The only railway station in the history of such things to have ever been stolen was one of Cleckheatons! Back in the days when Cleckheaton had two stations, one looked down on the town from the eastern end of Mann Dam viaduct and the other was located on basically what is now the car park for the towns Tesco store. This second station was Cleckheaton Central railway station. It was closed as part of the governments programme of cuts to the railway infrastructure - the Beeching cuts - during the 1960s when a third of the rail network was axed. The station closed to passengers in 1965 and to freight four years later. The other station, Cleckheaton Spen, had closed some years earlier. On a late summers day in 1971 Cleckheaton Central station was stolen! The station was originally constructed by the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, which was absorbed by the LNWR in 1922 and subsequently the LMS in 1923. Finally it was taken on by British Rail when the railways were nationalised in the 1960s. It served traffic from Heckmondwike, Low Moor and Mirfield. The Mirfield line opened in 1848 and was linked through to Low Moor in 1849. The last passenger train working was the service from Bradford on 12 June 1965 arriving at Cleckheaton at 11.21 pm; the station closed to freight traffic some four years later. In 1972 a Dewsbury man appeared at Wakefield Crown Court and in the words of the prosecution counsel what the case really comes to is that this man last August in effect stole Cleckheaton station. British Rail had contracted out the clearing of the site in August 1971. A component part of that deal would be that the contractors could sell materials and scrap from the site and retain the proceeds. On arrival, the contractors discovered that the station and most of the materials were already gone! It transpired that the man later accused of stealing the station had been contracted by another firm to clear the site, had been advanced a sum for hire of plant, and had spent three weeks clearing the site. Subsequent efforts to trace the second firm failed, and the court found the man not guilty, deciding that he had been duped and left significantly out of pocket. The only remnants of the old station is a former entrance way within bridges over a nearby street, which runs between Crown Street and Tofts Road [pictured below]. There is also of course the Station Tavern public house adjacent to the station site. The land is now the site of the Tesco store, with the car park accounting for most of the old station site and yards. The land that housed the old goods yard closer to Tofts Road remains unused despite plans from within the local community to create a play area. The line itself of course has been transformed into the Spen Valley Greenway. By Big Ears - on Wednesday, January 04, 2012
Posted on: Sun, 21 Sep 2014 12:00:35 +0000
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