Sowerby Bridge railway station serves the town of Sowerby Bridge in West Yorkshire, England. It lies on the Caldervale Line west of Halifax and west of Leeds. History The original station was opened on 5 October 1840 by the Manchester and Leeds Railway, on a site further west (on the other side of the River Ryburn) of the current site. Prior to opening, in August 1840, Branwell Brontë was engaged as 'assistant clerk in charge' at Sowerby Bridge, for which his salary was £75 per annum; he transferred to on 1 April 1841. The station became a junction from 1 January 1852, when a branch line from nearby Milner Royd Junction to Halifax was opened by the M&L's successor company the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway; this allowed through trains to operate to and eventually Leeds via Stanningley from 1854. Ahead of the opening of the Rishworth Branch in the 1880s, a new station was built on the current site - this opened on 1 September 1876. Regular passenger services along the original M&L main line via (to and ) were withdrawn by British Rail on 5 January 1970. Through trains between Manchester & York over the route had ended in the mid-1960s (due to the Beeching Axe), leaving a much-reduced DMU service in later years that started/terminated here and connected with the Calder Valley trains via Bradford. The route remained in use for freight and was subsequently re-opened to passengers on a limited basis in 2000, with an all day service restored in 2007. A major fire in 1978 resulted in the demolition of most of the buildings by British Rail in 1980. New canopies were erected in 1981 on the remaining platforms, with a ticket office housed in the surviving wing of the 1870s station, however this closed in 1983 and the station is now unstaffed. In 2008, the former ticket office building was re-opened as a bar called the Jubilee Refreshment Rooms. A ticket machine was installed in 2011, allowing passengers to buy tickets before boarding for the first time in almost 30 years. Recent work has seen the installation of an electronic Passenger information system (PIS), giving details of forthcoming departures, and the car park enlarged which is currently free to use. Step-free access is available to both platforms via the inclined subway linking them or from adjoining roads. A volunteer group, The Friends of Sowerby Bridge