Remodelling and roof work to transform Huddersfield and remove bottleneck

Huddersfield station faces two 30-day blockades, one in September 2025 and a second in January 2027, as Network Rail remodels tracks to create more capacity as part of its Transpennine Route Upgrade (TRU).

Meanwhile, in five weeks of closures through Dewsbury ending on November 22, NR has replaced 3,128 metres of track and installed 101 electrification masts.

The first Huddersfield closure will remove bridge decks over George William Street at the east end of the station, before replacing two to enable a twin-track railway to reopen while work continues to remodel today’s Platforms 5, 6 and 8 behind hoardings erected along Platform 4.

The second blockade will see the station’s layout transformed into its final state.

Meanwhile, NR continues current work to refurbish the roof that spans Platforms 1 and 4, and prepares to demolish in the first blockade a smaller span over the northern part of the station and the canopy that covers Platform 8.

When finished, the station’s subway will have been extended to serve new Platforms 5 and 6 and a new footbridge at its eastern end. NR plans to electrify the route through Huddersfield, but this is separate from station remodelling and will come later, NR told RAIL.

The station is listed Grade 1 for architectural merit. This has compelled NR to keep the Platform 1-4 roof, which is a rare example of a Euston truss. The roof and canopy to be demolished has less merit and so NR plans to replace it with a new design.

By late November, NR’s contractors had stripped the western end of the Euston truss and were grit-blasting and repairing ironwork. When complete, the roof will have a new covering of slate and glass.

NR has dropped its previous plan to serve Huddersfield from a temporary platform at nearby Hillhouse and will instead serve the town from Brighouse station, which will have improved waiting facilities and car park.

It is building at Hillhouse an electrified five-road depot for Northern trains, with an extra siding for NR’s track maintenance ‘yellow plant’. It plans to commission these facilities in September 2025. Hillhouse replaces sidings at Huddersfield which will disappear under new platforms.

Meanwhile, NR is laying new sidings on the site of the once vast Healey Mills marshalling yard, around ten miles to the east, to act as a logistics hub with commissioning expected in spring 2025. By mid-November, it had installed a fan of six sidings.

NR’s work at Huddersfield forms part of the W3 section of TRU (see panel), which delivers a four-track railway between Huddersfield and Thornhill Junction. The latter becomes a flying junction to segregate Leeds and Wakefield Kirkgate traffic. Between there and Dewsbury, NR is preparing to build a new alignment and viaduct over the River Calder, and move Ravensthorpe station slightly westward (RAIL 929).

This will allow the station to receive services from both routes that converge at Thornhill Junction, rather than just Leeds as is the case today.

W3 will separate fast TransPennine Express services calling at Huddersfield from Northern’s stopping services that will call at Ravensthorpe, Mirfield and Deighton.

West of Huddersfield, NR is developing its plan for the line through Slaithwaite and Marsden. NE Senior Scheme Sponsor Paul Sumner told RAIL that NR expects to apply next year for a Transport and Works Act Order for work it expects to start in the late 2020s.

TransPennine Route Upgrade projects

Network Rail has ten projects within its overall programme to improve the main trans-Pennine route between York and Manchester.

• W1 Manchester Victoria-Stalybridge: Junction speed improvements, line speed increases and electrification.
• W2a Stalybridge: Capacity and line speed improvements.
• W2b Stalybridge-Huddersfield.
• W3 Huddersfield-Dewsbury: Electrification, four-tracking and grade separation at Thornhill Junction.
• W4 Dewsbury-Leeds: Line speed improvements, signalling, station and electrification work.
• W5 Morley: Work to ease curves and increase speeds.
• E1 Church Fenton-York: Electrification and speed increases.
• E2 Leeds.
• E3 Crossgates-Micklefield.
• E4 Micklefield-Church Fenton.