# Healey Mills Marshalling Yard Revisit, January 2015



## Wakey Lad (Jan 11, 2015)

By 1920 extensive railway sidings had been developed on the railway line east/southeast of Healey named Healey Mill Sidings. In the 1960s, as part of a modernisation plan, the sidings were re-designed for more efficient wagon load handling. Construction included cutting a new channel over 1,000 yards long for the River Calder south of the original, levelling of the site with over 1 million cubic yards of infill, the re-construction and extension of a road bridge at the east end of the site near Horbury Bridge, the construction of three railway bridges over the River Calder, and diversion of gas and electricity mains.

The new improved yard opened in 1963 in attempt to modernise wagon-load traffic. The yards featured hump-shunting, in which wagons were pushed over a ‘hump’, freewheeled into the required siding, and braked using special retarders next to the rails - all controlled from a centralised operations tower.

A purpose-built diesel depot opened alongside the yards at the end of 1966 and the two facilities saw round the clock activity with a claimed capacity of 4,000 wagons per day. Situated to the west of Wakefield, Healey Mills was ideally located for sending and receiving trains to all parts of the country, as well as handling the large number of local coal trains at the time.

But wagon-load rail freight came under increasing threat in the 1970s and 1980s due to competition from road transport. Then a double blow came with the decline of the Yorkshire coal industry and resultant reduction in coal trains, which had once formed up to 50 percent of traffic at Healey Mills.

As a result, the depot lost its own allocation of locomotives in 1984 and the marshalling yards closed in 1987 - although both were still used for stabling locomotives and trains until the early 2000s.

Not been here for a few years so with it being close to home decided to take another look after seeing it pop up again on another forum.





















































Thanks for looking​


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## HughieD (Jan 11, 2015)

Interesting place...just being left to rust away...


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## UrbanX (Jan 12, 2015)

Wow there's some lovely light in there! 
Thanks for sharing


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## flyboys90 (Jan 12, 2015)

Ace photos and nice to see it aint been trashed.


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## krela (Jan 12, 2015)

Good to see this place again, cheers.


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