The railway was first proposed by the
West Riding Union Railways (WRUR), who submitted a bill to parliament in 1846 to build of railways around the south west of Bradford connecting with Halifax, Huddersfield and Mirfield. The was absorbed by the
Manchester and Leeds Railway, who in turn became a constituent of the
Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway (L&YR) a year later. The railway's initial section between Mirfield and opened in 1847, with full opening to Low Moor in July 1848. However, it would be two years before through running was achieved from Low Moor into Bradford, so Low Moor acted as the northern terminus; delays in tunnelling under the hill at Bowling meant that the section to did not open until May 1850. The distance of the line extended to almost between the two points with a small spur extending from Heckmondwike to Thornhill that had one intermediate station at Ravensthorpe. This was part of the original bill passed in August 1846, but abandoned by the on grounds of cost. Because of the need to reverse at Mirfield to head towards the Wakefield direction, the 1846 plan for the line between Heckmondwike and Thornhill was re-submitted to parliament and approved. The line opened to traffic in June 1869. The line was double track throughout with a triangular junction in the Low Moor area to allow trains to access the line west to
Halifax. The topography of the line was fairly flat with the steepest gradient being a 1 in 100 north of Heckmondwike and the line only required two tunnels. The spur between Heckmondwike and Thornhill cut 25 minutes from the journey time between Bradford and Wakefield and also reduced the congestion at Mirfield station. The spur line had a twelve-arch viaduct across the
River Calder just east of Ravensthorpe Lower station. The west facing curve at the northern end of the line was built by the Lancashire and Yorkshire railway in 1893 after an agreement in 1882 with the
Great Northern Railway about the sharing of running powers. The used the agreement to prevent the GNR building a line through the Spen Valley which would have duplicated their route. The 1882 agreement provided the with access to GNR lines in the Wakefield and
Pudsey areas. The GNR were, in return, afforded the ability to run trains from the and Wakefield areas to Halifax either via or Cleckheaton. The line lost its local passenger services in July 1965 and despite Low Moor being on a line that would stay open serving trains between Halifax and Bradford, it too closed completely. In the 1980s, the
West Riding Transport Museum, had intended to electrify the line between Low Moor and Heckmondwike to 1,500 volt direct current. This was so they could run a newly acquired
Class 506 EMU on the line. The course of the line is now a cycle and footpath named the Spen Valley Greenway. There have been proposals for the railway to re-open to provide a separate service from Bradford to Huddersfield or Wakefield, however, the greenway that occupies the trackbed was dug up by
Yorkshire Water in two stages during 2011 when a pipeline was installed. This was preferable to crossing roads and other means of communications but has also meant that the prospect of re-opening the line to rail traffic is diminished as the cost of moving the pipeline was estimated at £15 million in 2011. This line has been identified by Campaign for a Better Transport as a priority 1 candidate for reopening.
Stations From north west to south east; • • •
Liversedge Central • • • • • The stations at Cleckheaton, Liversedge Heckmondwike and Northorpe opened in July 1848. Cleckheaton, Liversedge and Heckmondwike were later renamed in 1924 each having the suffix
Central appended to their names to avoid confusion with Cleckheaton Spen, Liversedge Spen and stations on the
Leeds New Line. Bairstow, writing in the
Manchester and Leeds Railway, states that in the case of Cleckheaton, the term central was very appropriate for the Spen Valley Line station as the one on the Leeds New Line was quite far from the town. Similarly, Northorpe and Ravensthorpe were renamed in 1924 by the LMS to avoid confusion with other stations in the same locations. ==Spen Valley Light Railway==