Mirfieldrailway station serves the town of Mirfield in West Yorkshire, England. It lies on the Huddersfield Line managed by Northern but also now served by Grand Central and is north east from. The platforms have an unusual configuration. Platforms 1 and 2 form an island platform on the western side of the bridge over Station Road/Hopton New Road. Trains from Platform 1 go toLeeds and Wakefield Westgate ; Platform 2 is rarely used for normal scheduled services but is passed by non-stopping westbound trains to Huddersfield. Platform 3 is a side platform on the eastern side of the bridge; trains are towards Huddersfield, Halifax, Bradford Interchange and . The train to Leeds takes around 25 minutes and to reach Huddersfield takes around 10 minutes.
History
The town received its first railway in 1840, when the Manchester and Leeds Railway opened the first section of its cross-Pennine main line between Normanton and Hebden Bridge. It did not actually get a station though until April 1845, when the company opened one shortly before submitting plans to Parliament to build a branch line from the town along the Spen Valley to Bradford via Cleckheaton. Approval was granted for the route the following year and it was opened as far as on 12 July 1848 and through to Bradford two years later. By this time further lines had been opened from nearby Heaton Lodge Junction to Huddersfield by the Huddersfield & Manchester Railway and from Thornhill to Leeds by the Leeds, Dewsbury & Manchester Railway. The LNWR had originally planned to build its own route through Mirfield, but after negotiations with the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway agreed to not to go ahead in return for the granting of running powers over the Thornhill to Heaton Lodge section. This meant that the railway passing through the town soon became extremely congested, carrying as it did the traffic on two main trunk routes between Manchester and Leeds and it led to the station gaining a notorious reputation for delays. This persisted even after the Heaton Lodge - Thornhill section was quadrupled in 1884, and it was not until the LNWR opened an alternative Huddersfield to Leeds route at the turn of the century that the situation began to improve. To facilitate interchange, a new station was built to the east of the original; the contract for the station was placed on 25 May 1864, the roof contract being placed on 26 April 1865. The new station centred on a large island platform with overall roof, and facilities included a hotel, buffet and billiard room; it opened on 5 March 1866. Today the station remains busy, despite the loss of the Spen Valley service to Bradford from 14 June 1965 and the links to Normanton and on 5 January 1970. It has also lost its buildings to demolition and one of its four tracks but gained the aforementioned third platform as part of a set of capacity improvements in the late 1980s.
Facilities
The station is unstaffed and has a ticket machine available on the platform. Digital display screens, timetable posters and automated announcements provide train running information. Shelters are provided on each platform, but only platform 3 has step-free access. Access to the older island platform is via a subway with stairs up to platform level. Platform 3 is to be extended by December 2018 as part of a Network Rail plan to extend more than 100 platforms at 70 stations across the north of England.
Services
Northern
Eastbound from Mirfield, an hourly service to Leeds and to. Westbound hourly to, with connecting services at Huddersfield to Bradford Interchange,, Liverpool Lime Street and. There is also an hourly daytime service to Manchester Victoria and via and - this was introduced as part of the December 2008 timetable alterations on the Calder Valley Line. There are no Northern services on a Sunday.
TransPennine Express
Since the May 2018 timetable change, TransPennine Express services now call here hourly each direction seven days per week. Eastbound trains serve most local stations to Leeds, whilst westbound trains call at Deighton and Huddersfield.
