Leeds Central railway station

Leeds Central
General information
Location	City of Leeds
Managed by	L&NWR, L&YR, GNR, NER
Line(s)	London and North Western Railway
Platforms	8
Key dates
18 September 1854	Opened
1 May 1967	Closed

Leeds Central was a railway station in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It was opened in 1854 as a joint station between the London and North Western Railway, the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, the Great Northern Railway and the North Eastern Railway. It replaced the cramped LNW terminus at Wellington Street, which had opened in 1848 with the line to Dewsbury. It closed in 1967, when its services were moved to Leeds City to consolidate all of Leeds train services in one station.

The station was not architecturally distinguished and was built above street level. The site is now a retail park which in turn is to be redeveloped into offices. Part of the Leeds Central station site had also since became a Royal Mail sorting office that is latterly being redeveloped into the West Central residential development and La Lumiere, a 170-metre (560 ft) high skyscraper. A goods lift and a viaduct that approached the station still remains standing as a memorial today.

The last train leaving from Leeds Central was an early evening service to Harrogate filled by the usual Birmingham RC&W DMU. (Fog) detonators were placed on the track by Railway staff which exploded as the train rolled away from the platform and past the signal box on its final departure. The return trip from Harrogate into Leeds City was strangely muted.

References

• Cobb, Col. Michael H. (2005). The Railways of Great Britain - A Historical Atlas. Ian Allan Publishing. ISBN 0-71103-002-2.