The Hull & Barnsley Railway

Image: © Paul Glazzard Taken: 30 Jul 2007

Remaining section of a railway embankment which runs from Gorton Road to Beverley Road in Kirk Ella, west of Hull and is now called the "Willerby and Kirk Ella Nature Trail". Self-seeded trees on either side of the six or seven metre high embankment were supplemented with the planting of hawthorn, laurel, dog rose and holly bushes from 1996 to 2001. The Hull & Barnsley Railway was built in the 1880s together with the Alexandra Dock in Hull, to break the monopoly of the North Eastern Railway Company and provide an additional trading route inland from the busy Humber port. The railway didn't last long. Services west of South Howden station were withdrawn from 1st January 1932 and the regular service between Hull and South Howden ended on 30th July 1955, although some excursion traffic continued to use the line until about 1958. After that only a short section remained in Hull serving the local chemical works, although another stretch of the old line just south of Selby was reopened in the 1970s for delivering coal to the newly built Drax Power Station.

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