02/11/2026
𝗛𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗲𝗹𝗱 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻
Hellifield Station sits on the Bentham Line, which runs between Leeds and Morecambe via Skipton. The station is situated 36 1⁄4 miles north-west of Leeds, on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales National Park. It is owned by Network Rail and managed by Northern Trains.
𝗢𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗻 𝟭𝟴𝟰𝟵
The first Hellifield railway station was opened by the "Little" North Western Railway in 1849. It was a modest structure, similar to those at Gargrave and Long Preston and sited 1⁄4 mile south of the present one.
A much larger replacement (the current station) was built by the Midland Railway to the designs of architect Charles Trubshaw and opened on 1 June 1880, immediately to the north of the junction of the line from Leeds and the newly completed Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway route from Blackburn via Clitheroe. It soon became a busy junction (as it was now located on the Midland Railway's main line from London to Scotland), with trains going to: Clitheroe, Skipton, Leeds, Blackburn, Settle, Carlisle, Manchester Victoria and Morecambe.
It was also the location of a busy locomotive depot and a large goods yard.
𝗢𝗵, 𝗗𝗼𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿 𝗕𝗲𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴!
The line from Blackburn had its local passenger service withdrawn on 10 September 1962, but it remains open for goods traffic and periodic diversions when the West Coast main line is closed north of Preston for engineering work. The adjacent locomotive shed closed the following year and local trains from the station to Carlisle ended in May 1970, although it continued to be served by expresses to and from Glasgow until 1975. Thereafter it was downgraded to unstaffed halt status and served only by stopping trains between Leeds and Morecambe.
𝗟𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝘁𝘂𝘀
In April 1977 the main station building was designated as a Grade II listed building. By the late 1980s the main buildings and canopies were in very poor condition and under threat of demolition, but following a £500,000 cash injection from British Rail in conjunction with English Heritage and the Railway Heritage Trust, they were refurbished and returned to private commercial use. Trains to and from Carlisle also started calling again in May 1995 to further encourage use of the station and its newly restored amenities.
𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗥𝗮𝗶𝗹𝘁𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀
Between 2005 and 2008, the station was used as the operating base for Kingfisher Railtours' Dalesman steam-hauled charter trains over the Settle-Carlisle Line. Facilities on offer to the travelling public at the station include the Long Drag cafe & gift shop and a heritage room used to exhibit items and photographs connected to the Settle-Carlisle route.
The station is also still used by special trains and steam-hauled railway tours as a water stop and traction changeover point. It has also undergone further structural refurbishment in the summer of 2013, with Network Rail carrying out £500,000 of work on the Grade II listed buildings to repair/replace the glazing and repaint the canopies.
For up-to-date information on current rail tours, take a look at the Steam and Diesel Railtours and Heritage railways group on Facebook. They are brilliant!
𝗦𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗕𝗼𝘅
The station has full step-free access, via a subway with an inclined ramp from the main entrance. The last remaining signal box at the station (there were three until 1966) is one of only two manual boxes left in operation between Leeds and Carnforth (the other being at Settle Junction). It acts as the 'fringe' box to the Leeds workstation of York IECC in the Skipton direction, as well as controlling the junction and a pair of goods loops that are used to help regulate the increasingly heavy levels of freight traffic on the Carlisle, Leeds and Blackburn lines.
