Railways

Railways in the Morley District

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Map		The Lines
The Tunnels	Bridges and Viaducts	Goods Depots

Much of the Morley district is on the ridge between the Aire and Calder Valleys with the majority well above sea level. Prior to the railway era, roads leading to Morley which were on the ridge were reasonable but not those coming from Leeds, Batley and Dewsbury.

By the 1840s, Railway mania had captured the imagination of the country due to the speed of the transport and the number of people or goods that could be carried.

But the hilly nature of Morley was a major stumbling block in any railway system which connected it to Leeds and the Pennine towns.

Such were the rewards that a plan was in fact conceived quite quickly to set up such a system. The plan needed a big viaduct from Churwell and a tunnel, just under 2 miles long to enable a line from lower Morley and Howley which travelled under the hilly town.  It needed over £225,000 to finance (around £19.5m in today’s prices) and took 2 years to open in 1848.  Certain details of the project are hard to come by but we will detail those we have in the near future..

Less than 10 years later, riding on the railway boom, a considerably easier link was established between Bradford and Wakefield which took in Drighlington, Gildersome, Morley (at a new station), Tingley and Ardsley.

Thereafter, other lines were added to this basic network as these advantages came to be clearly seen.

The impact on local trading of raw materials (coal, wool and cotton) and finished articles (mainly cloth) and accessibility of the surrounds was great, enabling local people to travel much greater distances than previous.

This continued until the 1960s when road transport began to erode the advantages of the railway and there was then a massive decline over the next 30 years so that now only the initial line remains in its original form. 

The Lines

Line	Company	Opened	Status
Leeds-Morley Low-Morley Tunnel-Dewsbury	Leeds, Dewsbury and Manchester	18/09/1848	Still Active
Bradford-Drighlington-Gildersome-Morley Top-Ardsley	Leeds, Bradford and Halifax Junction	10/10/1857	Closed 04/07/1966
Holbeck Jctn-Dunningley viaduct-Ardsley Tunnel-Ardsley-Wakefield	Bradford, Wakefield and Leeds	05/10/1857	Leeds-Wakefield link electrified in 1989 after station closures in 1966.
Adwalton-Howden Clough-Batley	Leeds, Bradford and Halifax Junction	19/08/1863	Closed 07/09/1964
Batley-Soothill Tunnel-Woodkirk-Tingley-Beeston	Great Northern Railway	01/08/1890	Closed 29/10/1951
Spen Valley-Birstall-Gildersome Tunnel-St Bernards-Farnley	Great Northern Railway	01/10/1900	Closed 02/08/1963
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The Tunnels

Map	Tunnel	Length	Opening	Present State
T1	Morley Tunnel	1mi (3.07 Km)	1848	Still used
T2	Gildersome Tunnel	1.yyy Miles (2.13 km)	1900	Abandoned
T3	Gildersome Street	0.07 Miles (0.14 Km)	1857	Filled in
T4	Woodkirk (Soothill)	0.4 Miles (0.6 km)	1890	Abandoned
T5	Ardsley	0.14 Miles (0.27 Km)	1857	Used again after the Leeds-Wakefield Line was electrified in 1989.
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 Stone Viaducts and Overhead Railway Bridges

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One viaduct, going over Bridge Street and High Street was needed locally when Drighlington and Ardsley were connected and the numerous highways in this area necessitated more railway bridges. The track went over the highway in most cases but that on Fountain Street was an exception, giving local schoolboys a great opportunity for train-spotting.

Goods Depots

Map	Depot	Existence
G1	Robin Hood Quarry – Scatcherd Park	Stopped 1929
G2	Victoria Colliery – Bruntcliffe	1857-1930 (mine closure)
G3	Tanhouse Colliery – Churwell	1893 – closed after a strike
G4	Topcliffe Colliery – Tingley Gas Works – Tingley	1860-1928 (mine closure) 1948-1970 (site closure)
G5	Britannia Quarry – Woodkirk	1892-1964
G6	Howley Park Quarry	1892-1964
G7	Howley Park Colliery	1920c
G8	West End Colliery	1945c
G9	Howden Clough Colliery	1933c
G10	Wire Hall Colliery – Adwalton	1906c
G11	Hudson’s Foundry – Gildersome	1865-1966
G12	Hunslet – Goods Branch	1899-1967
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For the sake of clarity, the following Goods depots were omitted from the map

Station	Depots	Existence
Morley Low	Goods Depot; Morley Gasworks; Morley Main Colliery	1848-1959 1848-1948 (works closed) 1855-1909 (mine closure)
Morley Top	Goods Depot	1857-1969 (station closed)
Ardsley	Goods Depot Ardsley Ironworks East Ardsley Colliery	1857-1969 1860-1929 (works closed) 1872-1968 (mine closure; the last in the district)
Gildersome	Goods Depot	1857-1966
Drighlington	Goods Depot	1857-1966

We have used the thorough research of A.J. Haigh extensively in compiling this article.

The group AdventureMe has done a number of YouTube videos of sections of the Morley Railways including Ardsley Station, the Dunningley Viaduct and Tingley, and Gildersome and Drighlington Stations. These can be found by searching YouTube and that made for Morley Top Station is shown below:

Present Day view of the Morley Top area

Present Day view of the Gildersome and Drighlington Station areas

Present Day view of Tingley Station and Dunningley Viaduct on the way to Beeston

Present Day view of Ardsley Station

Related Images: