Old Coal Tramways Around Stanley

Starting Point - Outwood Station. Leg 1: to Bottom Boat - 3.1 miles. Back to Canal Lane - 2 miles. Leg 2: Canal Lane to Stanley Ferry 1.5 miles.

Current Map 1854 Map

The area around Outwood - Lofthouse - Stanley was once covered in collieries and with that tramways to take the coal to the River Calder for onward transport in the days before the railways domitated that business.

Though the area has been redeveloped with housing in the subsequent centuries, it is still possible to follow some of the tramways and even see a few traces of their existance today.

Some of the early tramways were affected by the construction of the later Methley Joint Line, much of which survives as a footpath / cycle route we will cross a few times.

Below - Routes of early coal tramways superimposed on a modern map (Map - OpenStreetMap)

Below - Memorial at the site of Lofthouse Colliery.

Starting at Outwood station, land adjacent to the station that now forms parkland was previously Lofthouse Colliery. From here we really go back in to railway history as the first tramway we look for was the Lake Lock Railroad. This line is said to have been the world's first public railway when it was formed in 1796. Unlike earlier schemes that were developed by the collieries they served, this was built by a variety of financial backers and open to any colliery owners prepared to pay the toll to use it. The line was built with edge rails to a gauge of 3ft 4 3/4 inch, this of course being before the days of a standard gauge. The Lake Lock Railroad closed in 1836 and new waggonways with what had become conventional rails for flanged wagons were built following the same or similar routes to carry on the job of taking coal from the mines to the Navigation. More can be read about the Lake Lock Railroad on the Wikipedia article and the Stanley History Online page.

Directly across Potovens Lane from the colliery memorial is a passageway and this is on a small stretch of the Lake Lock Railroad. It can be seen that this is on a slight embankment, the line having being engineered so that a horse could haul a few wagons on an average gradient of 1 in 70 down to the river.

After this short stretch we loose the trackbed under housing and have to follow the roads to Canal Lane. Where it meets Baker Lane we see the tramway to Stanley Ferrey and the walls of a filled in bridge, we'll come back to these. At this point the Lake Lock Railroad was alongside Canal Lane for a short bit before Canal Lane curves off to the north.

Taking Woolford Lane it leads to a small park and a path through it called Elgar Walk which is around where the line would have been, but any trace has been landscaped away. It is a case here of following the roads to reach the corner of Mount Road and Lake Lock Road. Until 1804 the tramway continued along Lake Lock Road and on to staith on the River Calder behind where the houses on Lake Yard are now. No trace remains but a blue plaque marks the course of the railway at the Aberford Road end of Lake Lock Road. The 1804 diversion took it instead to staiths further east at Bottom Boat.

Returning to Mount Road, the course of the 1804 diversion survives on a path behind St Peter's Church Centre.

This brings us to Aberford Road. Where The Chase goes off on the left was the site of Stanley Station on the Methley Joint Line which crossed on a level crossing here. One of the later coal waggonways that developed from the Lake Lock Railroad connected to the Methley Joint Line here and a section of the route survived on its final approach to the river staith long after the rest of the line. It can be seen on the 1894 Map but had gone by the next map in 1908.

Two paths link Aberford Road to Bottom Boat Road, the northern most one being the Lake Lock Railroad, the other being the Methley Joint Line.

Beyond this St Peter's Cresent is built on the course of the line so it's a case of following Bottom Boat Road. The railway ran to the north of the road and a stretch of embankment can be seen at the back of the Bottom Boat Playground. On the approach to the staith the line crossed the road. It would seem I just missed some track in situ at this point as it was showing on Google Streetview but freshly resurfaced in real life. When I got home I screen captured the out of date scene for posterity. Note the dual gauges.

Bottom Boat Staith was at the site of an artificial canal that cut out a meander in the river, this has long since been abandoned and is now evident on satellite images but quite overgrown.

From here we return to the corner of Canal Lane and Baker Lane and this time look at the Stanley Railway, sometimes referred to as the Nagger Line. I couldn't find much about this line on the internet, except for an entry on the Lost Railways West Yorkshire page. Built to 3ft 4in gauge (the 3/4 inch gauge difference probably came about in switching from edge rails where the gauge was the outer edges to regular rails where the gauge was the inner edges) this line ran between Lofthouse Colliery and the Aire & Calder Navigation at Stanley Ferry, rather than the meandering natural course of the River Calder that the Lake Lock Railroad served.

There is evidence of it having extended north under Canal Lane, the bridge can be seen today for a start. The maps don't show this line though, instead showing it joining the route of the Lake Lock Railroad for the stretch to Lofthouse. The route from Lofthouse to Stanley Ferry is shown on maps until 1908. In 1931 it is cut back and shown as running from just west of Lime Pit Lane to Stanley Ferry, though it isn't clear what the point of this would have been so the map is probably showing the extent to which it had been dismantaled. 

A branch served Victoria Colliery at Newton Lane Ends. That pit was shown as disused on the 1908 map and the line had gone.

Below - The bridge on Canal Lane

The line today is a nice tree lined footpath and cycle route.

At the point where the line crossed Lime Pit Lane there were rails in situ across the road when I visited in November 2020, though they have since been removed. It's a shame I didn't take a tape measure to double check the gauge, they were clearly narrow gauge though. 

Where the line crossed the road the course of the tramway continues through a green on the east side of the road. Before the route crossed the A642 was the junction with the branch from Victoria Colliery. I didn't walk this branch, though looking at satelite views the route can be seen through the Normanton Golf Club's golf course so it might be worth checking out, though will likely have been thoroughly landscaped since. 

Across the A642 the footpath / cycle route re-joins the tramway route for the final section to Stanley Ferry.

At Stanley Ferry a large restauraunt now occupies the site of the sidings and the basin is still in use but now for pleasure craft. Some of the old building survive, including the italianate building of the Aire & Calder Navigation offices and the Aquaduct over the River Calder.

From here I continued to Wakefield Kirkgate station via the Aire & Calder Navigation, about 2.6 miles. Returning to Outwood Station would also be a sensible option at 2.8 miles.