Leeds-Northallerton Railway
| Leeds–Northallerton Railway | |
|---|---|
Bramhope Tunnel
|
|
| Overview | |
| Locale |
West Yorkshire North Yorkshire Yorkshire and the Humber |
| Operation | |
| Opened | 1852 |
| Owner | Network Rail |
| Technical | |
| Track gauge | 1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in) standard gauge |
The Leeds–Northallerton railway is a partly disused railway line between West and North Yorkshire, in northern England.
The line was opened by the Leeds Northern Railway, in the 1850s.
The Leeds and Thirsk Railway via Starbeck opened on 9 July 1848. In 1852 as the Leeds Northern Railway the extension to Northallerton and Stockton opened. The line then became part of the North Eastern Railway in the 1854 amalgamation. All three stations at Leeds (Central, Wellington and New) were used at various times.
The section between Leeds and Harrogate is still extant, but its trains now serve a former branch line to York instead of continuing through Ripon to Northallerton.
The line north of Harrogate was closed a few years after the publication of Richard Beeching's The Reshaping of British Railways report. The route was closed to passenger traffic on 6 March 1967, but a limited number of freight trains used the line to Ripon until 1969. It was supposed that closing this stretch of line would have little impact, since passengers travelling north could join the East Coast Main Line at York. The stretch was temporarily re-opened as an emergency diversionary route during the Thirsk rail crash.
The closure of the northern section of the line meant an end to over 100 years of railway service to the city of Ripon.
In 2005, North Yorkshire County Council commissioned Ove Arup to undertake a feasibility study into the possibility of reopening the closed stretch of line between Harrogate and Ripon.
The city was previously served by Ripon railway station on the Leeds-Northallerton line that ran between Leeds and Northallerton. It was once part of the North Eastern Railway and then LNER.
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