The New Apperley Bridge Station
Apperley Bridge station is a new station between Leeds and Shipley on the Leeds to Bradford Lines.
The station is a simple design, based around an existing bridge and uses ramps rather than lifts for step-free access.
It must make for a more affordable design. The new Kirkstall Forge station is reported to be being built using similar principles.
This Google Map shows the Location of Apperley Bridge station.
Apperley Bridge Station Location
The station has been built by the wetsmost of the two branches. The Avenue leading away to the North doesn’t lead to the country seat of a man of means or breeding, but to what appears to be a large sewage works.
The two stations are reported in this web page as costing sixteen million pounds for the pair.
But judging by the heavyweight construction, the good-sized shelters, Network Rail have future proofed this station for a lot more passengers than they will expect in the next year.
Perhaps this section entitled The Future in the Wikipedia entry for the Airedale Line offers a clue!
This is said.
Recent Network Rail reports have looked at ways of increasing capacity on the line. Because of the difficulty of lengthening platforms at Shipley, it will be hard to introduce longer trains (i.e. 5 or 6 carriages) as is being proposed on the neighbouring Wharfedale Line. It is therefore proposed to run more trains per hour between Leeds and Keighley, with a new platform at Keighley to accommodate this. A new station atApperley Bridge opened in 2015 and Kirkstall Forge is due to open in January 2016, with both stations located between Leeds and Skipton via Shipley.
Could it be that the two new stations will also divert commuters into Leeds from Shipley?
Wikipedia appears to suggest that Shipley station has access problems, so perhaps diverting passengers to a new fully-accessible station increases capacity on the line.
This Google Map shows that Shipley station isn’t your bog-standard two-platform station.
Shipley Station
I only know of one other station built in the middle of a triangular junction; Liverpool South Parkway. But that station was designed that way.
Incidentally, a guy at Appleby Bridge station told me, that it can take an hour to drive into Leeds in the rush hour from the village, but the train takes less than ten minutes.
The Anonymous Widower 
[…] I wrote The New Apperley Bridge Station, I noted that on my journeys on the Calder Valley Line on Saturday and today, my trains called at […]
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[…] I’d gone to Burnley for the football via Leeds, as the West Coast Main Line seemed to be partly closed and I also wanted to take a look at the recently-opened Apperley Bridge station, which I wrote about in The New Apperley Bridge Station. […]
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