New Pudsey railway station

New Pudsey
New Pudsey railway station
Location
Place	Farsley
Local authority	City of Leeds
Coordinates	53°48′17″N 1°40′50″W / 53.804720°N 1.680560°WCoordinates: 53°48′17″N 1°40′50″W / 53.804720°N 1.680560°W
Grid reference	SE211343
Operations
Station code	NPD
Managed by	Northern
Number of platforms	2
DfT category	E
Live arrivals/departures, station information and onward connections from National Rail Enquiries
Annual rail passenger usage*
2004/05	0.424 million
2005/06	0.476 million
2006/07	0.489 million
2007/08	0.507 million
2008/09	0.642 million
2009/10	0.643 million
2010/11	0.772 million
2011/12	0.797 million
2012/13	0.733 million
2013/14	0.764 million
2014/15	0.844 million
Passenger Transport Executive
PTE	West Yorkshire (Metro)
Zone	2
History
Key dates	Opened December 1967
National Rail – UK railway stations
* Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at New Pudsey from Office of Rail and Road statistics. Methodology may vary year on year.
UK Railways portal

New Pudsey railway station is in Farsley, West Yorkshire, England, on the Caldervale Line from Leeds City to Bradford Interchange, Halifax, Huddersfield, Manchester Victoria, and Blackpool North. Lying 5.75 miles (9.25 km) west of Leeds, it serves as a commuter station for the western edge of the Leeds conurbation.

This station opened by British Rail on 6 March 1967 and is located in Farsley — 1 mile (1.6 km) north-west of Pudsey town centre – it was opened as a 'new' station for Pudsey; there is no place called New Pudsey. The platforms are long enough to accommodate Intercity trains, and there is a large car park, because it was originally served by occasional through trains from Bradford Interchange to London Kings Cross. After electrification of the East Coast Main Line, through services were routed via Shipley to Bradford Forster Square.

The station is situated just under a mile west of the location of what was Stanningley (formerly Stanningley for Farsley),^[1] which closed on 30 December 1967, having supposedly been replaced by New Pudsey, although the two catchment areas were largely different.

The station is staffed and the ticket office is open from 05:55 to 19:00 on Mondays to Saturdays.

History

New Pudsey in 1979

Pudsey was originally served by a short branch line running from Stanningley to Pudsey Greenside opened in 1878 by the Great Northern Railway. In 1893 the line was extended through a tunnel to Laisterdyke, the original curve from Stanningley closed, and another (90°) curve to Bramley opened forming the Pudsey Loop. There were two stations on the loop, Pudsey Lowtown and Pudsey Greenside, conveniently located at either end of the town centre (and both closed on 15 June 1964 as a result of the Beeching Axe).

New Pudsey Station on television

The station was featured in a 1969 Monty Python's Flying Circus sketch (Science Fiction Sketch/Man Turns Into Scotsman) in which Harold Potter (Michael Palin) is turned into a Scotsman by creatures from the planet Skyron in the galaxy of Andromeda. Graham Chapman and Eric Idle (with Idle in drag) 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.

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 continue beyond Leeds to York and there are also a few peak hour services to Selby. On Sundays there is a twice hourly service with one train each hour continuing to York.

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 limited stop, the other serving all stations to Todmorden, then Rochdale only), one runs to Blackpool North via Blackburn and one to Huddersfield. The service is twice hourly in the evenings and on Sundays, with one train per hour running to Manchester Victoria and one to either Blackpool North or Huddersfield.^[2]

Gallery

• 

  156498 at New Pudsey in June 2006

References

1. Stanningley GNR station, on the Leeds-Bradford line, opened in 1854; was renamed Stanningley for Farsley and then named Stanningley again in 1961.
2. GB National Rail Timetable May - December 2014, Table 41

External links

• Train times and station information for New Pudsey railway station from National Rail