page_title: Halifax railway station (England)
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Halifax railway station (England) / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Halifax old and new railway stations, West Yorkshire, England.
context_page_description: Halifax railway station serves the town of Halifax in West Yorkshire, England. It lies on the Caldervale Line and is 17 miles west from Leeds.
  Platform 2 heads eastbound, towards Bradford and Leeds, while platform 1 heads westbound towards Brighouse, Huddersfield, Sowerby Bridge, Blackpool North and Manchester Victoria. The two routes divide about a mile south of the station at Dryclough Junction.
  To the east, the line also divided with the current line passing into Beacon Hill tunnel and a disused line via Halifax North Bridge to Ovenden, then going on to a junction at Holmfield with the Halifax High level line which had stations in Pellon and at St Paul's, Queens Road; and via Queensbury to Bradford and Keighley, for destinations in the North-West.
context_section_description: The original station was built at Shaw Syke, approximately 220 yards (200 m) west of the current location and opened on 1 July 1844 by the Manchester and Leeds Railway as the terminus of a branch off their main line from Manchester to Normanton. With the opening of the line between Halifax and Bradford on 7 August 1850, a new station was opened on the current site; this had temporary wooden buildings. The station at Shaw Syke was then extended and used as a goods depot The permanent buildings at the current site were designed by Thomas Butterworth and opened on 23 June 1855. This Grade II listed building now houses the nursery associated with the Eureka! Children's Museum.
  A new line was constructed by the Great Northern Railway in the mid-1870s from the main station over a long viaduct to a station at North Bridge, then across and indeed partly in tunnel beneath the hilly terrain north of the town to an unusual triangular station at Queensbury, where the line divided into track for Keighley (and Skipton, Carlisle and Morecambe) to the north-west and Bradford in the east.
  Halifax station was redesigned during 1884–85 and completely rebuilt during 1885–86. Part of the new station opened on 25 October 1885 and the remainder on 30 May 1886. The new station had separate accommodation for LYR and GNR trains; the latter being on the west side.
  The Halifax High Level Railway was a related branch line opened in 1890, leading from Holmfield near Ovenden, on the line to Queensbury, through a half-mile tunnel through the ridge and across the Wheatley Valley on a ten arch viaduct past Samuel Webster's brewery, to Pellon, where there were sizeable goods facilities and then to St Paul's railway station in Queens Road. This branch line gradually fell into disuse, losing its regular passenger service as early as 1917. The last goods train ran in 1960 and the line was then dismantled, leaving the viaduct standing as a reminder of the former freight link.
  The Queensbury branch as a whole was closed in stages from 1955 onwards, although many of its engineering features remain. The route has lately been adopted and to an extent brought back into public use and attention by Sustrans as a walking and cycle route. The principal structure on the line, Queensbury Tunnel, was, at its opening, the longest on the GNR system at 2,501 yards (2.287 km). It is currently derelict, partially flooded and impassible, although a campaign is (2017) underway to save it for inclusion in the Sustrans route.
  To distinguish it from Halifax St. Paul's and Halifax North Bridge stations, the main station was known from June 1890 as Halifax Old Station. On 30 September 1951, the name was changed again to Halifax Town and, on 12 June 1961, it reverted to Halifax.
caption: The Victorian and adjoining modern stations
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