Rumination: Morley Gets A New Station

New Station means Selfies!
at Morley 'New' Station.

After a rough start to the year, we finally managed to get a good turn on the walking year as passed through May and June, but as the midway point on the year arrives, we need to have a rest from the regular weekends on the trail, as we already feel like we've been spreading ourselves rather thin with the efforts of keeping myself going through working and walking in the midst of the post-covid experience and having put a decent wad of miles downs so far, a rest feels overdue, before we refocus ourselves on the task in hand, namely getting a whole 300 (Three Hundred!) miles down on the year, a triumphant sounding amount that's still less than half of what I achieved in 2022. It doesn't mean that we don't have things to talk about though, as there's not been a shortage of things going on locally, even if we're going to have to cast our minds back a bit, which shouldn't be too much of problem considering the usual condition of this blog, to two weekends ago, when the engineering possession through Morley station was only on its second day, and I decided to stay in to dedicate myself to writing and housework on Sunday 18th June, with full anticipation that redevelopment progress was going to be slow and the main activity of the long week would be tidily spread out and thus easily observable on the casual. This turned out to be a poor choice, as when I rose on the early morning on the Monday and progressed down to the station to await the rail replacement bus, we found that a lot of activity had gone on since my passing by on Saturday morning, with the footbridge span removed and the 'up' platform completely dug out, with the rails and ballast on the Manchester-bound side also removed and the alignment partially flooded, (due to rain or the spill out from the concealed stream below) with drainage being apparently installed, which pretty definitively drops the curtain on the old L&NWR Morley Low station after almost 175 years, marking my arrival there on the Friday as the last of the in excess of 6,000 journeys that I must have made via it since arriving in town in 2007.

Morley to Low Moor 17/06/23

8.6 miles, via Daisy Hill. Chapel Hill, Morley Hole, Bruntcliffe, Gildersome Street,

 Adwalton, Moorside, Drighlington, Birkenshaw, Lodge Beck, Copley House, Chatts Wood,

  Lower Woodlands, Dyehouse Fold, and Toad Holes.  

Another 9-day engineering possession lands on the railway line through Morley as we arrive at the weekend bracketing the Top of the Year (already!), not that it will have that much impact on our plans, as we’re going to be walking from home for most of this year, and the difficulties will only become apparent on our return legs if we were to pick route that needed a pathway back via Leeds, Huddersfield or Calderdale, which we’re not up for today as energy levels are low while the days are at their longest, and we’ll be pulling the shortest possible trip up from our slate of plans. We might be planning to head west for today, but we need to linger at Morley station when we arrive, just ahead of 9am as there’s a whole lot to observe going on here, not least the fact that the line closure hasn’t been a factor in the installation of the new station footbridge which has had its support stanchions and deck installed while the line was still open last week, and removal of the old footbridge is going to be a primary objective over the next week, as well as track re-laying, as rails and sleepers are being removed on the ‘Up’ side toward Manchester, apparently only a few months after they were renewed. We’ll also visit our other vantage point while we are here, below the green space off Seven Hills Way, where the new station can be over-viewed, at least on the ‘Up’ side where it’s all fully surfaced, edged and fenced, with signage installed too and looking almost complete aside from the fact that it’s inaccessible due to a lack of steps on the footbridge, and no exits apparently existing to the Valley Road side, and it’s altogether difficult getting the looks that we had some months back from up here, as Spring growth of the vegetation atop the bank has gotten so thick and tall as to pose quite the obstacle to a short-arse like myself. 

Morley to Horsforth 13/05/23

11.4 miles, via Valley Mills, White Rose, Beeston Park Side, South Beeston, Beeston, 

 Elland Road, Lowfields, Wortley Rec, New Wortley, HMP Leeds, Botany Bay, Burley, 

  Burley Park (station), Headingley (station), Queenswood, Morris Wood, Spen Lane, 

   West Park, Ireland Wood, Clayton Wood, Cookridge Hospital, and Tinshill. 

It's not really related to what we're doing today, as we already lack trains going through Morley due to another engineering possession and there's another train strike happening this weekend too, but on 11th May it was announced that Trans Pennine Express were not getting their franchise renewed, which is a rare bit of good news for us travellers to hear after many months (and years?) of their failure to maintain services and self induced industrial strife, which means we might have a competent operator taking on the North Country's premier express services once the mainline upgrade is finally completed in the 2036-41 window. Anyway, the good start to May continues as we rise to another Saturday trail, hopeful that the early gloom will shift before too long as we target a new trail from home to my local Old Country and beyond, starting out from Morley station at 10.15 am and heading down the Valley Road path with only the most cursory of glances being given to the deliveries of aggregate as I'm actually growing bored of spotting local freight trains now, heading on down by the Gasworks and Valley Mills site to strike for the fields beyond, rising over the false ridge and equestrian fields that have Cotton Mill beck concealed beneath it, and down again on the Millshaw Beck side. Land by the gas plant and exposed stream ahead of the staff car park at the south end of the White Rose centre, where we pass across the access road, and the A6110 Ring Road carefully, to progress up the side of Dewbury Road as to comes down the hill, rising up towards the railway bridge and the path to Stank Hall farm, passing up by the side of the former GNR Hunslet Goods line and soon enough find ourselves in the exact same part of Beeston Park Side that we visited last weekend, by old St David's and coming up to the Tommy Wass corner, where we'll swap sides to progress north rather than east (or in reality, South). 

Morley to Woodlesford 07/05/23

9 miles, via Daisy Hill, Broad Oaks, White Rose, Beeston Park Side, Brown Hill, 

 Middleton Circus, Sharp Lane Plantation, New Forest Plantation, Robin Hood, 

  Haighside Wood, Rothwell Haigh, and John O'Gaunts.

The long Coronation bonus bank holiday weekend is a most welcome arrival, not that I'm at all engaged with the on-going shenanigans for KC3, aside from the Musicks, but more so that it gives me an extra day to rest up and get busy housework-wise, before we get back to the business of walking on Sunday, having had three whole weeks off the trail since last my last venture, and it's just as well that my scheming for the next phase of season 12 is to feature walking from home on previously unseen trajectories, as we've got two whole weekends of engineering possessions on the Leeds - Huddersfield line, which means there's no quick way to get out of (or back to) Morley, even if I wanted one. So we start from Morley station in a familiar fashion, departing at 10.15am and rising with the path above the cliff above the carpark to observe how the platforms have been built up on the new station site and to see that the support columns for the new footbridge have been installed, sure to arrive during the line closure in June, I'd figure, while there's more aggregate being delivered by rail which does get you wondering where it's all going, and this all needs to be observed from the green space on Seven Hills Way too, just to get the reverse angles from the rock cliff above the new station. We get going properly by rising up to Daisy Hill and setting off to the northwest, to find that a new rough track has been gouged out beside the path from the A643 down to Gasworks Crossing, though its not apparent of this is for railway work or future suburban development reaching down from Laneside, but the feeling is we'll have to enjoy the fields of Broad Oaks while they still endure, heading up through the farm to observe the growth at White Rose station on the other side of the hill, where the lift shaft tower on the south side has started to be assembled, to be seen from the footbridge path as a Kestrel buzzes the local wildlife.

Morley to Cottingley 19/02/23

3.9 miles, via Valley Mills, Gasworks Crossing, White Rose, Broad Oaks and Churwell.

Having spent my entire week of being NIW walking in circles from home, we need to actually travel somewhere as the month progresses, but not too far as the legs aren't feeling like jaunting too far from home, especially as a pervasive chill remains in the air and there's still going on occurring down by the railways even after the engineering possession has ended and the trains resumed, and thus we set out on the Sunday morning to recommence our strolling from Morley station, arriving at 9.45am to find no one at all on site after all that business before. We can descend to the platforms to take a gander up the line towards Leeds, and see that the rail-facing edges of the new platforms have been installed up to their apparent full length between the wire-retained rock face of the cutting and the site of the old town gasworks, and also wander back along the old site to regard the new electrical junction boxes that have been installed, as an initial measure before full scale electrification works start I'd assume, trying to not look like weirdo to the early morning travellers or the couple of security guards watching over the construction site. Our wander can then follow Valley Road down past the works that have encroached over the Valley Mills site with a lot of stored plant and aggregate, coming around to Gasworks crossing, where the first stopping train of the day can be observed departing for the city, with its six carriage length being measured against the new platforms from a reverse angle, illustrating that hey could indeed be long enough to accommodate lengthier trains, and that's a service improvement to ponder as we move on, along the dirt path towards the White Rose centre, where more new electrical workings can be seen, at the entrance to the cutting to its rear, by the lost foot-crossing site.

Trails around Morley's New Developments 5-6-8-12/02/23

8.8 miles, over Four paths and Four days, via Morley Station, Valley Mills, White Rose,

 Broad Oaks, Laneside and Daisy Hill (plus Two in January that We're Not Counting!).

The first Long Week of being NIW arrives and we're going to get going in the locality, as the post-Covid walking experience starts to feel a lot like the Covid Lockdown period as we stay close to home among the fields and paths to the immediate east of Morley railway station, and that turns out to be not the worst of options as there's plenty going around abouts as we see new developments on the Trans Pennine rail route unfolding, as well as suburbanism creeping into the fields in a manner that I'd noted like it seemed inevitable three years ago. I'd like to think that I've usually got my ear to the ground when it comes to local happenings, and I've been kept fully up to date on the construction of the new White Rose station thanks to mail shots from Network Rail, but the very first new that I got of development happening at Morley was when three weekends and one week of total closure of the line between Dewsbury and Leeds was announced to commence in late January, one month on from a long engineering possession for track re-laying over the New Year weekend. This turns out to be due to Morley Station being completely relocated, along the line to the east, away from the portal of Morley tunnel and onto the section of track between the old goods yard and the former gasworks site, which we've been watched being cleared of vegetation and spoil since last summer, in reasonable anticipation of catenary being installed for electrification as part of the Trans Pennine Route Upgrade, rather than having a fully accessible station built with apparent access to improved car parking in the level plots around. Being NIW when there's a full line closure in place thus allows me to go and have a good record of what's going on, which we started over the preceding weekend in January, where we tested out the waterproofing of my lightweight boots as we toured around the station site, observing the relaying of track that didn't seem to straightening out the curve of the line going into the tunnel nearly as much as was advertised, while also giving illustration of the fact that in any heavy engineering scenario, there will always be far more men in high-vis clothing on site than seem to be actually doing anything, with clearly more observing than working.

5,000-1 - A Leicester City Fan's Musings.

NB. This post contains a lot of musing about football and absolutely nothing about walking,
 so feel free to move along, if you're not interested.

Well, the 2015-15 Barclays Premier League Season has reached its apotheosis and Leicester City have done the impossible, claiming their first ever top flight title in 132 years, in the supposed 'toughest league in the world', where titles cannot be earned by graft, and are only won by paying out money for the acquisition of 'quality' players. When you grow up in a mid-size city, you never expect your local football team to be able to do something so unlikely, your expectations are that they ought to be good enough to stay in the top division for a prolonged spell, or to be able to challenge for promotion each season if they are in the second tier, but you'd never expect them to challenge for the English title, let alone win the thing. Thus when odds were given for the start of the season, 5,000-1 did not seem like an insult, because Leicester City were not a great team and would not challenge for the title, because it's just not something that they do, but now the football world has been turned on its head, and the most improbable rise in the history of English Football has arrived at its culmination. So allow me to share my thoughts on this particular tale, as this is my personal forum, even though this has nothing at all to do with the actual purpose of my blog...

The Aire's Fury 28/12/15

A Stroll along the Aire from Whitehall Road to the Royal Armouries.

As anyone should be aware, on Boxing Day 2015, rain in the wake of Atlantic storm Eva brought flooding to many parts of Lancashire and Yorkshire, causing record peak flow on many rivers and causing at least six major rivers to burst their banks to bring devastation and misery in their wakes. I managed to personally avoid the worst of the weather, having been celebrating Christmas with My Parents in Leicester but on return to the North Country it made sense to put on my boots and do something useful, though personal involvement in the clean up operations was probably beyond my scope. Travelling to aid my friends in Mytholmroyd was out of the question with the town centre still underwater, and heading out to Kirkstall was improbable due to the flooding of the A65, and so I had to limit myself to where was straightforwardly accessible, and that would be the banks of the Aire through the city of Leeds. Even two days after the rain had passed the river was still elevated and full of fury, providing a handy reminder that when nature chooses, all of the will and engineering of humanity can do little to contain it, and the implacable natural forces unleashed will do their thing with little regard for what has been put in their way.



Upstream from Whitehall Road bridge, the Aire may have dropped from its peak but it still
rides well above its usual level and roars with a fury that you wouldn't normally hear.