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Halifax
Station entrance from the forecourt
General information
Location	Halifax, Calderdale England
Coordinates	53°43′14″N 1°51′14″W / 53.720650°N 1.853790°W / 53.720650; -1.853790
Grid reference	SE097249
Managed by	Northern
Transit authority	West Yorkshire (Metro)
Platforms	2
Other information
Station code	HFX
Fare zone	4
Classification	DfT category C2
History
Original company	Manchester and Leeds Railway
Pre-grouping	Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway
Post-grouping	London, Midland and Scottish Railway
Key dates
1 July 1844	First station opened as Halifax Shaw Syke
7 August 1850	Resited and named Halifax
23 June 1855	Permanent buildings opened
1885–86	Rebuilt and enlarged
June 1890	Renamed Halifax Old
30 September 1951	Renamed Halifax Town
12 June 1961	Renamed Halifax
Passengers
2019/20	1.914 million
Interchange	53,319
2020/21	0.369 million
Interchange	15,671
2021/22	1.165 million
Interchange	49,706
2022/23	1.419 million
Interchange	56,092
2023/24	1.621 million
Interchange	54,635
Notes Passenger statistics from the Office of Rail and Road

Halifax railway station serves the town of Halifax in West Yorkshire, England. It lies on the Calder Valley line and is 17 miles (27 km) west from Leeds.

Platform 2 is used by eastbound services towards Bradford and Leeds, while platform 1 accommodates westbound trains 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.

Description

The station has a car park, bicycle parking and a pick up point, like many other stations. There is also a staffed ticket booth with option of paying for a ticket using a ticket machine. A lift to the platform is available for wheelchair users, but there are currently no lower counters for easier access to buy tickets.

Entry to the station is via a cobbled road bridge from opposite the bottom of Horton Street.

History

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 housed the nursery associated with the Eureka! Children's Museum until its closure on 18 December 2020.

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 with six through platforms in 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.

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.

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 impassable, although a campaign is underway to save it for inclusion in the Sustrans route, though funding was refused in 2020.

A campaign, run by the local newspaper the Halifax Evening Courier, was started to get the station refurbished. The paper said that it wanted a station fit "for the 21st century" and that its current state was "disgraceful". Due to the amount of support generated, Network Rail and Northern agreed to do so.

Work began in May 2009 on a £2.5 million refurbishment scheme that has seen the station footbridge and canopies repaired, new glazing and lighting installed and repainting of the structures. The second phase of the refurbishment, covering the platform and the concourse, was completed in November 2010.

In October 2014, plans were submitted to bring platform 3 back into use to create three platforms together with signalling improvements. Network Rail subsequently announced plans to upgrade the eastern portion of the Calder Valley line in 2017, which will see the surviving signal box here closed. Control of the upgraded track layout and new signalling was passed to the York Rail Operating Centre in October 2018.

Services

v t e Calderdale Lines
Legend
Past, present and future
to Bradford to Bradford Queensbury Holmfield Bailiff Bridge Lightcliffe Clifton Road Ovenden to Kirklees North Bridge Brighouse Hipperholme Pellon Elland Power Station Halifax St Pauls Elland Halifax Town South Parade Greetland Shaw Syke Rochdale Road Halt Copley West Vale Stainland and Holywell Green Sowerby Bridge Luddendenfoot Watson's Crossing Halt Mytholmroyd Triangle to Burnley Ripponden and Barkisland Portsmouth Rishworth Cornholme Hebden Bridge Stansfield Hall Eastwood Todmorden Walsden to Rochdale

Northern Trains Route 9
v t e
Calder Valley Line and East Lancashire Line
York Ulleskelf Church Fenton Micklefield East Garforth Garforth Cross Gates Leeds Bramley New Pudsey Bradford Interchange Low Moor Halifax Sowerby Bridge Mytholmroyd Hebden Bridge Manchester Victoria Moston Mills Hill Castleton Rochdale Smithy Bridge Littleborough Walsden Todmorden Colne Nelson Brierfield Burnley Central Burnley Barracks Burnley Manchester Road Rose Grove Hapton Huncoat Accrington Church and Oswaldtwistle Rishton Blackburn Mill Hill Cherry Tree Pleasington Bamber Bridge Lostock Hall Preston Salwick Kirkham and Wesham Poulton-le-Fylde Blackpool North Moss Side Lytham Ansdell and Fairhaven St Annes-on-the-Sea Squires Gate Blackpool Pleasure Beach Blackpool South
Burnley Barracks, Hapton and Pleasington are request stops.

Eastbound: Monday to Saturdays there are now five departures per hour to Bradford, of which four continue to Leeds (the ex-Huddersfield service terminates at Bradford). Two of the latter continue beyond Leeds - one to York and the other to Hull (the latter starts here and was introduced at the winter 2019 timetable change). Fewer trains run in the evening.

Westbound: Monday to Saturday daytimes there is a half-hourly service to Manchester Victoria (hourly evenings), one train an hour to Blackpool North and one per hour to Huddersfield via Brighouse. One of the two Manchester trains is limited stop (calling only at Hebden Bridge, Todmorden and Rochdale), whilst the other calls at all intermediate stations to Todmorden, then fast to Rochdale & Manchester. The latter now runs through to Chester via Warrington Bank Quay. One service per hour from the Leeds direction terminates here.

On Sundays there is a hourly service to each of Blackpool North and Huddersfield and two per hour to Manchester (with hourly extensions to Chester).

New Northern Rail franchisee Arriva Rail North planned to introduce additional services to Leeds & Manchester in 2019, many of which would run through to either Liverpool Lime Street or Chester. Through services to Manchester Airport were promised once the Ordsall Chord was completed, but capacity issues in the Castlefield Junction area have seen these postponed for the foreseeable future. The Chester service began running at the May 2019 timetable change. Further alterations at the December 2019 change will see the Huddersfield service start/terminate at Bradford, but a new service to Hull via Selby introduced to maintain the frequency for through trains to Leeds and restore through service to stations east of there.

London services

The station now sees regular services to London King's Cross via Wakefield Kirkgate, Pontefract and Doncaster. In January 2009, Grand Central had their application for train paths to run a Bradford Interchange to London service accepted by the Office of Rail Regulation. Three trains per day initially operated once full approval for the service was granted - these use Class 180 units and started running from 23 May 2010. A fourth service to and from London commenced in December 2013

Preceding station	National Rail			Following station
Sowerby Bridge		Northern Calder Valley Line		Low Moor
Brighouse
Brighouse		Grand Central London-Bradford		Low Moor
	Disused railways
Copley		Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway		North Bridge
Greetland				Hipperholme

See also

• Listed buildings in Halifax, West Yorkshire

References

1. Station facilities at Halifax
2. Heritage Locations - Halifax Station www.transportheritage.com; Retrieved 2 December 2013
3. Marshall, John (1969). The Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway, volume 1. Newton Abbot: David & Charles. p. 60. ISBN 0-7153-4352-1.
4. ^ Butt, R.V.J. (1995). The Directory of Railway Stations. Yeovil: Patrick Stephens Ltd. p. 112. ISBN 1-85260-508-1. R508.
5. Marshall 1969, pp. 251, 253
6. Our Early Railways - Halifax Town Online Archived 3 December 2013 at the Wayback Machine Washington, Geoffrey (1 April 2008), www.halifaxtown.co.uk; Retrieved 2 December 2013
7. Railway Station, Halifax; From Weaver to Web www.calderdale.gov.uk; Retrieved 2 December 2013
8. Marshall 1969, p. 253
9. Marshall, John (1970). The Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway, volume 2. Newton Abbot: David & Charles. p. 120. ISBN 0-7153-4906-6.
10. Mitchinson, James, ed. (23 June 2020). "Funding blow hits plan to re-open rail tunnel as cycleway". The Yorkshire Post. p. 10. ISSN 0963-1496.
11. Featherstone, Megan (1 March 2007). "Give Halifax a proper station". Halifax Evening Courier. Retrieved 19 May 2010.
12. Featherstone, Megan (19 March 2007). "Action pledge on our station". Halifax Evening Courier. Retrieved 19 May 2010.
13. "£2.5 million Investment at Halifax Station" (Press release). Network Rail. 11 May 2009. Archived from the original on 29 February 2012. Retrieved 19 May 2010.
14. Halifax Rail Station refurbishment (Second phase of work)
15. "Ambitions for multi-million pound revamp of Halifax railway station". Halifax Courier. 17 October 2014. Archived from the original on 18 October 2014. Retrieved 18 October 2014.
16. "Track and signalling works target journey time and capacity" Halifax and District Rail Action Group; Retrieved 11 August 2017
17. "West Yorkshire signalling upgrade". networkrail.co.uk. Retrieved 4 January 2019.
18. Table 37 National Rail timetable, May 2023
19. "Northern Franchise Improvements - DfT". Archived from the original on 24 July 2019. Retrieved 17 December 2015.
20. New trains pledged as Government changes Yorkshire’s main local rail operatorThe Star news article 9 December 2015; Retrieved 17 December 2015
21. ORR Track Access Applications Decision for ECML Passenger Services - 28 January 2009 Archived 24 March 2009 at the UK Government Web Archive ORR Website; Retrieved 29 January 2009
22. Grand Central Rail - Future Developments www.grandcentralrail.co.uk; Retrieved 21 August 2009
23. RAIL issue 641
24. Grand Central On Track To Deliver Extra Service in YorkshireGrand Central press release; Retrieved 14 October 2013

External links

• Train times and station information for Halifax railway station (England) from National Rail

• Railway stations in Calderdale
• DfT Category C2 stations
• Former Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway stations
• Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1844
• Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1850
• Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1850
• Railway stations served by Grand Central Railway
• Railway stations served by Northern
• Buildings and structures in Halifax, West Yorkshire
• Transport in Halifax, West Yorkshire