The Great Northern Railway Trail - Cullingworth, UK - Freestanding Arches on Waymarking.com

This part of the trail opened in 2005 and in a distance of only a few miles takes in two former railway viaducts.

The arch has the name of the trail cut out in metal from the arch itself.

The arch is very close to the former Cullingworth Railway Station and there is an information board with the following information.

The Great Northern Railway Trail
Cullingworth Station

The route you are about to take was, for almost 80 years, part of a spectacularly engineered railway that linked Bradford, Halifax and Keighley via Queensbury. Known by locomotive crews as "The Alpine Route," the line was characterised by steep gradients, majestic viaducts and a succession of deep cuttings and tunnels, some bored through solid rock. The Great Northern Railway Company reached Cullingworth in 1884 and began running goods trains in April of that year. Passenger services from its new station followed seven months later.

The trail begins on the site of an old cart road which leads to the remains of two coal drops built in 1894 to ease the loading of coal from railway wagons into waiting road vehicles. The coal drops were closed during the 1939-45 war and lay hidden and forgotten in dense vegetation for many years. Cullingworth station was closed to passengers in May 1955 and to goods in November 1963. The station buildings were destroyed shortly afterwards and track was lifted in 1964, but the goods shed survived until 2006 when it too was demolished. Amazingly, one of the original concrete station name boards survived almost intact and was rescued from undergrowth near Turf Lane, restored and returned to the village in 2013. It can now be seen in the school grounds opposite this entrance to the trail.

Cullingworth's goods yard included extensive sidings for coal and general merchandise and a stone-built goods shed equipped with cranes to unload the thousands of wagons which passed through every year. A short branch line was opened in 1922 to take stone from Cullingworth Quarry and, in the late 1950s, it took on a new lease of life when huge pre-cast concrete beams made at the Grippon factory were transported by train to be used in construction of the M1 motorway. The siding closed in February 1963.


A one-mile section of the Great Northern Railway Trail between Cullingworth and what used to be Wilsden station was re-opened to walkers, cyclists and horse riders in May 2005, almost exactly 50 years to the day since withdrawal of passenger services. The aim is to extend the trail along the old railway track bed for five miles through Denholme and Thornton to the site of the famous "Queensbury Triangle," where the lines from Bradford and Halifax converged.


The line was also used for excursion traffic such as local sporting events and trips to the seaside.

Since this section of the trail opened a further section has been opened at the southern end between Thornton and the Queensbury Triangle. It is hoped that the two sections may be joined up in the future, but in the meantime there are other public footpaths that can be used to walk between the two sections.

Type: Gateway Subtype: Sculpture Location: Former Cullingworth Railway Station at start of Great Northern Railway Trail

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