Skipton railway station is a Grade II listed station which serves the town of Skipton in North Yorkshire, England on the Airedale Line, which gives Skipton access to destinations such as Leeds, Bradford, Carlisle, Lancaster and Morecambe. The station is operated by Northern Trains and is situated north-west of Leeds. The station has four platforms. It is staffed on a part-time basis and a ticket office is available at most times (along with automatic ticket machines). Ticket barriers are in operation and a Penalty fare scheme was implemented on the Airedale Line routes in December 2017. Step-free access is available to all platforms from the station entrance (platforms 3 and 4 via subway). Skipton comes under the Dales Railcard. There are three seated waiting rooms available, luggage trolleys, a small café, toilets, a post box and a pay-phone. There is a taxi rank immediately outside the station, bus links nearby and the car park has spaces for 100 vehicles. The station is located on Broughton Road. History As the "Gateway to the Yorkshire Dales", Skipton historically has had high volumes of leisure traffic. Ilkley railway station serves as an alternative for this function being at the southern end of the Dales Way. The original station was opened on 7 September 1847 by the Leeds and Bradford Extension Railway, as a temporary terminus of its line from Bradford. The line was extended to a year later on 2 October 1848. Initially, passengers would leave the train at Skipton for onward travel to the villages of Wharfedale by horse-drawn coach. There are still over 20 hotels clustered around the station, including the historic Herriots Hotel (formerly the Midland Hotel). The next year, the "little" North Western Railway opened a line from Skipton to Ingleton on 30 July 1849 (which was eventually extended to Lancaster and in 1850). On 30 April 1876, Skipton station was relocated a quarter of a mile northwest of its original location. By now, both the Leeds and Bradford and North Western railways had been absorbed by the Midland Railway. The new station coincided with the opening of the Midland's Settle-Carlisle Line, which made Skipton a station on the to Glasgow main line. The new station had four platforms and cost over £15,000, compared with the original station's cost of £2,300. Platform 1 was a bay platform at the Bradford end, adjacent to the station building along with through