SKIPTON TO COLNE: The History of The Line and it's sudden Closure #railways #disusedstations

The construction of the Skipton-Colne ‘branch’ was an initiative born on the east side of the Pennines as an extension of the Leeds & Bradford Railway (L&B), although it would become part of a trans-Pennine route when it joined the East Lancashire Railway at Colne. The origins of the Skipton-Colne line can be traced back to the North Midland Railway that opened from Derby to Masborough (Rotherham) on 11 May 1840 then on to Leeds (Hunslet Lane) on 1 July 1840. This company merged with the Midland Counties and Birmingham & Derby Junction railways to form the Midland Railway (MR) on 10 May 1844. The MR became one of the most important railway companies in Great Britain with a network that extended from London, Dorset and South Wales to the Scottish border. The Leeds & Bradford Railway followed the valley of the River Aire and the Leeds & Liverpool Canal westwards from Leeds to Shipley, where it turned southwards to Bradford. The company was incorporated by Act of Parliament on 4 July 1844, and the line was built in almost exactly two years and opened officially on 30 June 1846. In Leeds the line was connected to the MR’s Hunslet Lane terminus in Leeds by means of a short spur and a connecting loop at Holbeck Water Lane and Canal Junction. The Act of 1844 was granted on the understanding that an extension would be built from the Bradford terminus, through Halifax to join the Manchester & Leeds Railway (M&L) in the Calder Valley. Avoiding a digression here into 1840s railway politics, in November 1845 all seemed set for such an extension to go ahead and also for the L&B and M&L to amalgamate. However, history was to take a different course. Alan Young