Mirfield railway station

Coordinates: 53°40′18″N 1°41′36″W / 53.6716°N 1.6933°W / 53.6716; -1.6933
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Mirfield
Northern
Transit authorityWest Yorkshire Metro
Platforms3
Other information
Station codeMIR
Fare zone3
ClassificationDfT category F1
History
Original companyManchester and Leeds Railway
Pre-groupingLancashire and Yorkshire Railway
Post-groupingLondon, Midland and Scottish Railway
Key dates
April 1845First station opened
5 March 1866Station resited
Passengers
2018/19Decrease 0.452 million
2019/20Decrease 0.447 million
2020/21Decrease 0.102 million
2021/22Increase 0.323 million
 Interchange 24,263
2022/23Increase 0.375 million
 Interchange Decrease 20,168
Location
Map
Notes
Passenger statistics from the Office of Rail and Road

Mirfield railway station serves the town of

Northern and Grand Central train operating companies, and is served by TransPennine Express as well. The station is 4 miles (6 km) north east from Huddersfield
.

The platforms have an unusual configuration. Platforms 1 and 2 form an island platform on the western side of the bridge over Station Road/Hopton New Road. Trains from Platform 1 go to

Halifax, Bradford Interchange and Brighouse
(westbound). The train to Leeds takes around 25 minutes and to reach Huddersfield takes around 10 minutes.

History

Eastbound empties west of Mirfield in 1950
Eastbound empties passing Mirfield Station in 1964
Overall roof being demolished, October 1977

The town received its first railway in 1840, when the

LNWR (which had absorbed both the H&M and LD&M by 1849) had originally planned to build its own route through Mirfield, but after negotiations with the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway
(successors to the M&L) agreed to not to go ahead in return for the granting of running powers over the Thornhill to Heaton Lodge section (and also allowing the L&Y access to Huddersfield). This meant that the railway passing through the town soon became extremely congested, carrying as it did the traffic on two main trunk routes between Manchester and Leeds (the Huddersfield & Manchester company having completed its route through Stalybridge in August 1849) and it led to the station gaining a notorious reputation for delays. This persisted even after the Heaton Lodge - Thornhill section was quadrupled in 1884,[3] and it was not until the LNWR opened an alternative Huddersfield to Leeds route at the turn of the century that the situation began to improve. To facilitate interchange, a new station was built 202 yd (185 m) to the east of the original; the contract for the station (excluding roof) was placed on 25 May 1864, the roof contract being placed on 26 April 1865. The new station centred on a large island platform with overall roof, and facilities included a hotel, buffet and billiard room; it opened on 5 March 1866.[4][5]

Today the station remains busy, despite the loss of the Spen Valley service to Bradford from 14 June 1965[6] and the links to Normanton and York on 5 January 1970 (the line via Brighouse also closed at the same time, but this reopened in 2000 for peak hour services). It has also lost its buildings to demolition (in the mid-1980s) and one of its four tracks but gained the aforementioned third platform as part of a set of capacity improvements in the late 1980s.

Facilities

The station is unstaffed and has a ticket machine available on the platform. Digital display screens, timetable posters and automated announcements provide train running information. Shelters are provided on each platform, but only platform 3 has step-free access (from the station car park). Access to the older island platform is via a subway with stairs up to platform level.[7] Platform 3 is to be extended by December 2018 as part of a Network Rail plan to extend more than 100 platforms at 70 stations across the north of England.[8]

Services

Northern

Eastbound from Mirfield, an hourly service to Leeds.[9] Services to Wakefield and Castleford no longer run - the regular service that once ran was suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic and has never been properly reinstated)[10]

Westbound - there is an hourly daytime service to

Calder Valley Line.[11]

There are no Northern services on a Sunday.

TransPennine Express

Since the May 2018 timetable change, TransPennine Express services now call here hourly each direction seven days per week. Eastbound trains serve local stations to Leeds, then continue as expresses to

Manchester Piccadilly. There is now also a limited (two morning and two afternoon departures) service to York via Wakefield Kirkgate, which replaces the now defunct Northern local service to Wakefield and was introduced at the December 2023 timetable change.[12]

Grand Central – West Riding

The station sees a number of direct services to London Kings Cross via

Halifax and Brighouse) to London service accepted by the Office of Rail Regulation. In the December 2017 timetable, four trains call in each direction throughout the week (including Sundays). This service temporarily stopped during the COVID-19 pandemic but resumed in December 2020.[13]

Future

In February 2019, it was revealed that Mirfield was in line for a new station as part of the £3 billion TransPennine Route Upgrade.[14] The plans involve the reconstruction of the current platforms 1 and 2 on what will become the 'slow' lines between Heaton Lodge and Thornhill LNW junctions, along with the restoration of the fourth line to complete the 'fast' lines between those two points. The existing platform 3 would be demolished under this scheme.

Notes

  1. ^ Bairstow 1983, p. 13
  2. ^ Bairstow 1983, p. 14
  3. ^ Bairstow 1983, p. 15
  4. ^ Marshall 1969, pp. 226–7
  5. ^ Butt 1995, p. 161
  6. ^ Body 1988, p. 124
  7. ^ "Mirfield station facilities". National Rail Enquiries. Retrieved 16 January 2017.
  8. ^ "North of England Platform Extension Programme". Network Rail (Press release). Retrieved 18 November 2018.
  9. ^ Table 37 National Rail timetable, December 2023
  10. ^ Table 31 National Rail timetable, May 2023
  11. ^ GB eNRT, Table 37
  12. ^ Table 39 National Rail timetable, December 2023
  13. ^ "West Yorkshire and Doncaster timetable – from 11 December 2016 to 20 May 2017". Grand Central. Retrieved 21 April 2016.
  14. ^ Earnshaw, Tony (22 February 2019). "Mirfield "to get new station"". Telegraph & Argus. Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. Retrieved 23 February 2019.

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Mirfield railway station.
Preceding station   National Rail National Rail   Following station
Deighton  
North TransPennine (Manchester - Leeds)
   Ravensthorpe
 
Huddersfield Line (Huddersfield - Wakefield Kirkgate
) 		  Wakefield Kirkgate
Brighouse   Grand Central
West Riding (Bradford Interchange - London Kings Cross) 		 
 
Calder Valley Line (Southport - Leeds
) 		  Dewsbury
Disused railways
(Line and station closed)
LYRTerminus
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