Saturday 11th November 2023
How do you move a railway station 80 yards further along the tracks?
I’ve been to Morley to find out.
Located in West Yorkshire, Morley lies six miles south west of Leeds and 13 miles north east of Huddersfield. The town’s railway station lies on the busy railway which is part of the Manchester to York £11.5 billion TransPennine Route Upgrade project programmed to continue through until 2041, although many benefits will be realised by the early 2030s.
Immediately south of Morley’s platforms lies the entrance to the two mile Morley tunnel.
Both TransPennine Express and Northern trains call at Morley with the former linking Leeds and Huddersfield while the latter run between Leeds, Manchester and Wigan.
According to Network Rail the multibillion pound investment in the Transpennine Route and Morley Station upgrades “will pave the way for first-rate connectivity including more frequent, faster and greener trains running on a more reliable railway.” The two-track section between Huddersfield and Dewsbury will be doubled to four tracks as part of the programme as well as a remodelling of Huddersfield station.
Specifically for Morley it will mean longer trains will be able to stop at the station as the confined nature of the old platforms and track layout north of the tunnel mouth as shown above has restricted the length of trains able to call as well as impacted the speed of passing trains.
The lack of lifts enabling step free access and general life expired facilities at the station all led to the idea of relocating the platforms 80 yards north towards Leeds (as can be seen in the Network Rail aerial photo below), and effectively create a brand new station on the network.
Network Rail and its contractors have been working on the project for some time culminating in two week long closures of the complete line earlier this year (4th-11th February and 17th-25th June) due to the amount of work that needed to be enacted.
I recently paid a visit to the site to see how things are progressing and it was good to see the new platforms now in use as well as a new footbridge and lifts but as you can see there’s still much finishing work to be done before everything’s complete.
The one thing I noticed is the new location is further away from the access road to the old site meaning a longer walk for passengers. In fact the location of the station in relation to the surrounding residential area is not ideal at all being on significantly different levels with a steep slope down to the platforms. It’s also a considerable distance from the town centre.
As well as the footbridge and lifts, each of the new platforms has been kitted out with two shelters, a few seats and electronic departure screens.
There’s also a Ticket Vending Machine.
And that’s about it.
The old Huddersfield bound platform was removed during the June blockade but the former Leeds bound platform is still there, being used by the contractors for some storage…
… with part of the footbridge yet to be dismantled.
I haven’t been able to ascertain how much the new station has cost as it’s all wrapped up in the overall multi-billion pound TransPennine Route Upgrade but looking at comparable projects elsewhere on the network I doubt there’s been much change out of £50 million (I’m thinking Thanet Parkway’s £40 million). I hope the benefits will make that a worthwhile investment.
While looking at things that move, I also took a look at progress on the new bus station for central Cardiff on my recent trip to Barry Docks. This project is vying with South Western Railway’s introduction of its Class 701 Arterio trains for the Award of the Most Delayed Transport Project Of All Time.
The old bus station conveniently sited outside the front of Cardiff Central railway station closed in August 2015 with a promise of a replacement soon thereafter, yet here we are over eight years later still waiting.
One of the new office blocks on the site of the old bus station has long been competed housing BBC Wales which moved into its new home as long ago as 2018, however I can confirm work is definitely progressing on the new bus station on an adjacent site.
It will be under a canopy of an eight storey curved tower block containing two floors of offices, hundreds of flats and a ground floor retail unit. I hope the flats have good sound proofing to eradicate bus reversing beeps.
Ominously on the day of my visit there wasn’t a hard hat or high-viz jacket to be seen, but there was definitive evidence work is in hand on the new 14 bay bus station.
The latest date for its opening is Spring 2024. Those 701 trains might just beat it.
Roger French
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Comments are welcome but please keep them relevant to the blog topic, avoid personal insults and add your name (or an identifier). Thank you.
BusAndTrainUser 
Hurrah, first to comment 😉 Just to say half a mile away from Morley station is White Rose shopping centre (a poor man’s Trafford Centre) where they are supposed to be building a brand new station. More info please on the JD Wetherspoon (not Weatherspoon) in Cardiff, a chain of pubs I would highly recommend (for cheap alcohol) 🤪
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Weather updated – thanks.
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Well worth a visit. A converted theatre with a lot of original features!
Keith Briant
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The disgraceful delay in replacing Cardiff bus station tells you all you need to know about how high buses are on the political spectrum in Wales compared to Rail. Admittedly, attitudes have changed slightly post-Covid, and the former bus station was hardly an advert for bus travel. But the shambles of trying to locate exactly where services commence from in a multitude of locations, not to mention the closure of some key streets to buses, must have done more damage to passenger numbers than the “new, exciting” 20mph speed limits which are now being imposed.
Terence Uden
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I do not think the new Cardiff bus station will work very well. The old bus station had 34 stands a and they were pretty much all used. The new bus station was originally going to have 19 stands but got reduced to 14
How many layover bays if any it will have is unclear. What is clear is it is far to small to accommodate all the bus routes and coaches that serve Cardiff so is likely to be another mess with buses having to terminate on the roads and layover on the roads which will only cause problems
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I know that change is difficult to get right, but South Western Trains really seem to struggle with it. Stagecoach SWR were a good operator but the speed of the degradation when the franchise changed hands surprised me. As a result their struggles with the 701s fit into a pattern where change seems to equate to worse service and poorer passenger relations.
Gareth Cheeseman
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The 2023 National Railway Museum vintage rail posters diary carries a poster, from 1925, saying that Southern Railway upgraded viaducts and bridges for “faster trains and heavier engines” for £250,000.
As an aside, would that diary form the basis for a 2024 travelogue to succeed the A-Z of this and last year?
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There is no A In Wetherspoon !!
Gerald
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Thanks; it’s been removed.
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This was pointed out in the first comment and acknowledged, Gerald.
Paul
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The headline cost for the planned new Elland station also in West Yorkshire is £20m, but I haven’t been able to determine how similar this may be to Morley.
KCC
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I am not sure how the new rail station speeds up the trains. The sharp bend is still there so the speed constraint will still be there
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I would be surprised if that design of bus station with flats above would be allowed now with electrification and recent fires. A proposed redevelopment of a bus garage at Wood Green in London has now been shelved for these reasons.
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That’s because, when the plans were drawn up, buses were still pulled by horses.
Andrew Kleissner.
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Of course there is another recent-ish example of a station moving a short distance down the line, Angel Road/Meridian Water (2019), but that was a nearly 600m move not 60-70m
MilesT
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I think Morley is Part of Leeds. I am not sure of present journey times but it might be worth investigating the claim for better transport funding in The North (specifically Leeds) is that some 40percent of population live in excess of a 30min journey from Leeds City Centre (Door to Door ?) To me that seems as a result of part of the city planning of the early 1970s (removing a lot of local housing and the earlier loss of the frequent tram services along the wide roads into the city built in the 1930s) I think some local rail stations had also closed, but it does look like the new station here has some opportunity for adjoining/nearby commercial and residential development, are there actually plans to make the walkable link to the town centre a little easier once the station is more complete ? As to are faster rail times possible due to the new station, I would imagine the faster acceleration of new trains can be made better use of leaving the station on the better curve and sightlines so maybe 45 sec on passing through trains and 30sec on those that call at the station?
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