Hellifield
General information
Location	Hellifield,North Yorkshire England
Coordinates	54°00′38″N2°13′37″W / 54.0104821°N 2.2269493°W /54.0104821; -2.2269493
Grid reference	SD851572
Owned by	Network Rail
Managed by	Northern Trains
Platforms	4, 2 disused
Tracks	5
Other information
Station code	HLD
Classification	DfT category F2
History
Original company	"Little" North Western Railway
Pre-grouping	Midland Railway
Post-grouping	London, Midland and Scottish Railway, British Rail (London Midland Region)
Key dates
30 July 1849	Opened
1 June 1880	Resited
Passengers
2020/21	6,528
2021/22	28,304
2022/23	27,512
2023/24	29,030
2024/25	42,272
Listed Building – Grade II
Feature	OriginalMidland Railway station building
Designated	7 April 1977
Reference no.	1131702[1]
Location Hellifield Location inNorth Yorkshire, England
Notes Passenger statistics from theOffice of Rail and Road

Hellifield is a junction railway station on theBentham Line, which runs betweenLeeds andMorecambe viaSkipton, as well as being the northern terminus of theRibble Valley line. The station, situated 36 miles 17 chains (58.3 km) north-west of Leeds, serves the village ofHellifield, inNorth Yorkshire, England. It is owned byNetwork Rail and managed byNorthern Trains.

The first Hellifield railway station was opened by the"Little" North Western Railway in 1849. It was a modest structure, similar to those atGargrave andLong Preston and sited1⁄4 mile (0.4 km) to the south of the present one.^[2]

A much larger replacement (the current station) was built by theMidland Railway to the designs of architectCharles Trubshaw^[3] and opened on 1 June 1880;^[4] it lay immediately to the north of the junction of the line from Leeds and the newly completedLancashire & Yorkshire Railway route fromBlackburn viaClitheroe. It soon became a busy junction, as it was now located on the Midland Railway's main line fromLondon St Pancras toScotland, with trains going to Clitheroe, Skipton, Leeds, Blackburn,Settle,Carlisle,Manchester Victoria andMorecambe

It was also the location of a busylocomotive depot and a large goods yard.

The line from Blackburn had its local passenger service withdrawn on 10 September 1962,^[5] but it remains open for goods traffic and periodic diversions when theWest Coast Main Line is closed north ofPreston for engineering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 fromGlasgow Central until 1975. Thereafter it was downgraded to unstaffed halt status and served only by stopping trains between Leeds and Morecambe.

In April 1977, the main station building was designated as a Grade IIlisted building.^[1]

By the late 1980s, the main buildings and canopies were in very poor condition and under threat of demolition; following a £500,000 cash injection fromBritish Rail, in conjunction withEnglish Heritage and the Railway Heritage Trust,^[6] 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.

Between 2005 and 2008, the station was used as the operating base for Kingfisher Railtours'Dalesman steam-hauled charter trains over theSettle-Carlisle Line.^[7] Facilities on offer to the travelling public at the station include theLong 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, withNetwork Rail carrying out £500,000 of work on the Grade II listed buildings to repair/replace the glazing and repaint the canopies.^[8][9]

• 18 December 1933: A goodsbrake van ran away from Hellifield South Junction while being shunted and collided head-on with an oncoming freight train, killing the driver and fireman and injuring the guard. The shunter, the guard of the train being shunted and the signaller at the south junction box were all found partially responsible. The lack ofCatch points on the steep gradient was also highlighted in the report.^[10]
• 22 December 1955: The 21:15 express train from St. Pancras to Glasgow collided with the rear of the 21:05 express to Edinburgh, which was stationary at the station. The collision was caused by South Junction signalman Thomas B. Robinson, when he failed to reset a key signal lever (no. 45), allowing the Glasgow train to receive clear signals into an occupied platform. Though the train was braking, it still struck the Edinburgh train at around 25–30 mph (40–48 km/h), resulting in significant damage to the rear brake vans and a sleeping car. Fortunately, only two passengers and three railway staff were injured, with just one requiring hospitalisation. The inquiry revealed that the signalman had a history of neglecting regulations and occasionally allowed a booking boy to operate levers, which was against the rules. The driver of the Glasgow train also appeared to rely too heavily on distant signals and missed key home signals. The accident highlighted the need for stricter supervision, adherence to procedures, and the value of modern signalling controls, which were installed shortly after the incident.^[11][12]

The station has full step-free access, via a subway with inclined ramp from the main entrance. Train running information can be obtained from timetable posters, by telephone, or from digital PIS screens;^[13] the latter were installed as part of a rolling station upgrade programme by the train operatorArriva Rail North.

The last remainingsignal box at the station (there were three until 1966) is one of only two manual boxes left in operation between Leeds andCarnforth (the other being at Settle Junction). It acts as the 'fringe' box to the Leeds workstation of YorkIECC 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.

Northern Trains Route 7
v t e
Settle & Carlisle & Bentham lines
Carlisle Armathwaite Lazonby & Kirkoswald Langwathby Appleby Kirkby Stephen Garsdale Dent Ribblehead Horton-in-Ribblesdale Settle Heysham Port Morecambe Bare Lane Lancaster Carnforth Wennington Bentham Clapham Giggleswick Long Preston Hellifield Gargrave Skipton Keighley Bingley Shipley Leeds

Northern Trains operates regular services to Leeds, Lancaster and Carlisle:^[14]

• Southbound, there are sixteen services on weekdays and seventeen on Saturdays (of which one runs only to Skipton)
• Northbound, there are eight trains each to Lancaster and to Carlisle plus one evening service toRibblehead; these run about every two hours. Five of the Lancaster trains run through to Morecambe.

On Sundays, there are six trains to Carlisle, five to Morecambe and eleven to Leeds, one of which continues toNottingham.

Also on Sundays in the summer, a train operated fromBlackpool North, Preston and Blackburn and along the Ribble Valley Line via Clitheroe to Hellifield and onwards towards Carlisle in the summer (this terminated/started here in the winter but with an onward connection north). This service,DalesRail, was operated by Northern Trains but ceased in December 2022. There are plans for more services from Clitheroe, with a twice-each-way Saturday service to/from there (and Manchester Victoria) having started in June 2024. TheRibble Valley Rail group is campaigning for this route to be reopened.

Preceding station	National Rail			Following station
Gargrave towardsLeeds		Northern Trains Leeds to Morecambe Line		Long Preston towardsMorecambe
Gargrave towardsLeeds		Northern Trains Settle and Carlisle Line		Long Preston towardsCarlisle viaSettle
Clitheroe towardsRochdale		Northern Trains Ribble Valley Line Limited service – Saturdays only		Settle towardsRibblehead
	Historical railways
Newsholme		Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Ribble Valley Line		Terminus
Bell Busk		Midland Railway "Little" North Western Railway		Long Preston

• Listed buildings in Hellifield

• Media related toHellifield railway station at Wikimedia Commons
• Train times andstation information for Hellifield railway station fromNational Rail

• DfT Category F2 stations
• Railway stations in North Yorkshire
• Former Midland Railway stations
• Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1880
• Railway stations served by Northern
• Grade II listed buildings in North Yorkshire
• Charles Trubshaw railway stations
• Grade II listed railway stations
• Hellifield

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