Hellifield railway station

Hellifield is a railway station on the Bentham Line, which runs between Leeds and Morecambe via Skipton. The station, situated 36 miles 17 chains (58.3 km) north-west of Leeds, serves the village of Hellifield, Craven in North Yorkshire, England. It is owned by Network Rail and managed by Northern Trains.

Hellifield
General information
Location	Hellifield, Craven England
Coordinates	54°00′38″N 2°13′37″W
Grid reference	SD851572
Owned by	Network Rail
Managed by	Northern Trains
Platforms	2
Tracks	2
Other information
Station code	HLD
Classification	DfT category F2
History
Original company	"Little" North Western Railway
Pre-grouping	Midland Railway
Post-grouping	London, Midland and Scottish Railway British Rail (London Midland Region)
Key dates
30 July 1849	Opened
1 June 1880	Resited
Passengers
2019/20	32,384
2020/21	6,528
2021/22	28,304
2022/23	27,512
2023/24	29,030
Listed Building – Grade II
Feature	Original Midland Railway station building
Designated	7 April 1977
Reference no.	1131702[1]
Location Hellifield Location in North Yorkshire, England
Notes Passenger statistics from the Office of Rail and Road

History

The first Hellifield railway station was opened by the "Little" North Western Railway in 1849. It was a modest structure, similar to those at Gargrave and Long Preston and sited 1⁄4 mile (0.4 km) to the south of the present one.^[2]

The station, as photographed in June 1959.

A much larger replacement (the current station) was built by the Midland Railway to the designs of architect Charles Trubshaw^[3] and opened on 1 June 1880,^[4] immediately to the north of the junction of the line from Leeds and the newly completed Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway route from Blackburn via Clitheroe. It soon became a busy junction (as it was now located on the Midland Railway's main line from London to Scotland), with trains going to:

• Clitheroe
• Skipton
• Leeds
• Blackburn
• Settle
• Carlisle
• Manchester Victoria
• Morecambe

It was also the location of a busy locomotive depot and a large goods yard.

The line from Blackburn had its local passenger service withdrawn on 10 September 1962,^[5] but it remains open for goods traffic and periodic diversions when the West Coast main line is closed north of Preston for engineering work. The adjacent locomotive shed closed the following year and local trains from the station to Carlisle ended in May 1970, although it continued to be served by expresses to and from Glasgow until 1975. Thereafter it was downgraded to unstaffed halt status and served only by stopping trains between Leeds and Morecambe.

In April 1977 the main station building was designated as a Grade II listed building.^[1]

Hi-key monochrome of 46115 Scots Guardsman with "The Dalesman" at Hellifield, in preparation for the Settle - Carlisle run, September 2021

By the late 1980s the main buildings and canopies were in very poor condition and under threat of demolition, but following a £500,000 cash injection from British Rail in conjunction with English Heritage and the Railway Heritage Trust,^[6] they were refurbished and returned to private commercial use. Trains to and from Carlisle also started calling again in May 1995 to further encourage use of the station and its newly restored amenities.

Between 2005 and 2008, the station was used as the operating base for Kingfisher Railtours' Dalesman steam-hauled charter trains over the Settle-Carlisle Line.^[7] Facilities on offer to the travelling public at the station include the Long Drag cafe & gift shop and a heritage room used to exhibit items and photographs connected to the Settle-Carlisle route. The station is also still used by special trains and steam-hauled railway tours as a water stop and traction changeover point. It has also undergone further structural refurbishment in the summer of 2013, with Network Rail carrying out £500,000 of work on the Grade II listed buildings to repair/replace the glazing and repaint the canopies.^[8][9] The station has full step-free access, via a subway with inclined ramp from the main entrance.^[10] Train running information can be obtained from timetable posters or by telephone, with digital PIS screens (along with a ticket machine) these were installed as part of a rolling station upgrade programme by the train operator Arriva Rail North.

Plasser & Theurer Tamping Machine, Colas Rail, at Hellifield, September 2021

The last remaining signal box at the station (there were three until 1966) is one of only two manual boxes left in operation between Leeds and Carnforth (the other being at Settle Junction). It acts as the 'fringe' box to the Leeds workstation of York IECC in the Skipton direction, as well as controlling the junction and a pair of goods loops that are used to help regulate the increasingly heavy levels of freight traffic on the Carlisle, Leeds and Blackburn lines.

Accidents and incidents

• On 22 December 1955, an express passenger train overran signals and was in a rear-end collision with another. Irregular operation of signals was a major contributory factor and the signalman at Hellifield South Junction was blamed for the accident.^[11]

Services

Northern Trains Route 7
v t e
Settle & Carlisle & Bentham lines
Carlisle Armathwaite Lazonby & Kirkoswald Langwathby Appleby Kirkby Stephen Garsdale Dent Ribblehead Horton-in-Ribblesdale Settle Heysham Port Morecambe Bare Lane Lancaster Carnforth Wennington Bentham Clapham Giggleswick Long Preston Hellifield Gargrave Skipton Keighley Bingley Shipley Leeds

There is a regular service each day from Hellifield to Leeds and to Carlisle and Lancaster. There are sixteen services southbound on weekdays and seventeen on Saturdays (of which one runs only to Skipton). Northbound there are eight trains each to Lancaster and to Carlisle plus one evening service to Ribblehead – these run about every two hours. Five of the Lancaster trains run through to Morecambe. One train ran through to Heysham to connect with the daily ferry service to the Isle of Man, but from May 2018 it is necessary to change at Lancaster for Heysham (except on Sundays).

On Sundays there are six trains to Carlisle, five to Morecambe and eleven to Leeds, one of which continues to Nottingham.^[12]

Also on Sundays in the summer, a train operated from Blackpool North, Preston and Blackburn and along the Ribble Valley Line via Clitheroe to Hellifield and onwards towards Carlisle in the summer (this terminated/started here in the winter but with an onward connection north). This service, DalesRail, was operated by Northern Trains but ceased in December 2022. There are plans for more services from Clitheroe, with a twice-each-way Saturday service to/from there (and Manchester Victoria) having started in June 2024. The Ribble Valley Rail group is campaigning for this route to be re-opened.

Preceding station	National Rail			Following station
Gargrave towards Leeds		Northern Trains Leeds to Morecambe Line		Long Preston towards Morecambe
Gargrave towards Leeds		Northern Trains Settle and Carlisle Line		Long Preston towards Carlisle via Settle
	Historical railways
Newsholme		Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Ribble Valley Line		Terminus
Bell Busk		Midland Railway "Little" North Western Railway		Long Preston

References

1. Historic England. "Hellifield Station Main Passenger Building (1131702)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 2 August 2014.
2. Binns 1982, p. 33.
3. Pevsner, Nikolaus; Leach, Peter (2009). The Buildings of England. Yorkshire West Riding Leeds Bradford and the North. Yale University Press. p. 331. ISBN 9780300126655.
4. Binns 1981, p. 3.
5. Daniels, Gerald David; Dench, Leslie Alan (February 1963) [1962]. Passengers No More 1952–1962. Closures of stations and branch lines (PDF) (2nd ed.). Brighton: GLO. p. 8. OCLC 504319235.
6. "New Efforts To Bring Station back To Life". Telegraph & Argus. 11 March 2005. Retrieved 17 October 2008.^{[permanent dead link‍]}
7. "Kingfisher Railtours – The Dalesman". Archived from the original on 12 September 2008. Retrieved 17 October 2008.
8. "Makeover for historic Hellifield station" (press release). Network Rail Media Centre. Archived from the original on 7 March 2016. Retrieved 14 October 2013.
9. "Hellifield Station to Get 500,000 Facelift". Craven Herald & Pioneer. 17 July 2013. Retrieved 14 October 2013.
10. Hellifield Station Details National Rail Enquiries; Retrieved 25 November 2016
11. Vaughan 1989, pp. 100–04.
12. Table 35 National Rail timetable, June 2024

Sources

• Binns, Donald (1981). Railways Around Skipton. Skipton: Wyvern Publications. ISBN 978-0-907941-30-9.
• Binns, Donald (1982). The Little North Western Railway. Skipton: Wyvern Publications. ISBN 978-0-907941-01-9.
• Vaughan, Adrian (1989). Obstruction Danger. Wellingborough: Patrick Stephens Limited. ISBN 978-1-85260-055-6.

External links

• Media related to Hellifield railway station at Wikimedia Commons
• Train times and station information for Hellifield railway station from National Rail