Stanley (West Yorkshire) railway station


Stanley railway station on the Methley Joint Railway served the village of Stanley east of Outwood, Wakefield, West Yorkshire.
Some early railways already served the local collieries before 1840. When Methley Joint Railway was built in the 1860s, a site on Aberford Road was chosen for Stanley station. By 1906, the station had two platforms and a station building with a remarkably high pitched roof. Sixteen trains per day stopped at Stanley in the 1920s. Main freights were coal and rhubarb, the latter was conveyed as far as London. Originally equipped with a Saxby and Farmer signal box, the station gained a Great Northern Railway Type 1 signal box with a 30 lever frame in 1884. In 1961 Stanley was served by passenger trains running between Leeds Central and Castleford, with some of then continuing to and from Pontefract Baghill or Goole. Diminishing cost-effectiveness of the line led to its closure in 1964, in the course of the Beeching cuts.
No trace remains of the station. A housing development has been built on its grounds.