Knottingley railway station

Infobox UK station
name = Knottingley
code = KNO


manager = Northern Rail
locale = Knottingley
borough = City of Wakefield
pte = West Yorkshire (Metro)
zone = 3
lowusage0405 = 85,416
lowusage0506 = 114,703
lowusage0607 = 119,937
start = April 1848
platforms = 2

Knottingley railway station serves the town of Knottingley in West Yorkshire, England. It lies on the Pontefract Line, operated by Northern Rail, and is 16 miles {25 km} south east of Leeds railway station.

The station is the final one in West Yorkshire before the North Yorkshire border and most services terminate (or start) there.

History

The station was constructed by the "Wakefield, Pontefract & Goole Railway" as part of their main line from Wakefield to Goole, which opened in April 1848. It wasn't long though before it became a busy junction, as within two years links to Doncaster via the Askern branch (on 6 June 1848), Leeds via Castleford and "Methley Junction" (1 December 1849) and York via Ferrybridge and Burton Salmon (1 August 1850) [ [http://www.knottingley.org/history/transport.htm#The%20Railways History of Knottingley's Railways] ] had all been opened. The first of those was jointly built and operated by the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway and Great Northern Railway and the station also became jointly managed by these two companies in 1854. The Great Northern made use of its running powers and traffic agreements with the LYR to run through trains from Doncaster to both Leeds and York, putting the town on a new main line between London & York for a number of years until shorter, more direct lines could be constructed.

By 1871 the station had lost its trunk line status with the opening of new lines from Doncaster via Wakefield (to Leeds) & Selby (to York), but it still handled plenty of local passenger and freight traffic (particularly coal from a large number of collieries in the area).

Whilst all of the aforementioned lines are still open, only the original WP&G routes now carry passenger trains as services to York ended on 11 July 1947 and those to Doncaster just over a year later on 27 September 1948. [Body, p 98] The line to Wakefield Kirkgate also lost its passenger trains from 2 January 1967 (leaving only the route to Leeds serving the station) but it was re-opened in May 1992 with financial assistance from West Yorkshire PTE.

ervices

There is an hourly service from Knottingley to both the nearby cities of Leeds and Wakefield (Kirkgate) via Pontefract Monkhill with one train to/two trains from Goole each weekday. Sundays there is a two-hourly service to Leeds.

Notes

References

*Body, G. (1988), "PSL Field Guides - Railways of the Eastern Region Volume 2", Patrick Stephens Ltd, Wellingborough, ISBN 1-85260-072-1

External links

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