Copley Viaducts, December 2018

 Copley is a small village to the south of Halifax, West Yorkshire widely known for the 2 railway viaducts that cross the valley to the west of the village, there is actually 3 railway viaducts with the third crossing the River Calder to the east of the village. The pictures below show the 2 more widely known viaducts at Copley taken on the 9th December 2018.

The 23 arch Copley Viaduct is the more commonly known viaduct, it's the youngest of the 3 having been completed and opened in 1852. It completed the first direct link between the Sowerby Bridge Railway Station and Halifax Railway Station, trains having reversed up from Greetland Railway Station to Halifax when the branch line connecting them opened in 1844.

The viaduct passes over or nearby to the River Calder, Copley Cricket Ground, Calder & Hebble Navigation Canal and the A6026 Wakefield Road.

Both the viaducts can be seen here in this picture taken from Norland. The smaller and older Copley 3 arch viaduct was built by George Stephenson for the Manchester and Leeds Railway. The viaduct carried the first line to pass through the Copley Valley when opened in 1840. The line was closed to passenger trains in 1970, the odd diversion or excursion train using the now mainly freight route. Plans to close the line between Milner Royd and Heaton Lodge Junctions were discussed a number of times before being abandoned completely in the 1980's. In 2000 Brighouse station reopened and passenger trains regularly passed over the viaduct once again.

These 2 pictures were taken on the 9th December 2018 using a Nikon d3300 SLR camera. The picture below shows the third Copley Viaduct and was taken on the 25th February 2019.

This viaduct crossers the River Calder to the east of Copley village, near to Old Rishworthians sports ground. Opened along with the line in 1840 by the Manchester and Leeds Railway line passes the bottom of North Dean Woods. I have previously posted about this viaduct here in a post called Copley Viaduct (the lesser known one)

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All the pictures remain the copyright of Colin Green.