BRADFORDS RAILWAYS:
Bradford lies to the west of Leeds and to describe it as a railway centre
is something of a misnomer. It has always been and remains, a backwater,
albeit at times it has been a very busy one. It is the largest inland place
never to have had a through station, largely due to its geographical location
in the fact that the town lay at the head of a north-facing dale and is
situated in what can only be described as a bowl surrounded by hills, there
being only one possible level way out or in to the city and this is by using
the tributary valley of the Aire which joins the main valley at Shipley,
a route adopted by the earlier Bradford canal. This however was not able
to provide the basis of a through route because after reaching the center
of Bradford, it turns sharply west towards high ground effectively barring
any simple way forward. Hence, Bradford has had a series of stations built
since july 1846 (Leeds Bradford Railway) and the only ones to remain at
this time are Forster Square and Interchange. The second company to reach
Bradford was the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway which finally reached
the town in 1850. The new station was situated less than a quarter of a
mile from the MR terminus and was located at the bottom of a steep gradient
(1 in 50 ) which ran for about two miles southwards towards Low Moor. Even
this gradient could not avoid the need for the 1,648 yd Bowling Tunnel and
other engineering works. Low Moor was the hub of the L&Y's activities
in the area, being both a junction ( with the Spen Valley branch diverging
from the main route towards Manchester ) and a location for the Engine sheds.
Low Moor was destined to become one of the last railway sheds in the West
Riding to maintain an allocation of steam during the final run-down in 1967.