Leeds railway station

The Leeds railway station (also known as Leeds City ) is the main station of the British city of Leeds. It trains the companies Northern Rail, Cross Country, First TransPennine Express, East Coast Trains and East Midlands Trains by, among others, London, Southampton, Birmingham, Bristol, Newcastle upon Tyne, Edinburgh, Manchester and Liverpool. For traffic on the numerous suburban lines of the Metro Train Network Northern Rail is responsible. In operation 2004 /05 14.733 million passengers used the station.

Building

The station is located south of the city center near the River Aire. It consists of two parts, a through station and a terminal station on the north side. Both rest on a powerful Victorian brick viaduct, which is called by the townspeople as The Dark Arches ( " the dark arches "). In the viaduct arches, countless shops, restaurants and art galleries. More stores and fast food chains are located in the station building itself under the train station through the Neville Street leads. The western part of the station area spans the Aire and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal.

With 17 tracks Leeds is the second largest train station in England outside the capital London. In addition, he is one of 17 British railway stations, which are not managed by a railway company, but by the infrastructure company Network Rail.

History

Former railway stations

The railway reached Leeds in 1834, when the Leeds and Selby Railway (which later merged into the North Eastern Railway ) opened its regular route. Their station was located east of the city center at the Marsh Lane. 1840 built the North Midland Railway ( later part of the Midland Railway) a distance of Derby via Rotherham to Leeds. Their first station was on the south by the Hunslet Lane, but was then transferred in 1846 to the more central Wellington Street.

1854, the Manchester and Leeds Railway ( later part of the London and North Western Railway, LNWR ) to Leeds Central train station, also located on Wellington Street. This station was later shared the LNWR and the North Eastern Railway. But other companies had the right to be there, trains, including the Great Northern Railway and the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway.

The LNWR and the North Eastern Railway opened in 1869 a new railway station called New station which connected the line Leeds Selby in the east with the LNWR lines to the west. For this purpose, a 1.6 km long connecting line was built that ran completely on viaducts and bridges. New station itself was built partly on a bridge over the Aire and bordered the railway station on Wellington Street. With the entry into force of the railway Societies Act of 1921, the British railway companies merged to four companies. The New Station continued to be owned by two companies, in this case the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS ) and the London and North Eastern Railway ( LNER ).

Conversions

The first rationalization took place in 1938, when the New Stations Station and Wellington Street were united to the new Leeds railway station. Not affected by this measure was the Leeds Central train station. A part of the station Wellington Street was converted into a package bearing. In addition, the northern concourse (North Concourse ) and the Queens Hotel arisen.

In 1967 a further modification, as all trains running previously to Leeds Central, were diverted to Leeds train station. The station no longer needed was closed and later demolished. The over 100 -year-old bridges over the Leeds and Liverpool Canal had to be replaced, in addition, a second concourse and a new roof spanned the entire facility was built.

In the 1990s, the Leeds train station reached its capacity limits. From 1999 to 2002, he was completely rebuilt. It created new crossing-free access tracks on the west side, the number of tracks on the concourse was increased from 12 to 17. In addition, we replaced all tracks, switches and signals. The most visible change was the replacement of the metal hall roof in 1967 through a glass construction. A new pedestrian bridge replaced the previous underpass. Further improvements were a new multi -storey car park, the conversion of the northern concourse and extended shopping. During the works a few trains stopped west of the plant into a temporary rail station, Leeds Whitehall; this has since been demolished.

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