focused on the sale of motorcycles, it relaunched shortl ...

provides regular onward connections towards Bradford city centre,

Cleckheaton Cleckheaton is a town in the metropolitan borough of Kirklees, West Yorkshire, England. Historic counties of England, Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, it is situated south of Bradford, east of Brighouse, west of Batley and so ...

, Liversedge, Heckmondwike and

Dewsbury Dewsbury is a market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees in West Yorkshire, England. It lies on the River Calder, West Yorkshire, River Calder and on an arm of the Calder and Hebble Navigation waterway. It is to the west of Wakefield, ...

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, West Yorkshire, Normanton where it made a junction with the North Midland Railway, over which it relied on running powers to access L ...

. It opened in 1848 and initially acted a terminus for both lines, as the continuation towards Bradford Exchange 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 c ...

in January 1852 and to Leeds via (over the Leeds, Bradford and Halifax Junction Railway) 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 The Beeching cuts, also colloquially referred to as the Beeching Axe, were a major series of route closures and service changes made as part of the restructuring of the nationalised railway system in Great Britain in the 1960s. They are named ...

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 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 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 ...

, 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 *One train per hour to only *One train per hour to via

*Four direct trains per day to London Kings Cross via From the winter 2019 timetable change, the Huddersfield service starts/terminates at Bradford rather than running through to Leeds on weekdays and Saturdays, but to compensate for this the hourly Leeds -

- Chester service started calling throughout the day. Sunday services remain unchanged (hourly services to Leeds and Huddersfield, plus three London trains).

References

External links