Woodlesford

The Story of a Station
Home
About Us
Contact Us
Background
Woodlesford Station
Station Masters
Clerks and Porters
Signalmen
Goods and Parcels
Drivers and Guards
Trains
Expresses
Coal Trains
Diesels
Diesel Multiple Units
Pullman Carriages
Diversions
Streaks
Sheffield Stopper
Freights
Enthusiasts & Passengers
Water Haigh Colliery
Bentley's Brewery
Armitage Quarries
Aire & Calder Navigation
Fleet Mills
Potteries
Hulse and Co Ltd
Fleet Oil Depot
Village Memories
Links
Site Map
Jubilee engine 45658 "Keyes" of Holbeck shed is standing on the "Up" line at the station whilst Stourton shed's Stanier 8F 48394  passes on the "Down" line with a "trip" working of coal wagons departing from Water Haigh colliery. Photo Derek Rayner.

On weekdays and Saturdays in the 1960s there were about four steam hauled stopping passenger trains in each direction between Leeds City and Sheffield.

They ran on the original North Midland Railway route calling at Altofts, Normanton, Royston, Cudworth, and all stations to Sheffield Midland via Rotherham Masborough.

The "stoppers" had four or five carriages and the driver normally stopped the engine with one of the carriages standing on the Aberford Road bridge so the rear of the train was clear of the foot crossing between the platforms.

The two early evening services usually had a guard's compartment full of parcels for Woodlesford which often took up to ten minutes to unload before being carried across the crossing on barrows.

The stoppers were hauled by a variety of engines ranging from the small 0-6-0 Fowler 4Fs to the more modern Britannia Pacifics.



Royal Scot engine, 46162 Queen's Westminster Riflemen, arrives at Woodlesford on 31 May 1962 with the 1809 "Mill Girls Special" from Leeds to Normanton, Cudworth and Sheffield.  Photo by Peter Rose.


Stanier Class 5 45211 with a Leeds - Sheffield (via Cudworth) local. July 1964.
Photo by Alan Bailey.