Fifty years ago village halt closed as railways boss cut swathes from loss-making network

Avaledictory whistle from the twocoach diesel train, a farewell wave from goods checker Ernest Holliday and the last passenger stopping train left Lightcliffe station just 50 years ago, ending a story that had lasted more than a century.

Stations at Lightcliffe and Low Moor and several more on the Bradford-HalifaxHuddersfield network were closed to passenger traffic in 1965 in the first application of the Beecham “axe” in the Halifax area.

Lightcliffe station had been closed to passenger traffic on Sundays for some months and the final closedown at Lightcliffe came on a Saturday evening in June.

It was a relatively busy time for the station. Half a dozen railway fans plus an “ordinary” passenger were bound for Halifax on the 5.23pm, the last train in that direction.

Then, at Halifax station, the fans changed trains, boarding the last local stopping train for Bradford, the last passenger train of all to stop at Lightcliffe.

After this train left Lightcliffe at 5.44pm the station’s booking office was shut, the gates closed. Lightcliffe’s concern thereafter was with mineral traric, mainly coal and scrap metal.

Passenger trains were still passing through, expresses linking Manchester, Halifax, Bradford and Leeds. But none of them stopped at Lightcliffe.

Lightcliffe and Low Moor were closed to passengers with Cleckheaton, Liversedge, Heckmondwike and Northorpe, under the Beeching decision to axe many Bradford-Halifax-Huddersfield trains less than six years after the start of the local diesel service.

D for Diesel Day for Halifax, Lightcliffe and Low Moor had come on November 2, 1959, the first day of the new Bradford to Penistone service, provided mainly by twocoach trains.

Although this led to an increase in the number of passengers at no time did this local service achieve the hoped-for results of the Bradford to Leeds diesels.

Lightcliffe had had a station for more than a century after the Halifax to Low Moor link was completed in 1850.

These local stations were victims of the Beeching “axe”, closures brought about by the chairman of British Railways, Dr Richard Beeching in the 1960s in an attempt to rationalise Britain’s lossmaking railways.

Following his report The Reshaping of British Railways, commonly referred to as The Beeching Report, more than 4,000 route miles were cut, leaving Britain with 13,721 miles of railway in 1966. A further 2,000 miles were lost by the end of the 1960s.

Contrary to common belief the closure of Elland, Greetland and Brighouse stations was not part of the Beeching axe; Elland and Greetland stations closed in September 1962 and Brighouse closed as late as 1970, reopening in 2000.

Other local stations closed much earlier than the Beeching era, for example Bailiff Bridge in 1917, Copley in 1931, North Bridge, Halifax, in 1955, St Paul’s, Halifax, in 1917 and Pellon in 1916, Ovenden and Queensbury in 1955, Ripponden, Rishworth and Triangle in 1929 and Stainland and Holywell Green also in 1929.

Plans to reopen Lightcliffe station have been mooted over the years and a new halt at Low Moor is in the pipeline and is expected to open next year.