Here I take a very long trip back in my own time.
Below you see an aerial view of Crofts Engineers
Dawson lane works at Dudley Hill. It was here I
became and engineer, serving my apprenticeship
with that company from 1964 to 1968 and I now
pay great tribute to the men who taught me my
trade. God bless you all, I wasn't the easiest of
apprentices but your efforts paid well and I thank
you all. I did make Chief Engineer eventually.
As you can see from a railways point of view Dudley
Hill was quite a complex and important junction. The
line in picture above from bottom right passing under
Dawson lane was one of the oft used routes from Leeds
via Laisterdyke and Cutlers junction to Wakefield. This
was the Great Northern Railways Bradford and Ardsley
branch
In this second picture you can see the complex
layout of lines at Dudley Hill which also had
a line passing in a deeper cutting which bore down
beneath the main line and Wakefield Rd along with
Dawson lane to enter a tunnel which emerged
further down and took the line on to Low Moor
and Halifax
Pictures below without my annotation.
Here once again with my annotation showing where
the main line came from, to the top right from
Laisterdyke and Leeds via Cutlers junction
Just as we broke for lunch there was a regular
London train passed the Dawson lane works
The line was open to passengers on 20 August 1856 and to goods traffic on 1 January 1857. The station closed in 1952 but passenger services on the line continued until 4 July 1966 and goods traffic continued until 1981.
Below we can see how the line to Low Moor
was laid. From bottom centre right it crosses
under Tong St, then under Dawson Lane and
enters a tunnel beneath the main line to
Wakefield. The row of white building's were
the bicycle shed's for Crofts workers and was
where the line came out to run south west to
Low Moor
The Dawson Lane bridge and cutting from the
track bed of the Low Moor line
Here below the view across the Low Moor line
towards Dudley Hill station and the bridge
taking Tong Street over the line
Below and old picture of the Crofts works before
the cutting was infilled to make the works car park
Having been born and spent most of my teenage life on the Holmewood Estate and then on to Cutler Heights Lane at Dudley Hill, I have many fond memories of your photos here of the Dudley Hill station etc. The station had long since closed down as I remember it and it was derelict and abandoned. But I still can recall the buildings and rail tracks still left in place. And played there in many a summers day back in the 70’ s and early 80’s. I even recall when they filled in the bridges and tore down the buildings to make way for the Asda supermarket that was built on the site. Even now this is no longer a supermarket. How times change through the years. I’m so glad you posted these photos. Brings back so many great memories. Thankyou
ReplyDeleteAs a child, I lived at Knowles Avenue. In the late 1950s Knowles Lane was unmade road, Certainly after you've gone over the railway bridges and past station on the left. We used to walk up there nearly everyday, that's where the shops were, also if we were to catch a bus to Bradford, the bus stop was at the top of Knowles lane (buses didn't go down to Holmewood at that time) and then when going to school at Dudley Hill infants school, which was on Harry Street near the Dudley Hill crossroads.
ReplyDeleteOf course as children we used to like to see the trains going past. There were signals right by the bridge so we knew that if the signal was raised then a train was due and we loved to wave to the engine drivers. The station was disused at that time but still in a usable condition. Most of the trains were goods trains but I'm sure that on one occasion we travelled from the station, which must have been a special excursion train, stopping at normally unused points, perhaps to the seaside. I also recall passing through Dudley Hill once on the train, which was exciting because it was the line we could see from our house. That might have been a diversion due to work on the other line.
There was another road from the small housing estate where we lived which went under the railway to Sticker Lane. On the other side of the bridge was Bridge Road, a paved road with houses and a shop but between the bridge and Knowles Lane the road was unmade. Used by a lot of pedestrians as a very useful short cut because Sticker Lane had the buses to Leeds and "Ribble" buses went to Halifax etc. Very few cars used it as it was so rough. We used to call the bridge "The Tunnel" because it was so long and dark, I think it went under about 6 tracks. During the 1960s the number of trains decreased but there were a lot of wagons parked on the tracks over the tunnel I suspect they were disused coal wagons waiting to be scrapped. We left in about 1970 but I don't think the bridges were filled in by that stage but were there very few train movements.
There were no buildings on the area between the railway and Knowles Lane until about 1960 when the new school was built. The Homewood housing estate was built, all the roads were made up and new trolley bus route came down Knowles Lane. The whole area we knew as "the field" and it was not fenced and on the whole it was not used for anything so could be a playground for us whenever we wanted.
I'm not sure what prompted me to look up Dudley hill railway station but thanks for putting some information on the web. I recall the gates, I think there were three sets of gates onto Knowles Lane, each with long ramp down to the station platforms which probably made it quite an unusual design of station. The gates had signs on on warning that fines of not "more than 40 shillings" could be incurred by anyone who left the gate open but of course there were always locked when I was there.