What would it take to make Horbury (West Yorks) station viable?

[Roast Veg]

This one gets kicked around every now and again, but I haven't found much on it from the past few years. The south side of Ossett and Horbury alone have a large population that would benefit greatly from a good fixed link towards Wakefield and Manchester. The site of the old station definitely has room for an island platform and the small number of industrial sites in the area would be straightforward to convert into a large car park without impacting on the green belt. Calling the new station "Horbury for Ossett" might even draw the catchment area out further. There's also a lot of new houses being built in the area.

The road access is not good. Storr's hill road is frequently blocked to traffic in one direction, and Horbury itself is full of zebra crossings and 20mph roads. A major existing flow towards Dewsbury can't be catered for without a new and very tight chord, which would only cause difficulties on an already busy line to Leeds. Speaking of Leeds, the line to the East is hardly useful beyond Wakefield Kirkgate (unless you're a big proponent of Knottingley to Goole or just want to see the line through Castleford used for anything at all), and wouldn't draw any traffic away from those who take the bus or a taxi to Wakefield Westgate today.

The route to Barnsley and Sheffield, while much easier to reinstate than a new alignment to Dewsbury, wouldn't allow a longer service to connect two larger population centres - at a stretch, you might be able to beat a Huddersfield to Barnsley via Penistone service on time or open up an extremely slow connection to Bradford via Halifax which I can't see being any quicker or more convenient for anyone than changing at Leeds. By the very nature of the connection you also miss out on serving Wakefield.

So is this former station dead in the floodwater, and just too poorly positioned to be any use? I've carefully avoided even mentioning the Healy Mills site, which looks set for absolutely no development at all.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Which location are you considering for a station? The obvious place to me would be where the main Huddersfield to Wakefield road crosses the railway at the eastern end of the former marshalling yard, near the former Procor wagon works. However this isn't Horbury, it's Horbury Bridge. Horbury itself is up the hill towards Wakefield. Then there's Horbury Junction which is a fair distance further along in the Wakefield direction, and where you'd need to build to serve the Barnsley line (unless you reinstate the Wakefield avoiding curve). Horbury Junction would not really be suitable as road access would be difficult and there isn't much there anyway.

The service that would serve a Horbury & Ossett station (the Huddersfield to Castleford) isn't exactly overcrowded, so there's capacity available to accommodate a new station. Had WYPTE put a station in during the 1980s or 1990s, it would probably do reasonably well, if not mind-blowing. However building a modern station today with all the required bells and whistles is probably far more difficult to make a case for. As the line doesn't serve Leeds, Metro won't be interested anyway.

As for redevelopment of Healey Mills, it's on a flood plain so probably unsuitable for housing unless big bucks are spent on drainage improvements.

 

[30907]

IMO without a service to Leeds (ie Hudds-Horbury-Kirkgate-Normanton-Leeds) I don't think it would be viable, but platforming at Leeds would be a challenge (unless you rejigged the whole service on the ex-MR route, which means somewhere else loses out...).

 

[61653 HTAFC]

IMO without a service to Leeds (ie Hudds-Horbury-Kirkgate-Normanton-Leeds) I don't think it would be viable, but platforming at Leeds would be a challenge (unless you rejigged the whole service on the ex-MR route, which means somewhere else loses out...).

A service as far as Wakefield would be useful for schools traffic (that's a big chunk of the usage of the Huddersfield to Castleford service today), but certainly Wakey or Castleford aren't on the same level as Leeds. West Yorkshire is certainly more of a polycentric region than Greater Manchester or Merseyside, but Leeds does still dominate. As I said, it's a shame a station wasn't built back when basic wooden platforms were acceptable, far harder to make a case for a marginal location like Horbury Bridge when your station is going to cost seven or even eight figures.

So to answer the OP's question, the thing that would make it viable would be finding a way for the service to run into Leeds (or failing that, York). The shifting of the Nottingham service might free up a slot at Leeds P17, so it isn't necessarily impossible.

 

[YorksLad12]

Horbury/Ossett to Wakefield is the only real market for that line; the other main destination would be Dewsbury with a change at Ravensthorpe post-TRU. Not worth a £10m station (approximate cost of Low Moor, which had mine workings to consider). And no chance of a curve to Dewsbury given the TRU build.

Leeds P17 won't have a free slot when the new Nottingham service starts, it'll be used by the Leeds-Sheffield semi-fast introduced to replace the existing Leeds-Sheffield-Nottingham service. Bearing in mind that plan is now five years old...

It's a nice idea, but with as much chance as, say, restoring the Menston curves to reconnect Otley.

 

[Roast Veg]

Which location are you considering for a station? The obvious place to me would be where the main Huddersfield to Wakefield road crosses the railway at the eastern end of the former marshalling yard, near the former Procor wagon works. However this isn't Horbury, it's Horbury Bridge. Horbury itself is up the hill towards Wakefield. Then there's Horbury Junction which is a fair distance further along in the Wakefield direction, and where you'd need to build to serve the Barnsley line (unless you reinstate the Wakefield avoiding curve). Horbury Junction would not really be suitable as road access would be difficult and there isn't much there anyway.

The former, on the main road.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

It really shouldn't be the case that a station there is too difficult or too expensive. An island platform at the Huddersfield road bridge with a ramp access shouldn't cost eight figures but this is the railway so of course it would. The lack of a Leeds service shouldn't be a major disadvantage either, but it somehow is because the bean-counters are only interested in getting people to the region's major business hub. A station at Horbury Bridge wouldn't even need a timetable recast or any additional rolling stock. I'm not aware of any mine workings in that immediate area, but given the large number of former pits in that part of the world, surveys would be needed to be sure.

Meanwhile in mid-Wales a village of less than 2,000 people (2011 census) is set to gain a station costing the best part of £8million. That doesn't strike me as a better use of apparently limited funds to be honest.

 

[YorksLad12]

It really shouldn't be the case that a station there is too difficult or too expensive. An island platform at the Huddersfield road bridge with a ramp access shouldn't cost eight figures but this is the railway so of course it would. The lack of a Leeds service shouldn't be a major disadvantage either, but it somehow is because the bean-counters are only interested in getting people to the region's major business hub. A station at Horbury Bridge wouldn't even need a timetable recast or any additional rolling stock. I'm not aware of any mine workings in that immediate area, but given the large number of former pits in that part of the world, surveys would be needed to be sure.

Meanwhile in mid-Wales a village of less than 2,000 people (2011 census) is set to gain a station costing the best part of £8million. That doesn't strike me as a better use of apparently limited funds to be honest.

To be clear: I don't think it's expensive per se (the cost is the cost): but it would be expensive for the service level and potential patronage. Plenty of space for an island station, I think, and you might even be able to squeeze in a car park somewhere. But where do people in Horbury like to go? Ravensthorpe, Mirfield and Huddersfield or Wakefield? Ossett used to be part of Dewsbury, now it's part of Wakefield district. So they would be one-way traffic as well as the line goes to one not the other.

Here's a thought. The Huddersfield - Wakefield route was kept to allow Huddersfield passengers to reach the hourly Inter-City service at Wakefield Westgate. It's now easier to take one of the five (normally) TPE services per hour to connect with one of the harlf-hourly (normally) LNER services (and the Hudds line doesn't run through to Westgate now). The carriage works have closed. So why is the line even open, apart from as a diversionary route? How many people are making that journey from Huddersfield and Mirfield to Kirkgate?

Incidentally: I have an old timetable from around 1990 with a map on the back that says, from memory, "Thornhill (opens 1991)" - so it was a definite intention, in the old B&Q-decking station days.

 

[Bevan Price]

One solution to the lack of paths at Leeds might be for Huddersfield & Sheffield/Barnsley line trains to run as combined portions between Wakefield Kirkgate & Leeds.

 

[Roast Veg]

Portion working is a bit of a liability for both lines surely?

 

[bluenoxid]

Although I can understand the push for a Leeds bound service, does Horbury have a Leeds bus service.

A possible opportunity to boost connectivity would be to use lighter trains on the five towns routes with a network that serves and terminates at Horbury or Ravensthorpe. If HS2 enables local services to be diverted into a new set of platforms, a new approach could be used for the five towns rail network.

 

[Roast Veg]

Although I can understand the push for a Leeds bound service, does Horbury have a Leeds bus service.

Not exactly. Average journey time by bus today (state of the world notwithstanding) is >1hr, whereas the train would be less than half that.

 

[nr758123]

There was a study of potential station sites in North and West Yorkshire done in 2014. Two sites close to Horbury were looked at. One described as Ossett Parkway and one called Horbury Bridge but which appears from the map to be at Horbury Junction, each a mile or so either side of where the A642 crosses the railway at Horbury Bridge. It's not obvious why those sites were chosen for study but Horbury Bridge wasn't.

Link is https://michaelbradleysblog.files.w...stations-study-report-v1-0-final-redacted.pdf.

Neither site scored highly in the assessment, with potential usage being poor. "Horbury Bridge" came in at 26 and Ossett Parkway at 56 out of 61 sites looked at. Then again, look at which site came in one place below Ossett Parkway.

 

[Roast Veg]

There was a study of potential station sites in North and West Yorkshire done in 2014. Two sites close to Horbury were looked at. One described as Ossett Parkway and one called Horbury Bridge but which appears from the map to be at Horbury Junction, each a mile or so either side of where the A642 crosses the railway at Horbury Bridge. It's not obvious why those sites were chosen for study but Horbury Bridge wasn't.

Link is https://michaelbradleysblog.files.w...stations-study-report-v1-0-final-redacted.pdf.

Neither site scored highly in the assessment, with potential usage being poor. "Horbury Bridge" came in at 26 and Ossett Parkway at 56 out of 61 sites looked at. Then again, look at which site came in one place below Ossett Parkway.

I believe the Horbury Bridge dot is actually in the wrong place, unless they are deliberately trying to sow confusion by giving it an inappropriate name!

Regardles of Bridge vs Junction, I agree with the assessment that the service provision through the line is too low at present. You could not build a station there today without a service enhancement in tandem.

Ossett Parkway makes zero sense. Healy Mills is a hopeless case and building in it is a heroically bad idea.

 

[Doctor Fegg]

Because this is Speculative Ideas and we need something truly crayonista...

Broad Cut Parkway on the line from Sheffield. Ideally suited for M1 junction 39. Here: https://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=53.6523&mlon=-1.5393#map=15/53.6523/-1.5393

Station on the north bank. Car park on either side of the Calder.

Access to the south bank would be by driving over this major canal bridge - https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/739728 - then parking up and walking through this super-salubrious bridge - https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/732752 .

I'll have my £1m consultancy fee when it's built and a roaring success.

 

[Roast Veg]

Perfect - then Ossett gets a third station just too far away to be useful, and Wakefield gets a park-and-ride that everybody has been crying out for!

 

[37424]

One solution to the lack of paths at Leeds might be for Huddersfield & Sheffield/Barnsley line trains to run as combined portions between Wakefield Kirkgate & Leeds.

It strikes me the the Sheffield-Leeds stopper via Castleford is something of a legacy train from the days before the 2 semi fast service ran and was the only train on that route is it really needed now? I would extend the Huddersfield service to Leeds via Castleford and cut back the Sheffield to Leeds stopper to Barnsley and stick Darton on one of the Semi Fast Services.