New Pudsey railway station


New Pudsey railway station is a station between Leeds and Bradford on the Calder Valley line, which serves the towns of Farsley and Pudsey in West Yorkshire, England. It also serves the adjacent suburb of Thornbury.

Facilities

The station is staffed, and the ticket office is open from 05:55 to 19:00 on Mondays to Saturdays. A ticket machine is also available. Step-free access from the booking office to both platforms is provided via ramps to the footbridge that links them. Train running information is available via passenger information screens and P.A. announcements. The platforms are long enough to accommodate Intercity trains, and there is a large car park to the south of the station.
New Pudsey was originally served by occasional through trains from Bradford Interchange to London Kings Cross. However, after electrification of the East Coast Main Line, through services were routed via Shipley to Bradford Forster Square.

History

Pudsey was originally served by a short branch line running from Stanningley railway station to Pudsey Greenside, opened in 1878 by the Great Northern Railway. In 1893 the line was extended through Greenside Tunnel to Laisterdyke, the original curve from Stanningley closed, and another curve to Bramley opened forming the Pudsey loop line railway. There were two stations on the loop, Pudsey Lowtown and Pudsey Greenside, conveniently located at either end of the town centre. Both closed on 15 June 1964 as a result of the Beeching Axe.
This station was opened by British Rail on 6 March 1967 and is located in Farsley about north-west of Pudsey town centre. It was opened as a 'new' station for Pudsey; there is no place called "New Pudsey".
The station is situated just under a mile west of the location of the former Stanningley railway station, which closed on 1 January 1968, having supposedly been replaced by New Pudsey, although the two catchment areas were largely different.
New Pudsey was one of the first railway stations to be specifically built as a railway station for motorists, being situated on the convergence of several main roads and the ring road, and after opening was featured in a film by British Transport Films for this reason. The 13 minute film was called Rail Report 8: The New Tradition.

Services

Eastbound

During Monday to Saturday daytimes, there are four trains an hour to Leeds; in the evenings this service runs twice hourly. One train each hour continues beyond Leeds to York and a second to Selby. On Sundays there is a thrice hourly service with one train each hour continuing to York. From the winter 2019 timetable change, a new service to via Selby has been introduced in place of the former Huddersfield - Bradford - Leeds service, restoring through journey opportunities to local stations east of Leeds that were removed in December 2018.

Westbound

During Monday to Saturday daytimes there are four trains an hour to Bradford Interchange and Halifax. Two trains each hour continue to Manchester Victoria, one runs to Blackpool North via and one terminates at Halifax. The service is thrice-hourly in the evenings with two trains per hour running to Manchester Victoria and to Blackpool North. From the December 2019 timetable change, Huddersfield passengers now need to change at Bradford as the current through service has been curtailed there on weekdays and Saturdays. On Sundays, there are four trains per hour - two to Manchester and one Blackpool North and Huddersfield. One of the Manchester trains now runs through to Chester.

Transport links

The next bus stops are on Stanningley Bypass, in Bradford Road. A stop for the frequent service between Pudsey and Seacroft is located at the corner of Bradford Road and Old Road, approximately from the station.

New Pudsey station on television

The station was featured in a 1969 Monty Python's Flying Circus sketch in which Harold Potter is turned into a Scotsman by creatures from the planet Skyron in the galaxy of Andromeda. Graham Chapman and Eric Idle briefly appear on Platform 1 early in the sketch as Mr and Mrs Samuel Brainsample. After the camera pans off Chapman and Idle, Palin is shown walking up the ramp from the platform toward town. At the beginning of the sketch, reference is made to the alien visitors coming "to conquer and destroy the very heart of civilisation", with a fade-in to the sign reading "New Pudsey". Laughter follows.