[Source:
Nick Catford and Alan Young]
Earby Station Gallery 1: January 1912 - August 1949 old2.jpg) Earby station looking north from the footbridge in January 1912. A Barnoldswick train, hauled by the branch locomotive, stands in the down platform. The loco is a 2-4-0 from what had originally been known as the 1347 class. Although the outer face of the island platform was used by passenger trains it was also a goods siding running into the large stone goods shed, which is seen in the distance. The waiting room on the up platform (left) was never provided with a canopy.
Copyright photo from John Alsop collection  
1892 1:2,500 OS map. At this time Earby was a lot smaller. The village centre was to the north-east of the station. At this time there were only two sidings; the 5-ton yard crane is shown between them.
old3.jpg)
Earby station looking south from the north end of the up platform c. 1910. A mixed goods train stands at the outer face of the island platform The station sign is the standard Midland Railway two-faced design with the faces set at an oblique angle to each other. It would originally have had white lettering on a blue background.
old4.jpg) A southbound passenger train is approaching Earby Crossing c1915. This is the point about half a mile north of Earby station where the road to Skipton (now A56) bends left to cross the Colne Branch before bending right. Today, although the rails have long been removed, the road still follows this course. The Midland Railway signal box and the crossing keeper’s cottage have now gone, but the large house beyond the cottage is still in place in 2017.
Copyright photo from John Alsop collection  This northward view of Earby station is probably of a works outing, perhaps from a nearby textile mill; if it were more than a day trip it is likely that luggage would be in evidence. The locomotive is almost certainly a Midland Compound 4-4-0 in its original form which indicates a date for the photograph between 1902 and the early 1920s. The telephone kiosk is of interest, its sides and door constructed of wood and glass, which might be of the early 1920s GPO ’Birmingham Style’ or ‘Silent Cabinet’ type.
Photo from Jim Lake collection 
This northward Midland era view including the down island platform of Earby station, probably dates from 1914-22. Double-framed MR 0-6-0 No.2014 stands with southbound a 3-coach train of clerestory coaches. What Binns describes as an ‘ugly’ back-cab enables the period of the photograph
to be estimated. Photo from late Donald Binns collection 
Looking south-west from the footbridge of Earby station on 11 June 1947 as the 8.18am Skipton-Colne departs from the station. Earby Station signal box is far right, immediately beyond the crossing. The loco is Fowler-designed Class 4P Compound 4-4-0 No.1190 built for the LMS at Vulcan Foundry, Newton-le-Willows in March 1927. Originally numbered 1190 she was renumbered 41190 in British Railways days. She would be withdrawn from 19B, Sheffield Millhouses shed in January 1958 and disposed of at Derby works the following month.
Copyright photo by HC Casserley old8.jpg) A southbound goods train passes through Earby station in August 1949.Photo from John Mann collection Click here for Earby Station Gallery 2:
|
Earby station had three platform faces comprising a side platform west of the line and an island. Although intended for passenger use the outer face of the island was not served by a through line; beyond the platform the line ran the length of the goods yard and through the goods shed. The main station building was on the island platform, reached by a lattice footbridge from Colne Road. It was a somewhat plain single-storey sandstone structure with a ridged slate roof; a hipped ridge-and-furrow verandah on each platform face extended half the length of the building. Within were the booking office, waiting rooms and toilets. A similar, but shorter, stone building without a verandah stood on the up platform. The goods yard was sandwiched between the line and Colne Road. The main station entrance also served the goods yard where a weighbridge and weigh office were sited, with a secondary entrance further along Colne Road. There were initially two long sidings running parallel, one passing through the stone-built goods shed and the other passing east of it to a small end-dock. A 5-ton crane stood between the two sidings south of the goods shed. Two additional sidings were built east of, and parallel to, the existing ones. The outer face of the island was originally used by Barnoldswick branch trains, but latterly it was used only by the Saturday midday service and specials such as the Skipton Gala trains. Immediately south of the station was a level crossing on Salterforth Road. Earby Station signal box south of the crossing, on the up side, controlled the crossing and access to the goods yard. About 800yd north of the station, where the road to Skipton (now A56) crossed the railway was another box, known as Earby Crossing (but formerly Earby Gate House). When the Barnoldswick Branch opened, a further box was brought into use at Barnoldswick Junction. For a short time, a box named Earby Junction was in use a short distance south of Barnoldswick Junction; it is understood to have opened in 1916 to control access to and from the Ministry of Munitions explosives store sidings and will have been decommissioned when the store closed, prior to 1923.
The town of Barnoldswick, just over two miles west of Earby, grew in importance when the canal reached it and stimulated the established woollen industry. It went on to specialise in cotton cloth, reflecting its links with Lancashire. After schemes for railways through the town failed, local mill owners promoted their own line and formed the Barnoldswick Railway Company. The line was authorised on 12 August 1865 and construction began two years later. The single-track route of 1 mile 1342yd left the Skipton-Colne line 55 chains south of Earby at Barnoldswick Junction and opened on 8 February 1871. The passenger shuttle was known locally as the ‘Barlick Spud’ or the ‘Spudroaster’, possibly because the diminutive engine was reminiscent of a local vendor’s portable potato roaster or because the journey time between termini was sufficient to roast a potato in the loco’s firebox; ‘Barlick’ is the normal local pronunciation of the town’s name.
In 1899 the Midland Railway obtained powers to buy the Barnoldswick Railway. In 1903 the timetable had improved to 11 weekday trains from Barnoldswick, with two extras late on Saturday, and ten weekday and two late Saturday extras from Earby. Even before World War I road transport had begun to reduce loadings on the branch, but the service was improved to attract more passengers. By 1929 there were 16 weekday departures plus one on Tuesday and Friday only. However the opening of the direct Earby-Barnoldswick Road in interwar years had a dramatic effect on loadings with 116,366 booking in 1928, collapsing to 63,608 two years later. The railway responded in 1932 by introducing a push-and-pull service as it was uneconomical to uncouple the loco from its coaches at each end of the short journey; the loco remained coupled to the coaches, pulling them to Barnoldswick and pushing them back to Earby. By 1934 weekday departures from Barnoldswick had increased to 24 with a number of through workings to Skipton, and there were even nine Sunday evening trains, though none during the day. However these heady days gave way to decline, and by 1939 Sunday trains had ceased. 
In September 1956 the train services on the Barnoldswick Branch were drastically reduced: the following summer timetable showed from Barnoldswick only 8.19am and 5.00pm (Saturdays excepted) departures for Earby and Skipton, and in the opposite direction the 11.45am (Saturdays only) from Earby to Skipton, and a Saturdays excepted through train from Skipton, departing from Earby at 4.42pm to Barnoldswick. The train service was maintained for boys attending Ermysted’s Grammar School and girls at the High School, both in Skipton, and for students attending college in Keighley. The morning departure from Barnoldswick also operated on Saturday as classes were held at the Grammar School. From 1959 the afternoon service was provided by a diesel multiple unit. Barbara Dutton was one of the high school girls who made the daily journey from Earby to Skipton in the late 1950s and early ‘60s. She recalls that girls and boys were strictly segregated in the train, to avoid the risk of ‘hanky-panky’, and they were also kept apart by teachers as they processed from Skipton station to their respective schools. There was an understanding that if the morning train from Barnoldswick failed to reach Earby by 8.30 then pupils could go home, and how – to their disappointment - the train invariably turned up on time. However on one very cold morning the points froze at Barnoldswick Junction, preventing the train from leaving the branch. The signalman at Earby came to its rescue, using a kettle of boiled water to thaw the points, and the train chuffed into Earby just before 8.30, to the children’s jeers of contempt. 
At Earby station photographic evidence indicates that the rails, footbridge and signal box were still in place in 1971 but the date of their removal has not been established. John Mann’s photographs of January 1974 show that the rails have been lifted, and vegetation on the trackbed suggests that this had taken place some time before. The signal box at Earby Crossing was rescued for re-use at Damems station on the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway. Earby’s platforms and vandalised buildings survived until demolition in winter 1976-77. By May 1977 the trackbed through the site of the station had been transformed into a footpath and on the site of the platforms saplings had been planted; today these have matured into tall trees casting the path into deep shade in summer. Nothing remains of the passenger buildings but the goods yard is now a small industrial estate in which the weighbridge office and goods shed survive. 
Home Page