More information : Marsh Lane Railway station operated from 1834 - 1958. The Engineer was James Walker and the Directors' opening trip was 18/9/1834. It acted as a terminus for railway routes from the east of the city prior to the construction in 1869 of the viaduct which now runs through the city centre. It closed 1844, re-opened 1850, and was superseded 1869. It served as the terminus for the Leeds and Selby Railway services between Leeds and Selby and was the first main line to be built in Yorkshire.
Much of north boundary wall and the monumental gateposts at its NW end survive. (1-2)
Gateposts and wall to the former Marsh Lane Station of the Leeds and Selby Railway. Street wall to Marsh Lane and one pair of monumental coarse gritstone gateposts with pedimented cappings, at NW end of wall. Engineer James Walker, of Walker & Burgess of London. Builder: probably Nowell & Sons of Dewsbury. 1830-34. Remnant of the original Marsh Lane Station on the Leeds and Selby Railway, opened to the public on 22.9.1834. The SE gateposts were removed in c1990
Marsh Lane Station was possibly rebuilt to a design of Robert Stephenson, following his 1841 survey for George Hudson. It was demoted to goods yard 1869, and superseded by a small passenger station (1869-1958) sited on the route of Leeds City Viaduct. However, the gateposts survive. Leeds and Selby Railway was Yorkshire's first passenger railway, also intended for the export of Leeds cloth and Yorkshire coal through the Port of Selby. The concept of a railway was reputedly first suggested by Blenkinsop (Engineer, Middleton coal railway) in 1814; then scuppered in 1821 by rival transport faction, the Aire and Calder Navigation Company; then promoted by George Stephenson in 1825, who employed Joseph Locke to survey the Leeds-Hull section of a Liverpool-Hull railway; and then formally proposed by James Walker in 1829. Construction of the Leeds and Selby Railway commenced in 1830, following the Parliamentary Act on 29.5.1830. Directors' opening trip: 18.9.1834, including Benjamin Gott and John Marshall - hauled by locomotive 'Nelson' made in Foundry Street (Holbeck) by Fenton, Murray & Jackson (List Entry No. 1375466) – through Richmond Hill Tunnel (which was superseded in 1894 by a wide cutting with bridges). The Hull and Selby Railway was soon opened on 01.7.1840, but later that year ‘railway king’ George Hudson of the York & North Midland Railway, as lessee of the L&SR, withdrew passenger traffic from the Leeds and Selby Railway and then bought out the company outright on 23.5.1844. The L&SR became part of the North Eastern Railway in the amalgamation of 1854. (3)
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