The railway first reached Leyburn in November 1855, when the Bedale & Leyburn Railway opened its line from Leeming. Passenger services commenced six months later, with a further extension westwards to Hawes being built by the North Eastern Railway in 1877/8. At Hawes, another end-on junction was made with the Midland Railway branch from Hawes Junction that gave the NER access to the Settle-Carlisle Railway by means of running powers. The branch became part of the LNER under the terms of the 1923 Grouping. For most of its life, the route had a basic service of five passenger trains each day along its entire length with one or two extras reaching Leyburn from Northallerton, along with a small number of parcels, milk and goods trains. Nationalisation followed at the end of 1947, but less than a decade later the station was closed when the Northallerton to Hawes route fell victim to road competition, services being withdrawn on 26 April 1954. The line beyond Redmire closed completely in April 1964, but aggregate traffic from the quarry there kept the rest of the line open. Leyburn also retained its status as a goods depot until 1982, but latterly the entire route operated as a 'one train' single line. The limestone traffic to and from Teesside ended in December 1992 but after a spell of disuse, traffic resumed in the form of Ministry of Defence military equipment trains to Redmire. Occasional passenger specials ran along the line, such as the "Three Dales Tour" on 20 May 1967.
Preservation
The Wensleydale Railway reopened the station at Leyburn in May 2003 after leasing the line from Railtrack. The station buildings had survived after closure, which made the re-instatement of passenger facilities there straightforward. Passenger trains initially ran eastwards from Leyburn to Leeming Bar, but these were extended on to Redmire in August 2004. Since the preservation company had been in operation, they had planned to relay/re-instate a run-round loop trackbed. They finally achieved this in Spring 2019 with a new line on the northern side of the station. The company hopes to one day eventually rebuild and reopen the abandoned line westwards to Hawes and eventually to Garsdale and run trains along the full length of the entire Yorkshire dale from Northallerton to Garsdale — a trip of almost 40 miles in length. In July 2017, it was announced that the station was benefitting from a grant of £72,000, which would allow the installation of a passing loop, a water tower with water cranes, a footbridge and a signal box with working levers. The footbridge and signal box have been donated by Network Rail from redundant areas when upgrades have been carried out. In 2019, the passing loop was opened and the footbridge donated from Brigg Station in Lincolnshire, was refurbished by Cleveland Bridge in a not-for-profit scheme. The signal box is from the Furness Railway and was previously located on the Cumbrian Coast line.
