West Riding and Grimsby Railway

The West Riding and Grimsby Railway was a joint railway whose main line linked Wakefield with Doncaster, while a branch line ran between Adwick and Stainforth. The companies involved were the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway and the Great Northern Railway. The WR&G gave the Great Northern Railway a new direct line to Wakefield from Doncaster on its north-south main line, and onwards to the Woollen District towns and the cities of Leeds, Bradford and Halifax over the tracks of the former West Yorkshire Railway, which it acquired in 1865; while the M.S.& L.R. could offer connections to Grimsby, and its docks, and the seaside resort of Cleethorpes.

The company was formally susbsumed into the Great Northern Railway on 28 June 1867. The line was then inherited by the LNER in 1923, and today is still the main route for East Coast Main Line expresses to Leeds.

The main line ran from Wakefield, the county town of the West Riding of Yorkshire, to Marshgate Junction, just north of Doncaster and the branch from Adwick Junction near Adwick-le-Street and Carcroft to Stainforth Junction, just to the west of the present day Hatfield and Stainforth. There were also three further lines: a triangular junction was created at Adwick, opened in November 1866, which made it possible, should it be required, to run from Doncaster to Grimsby by this route; secondly a line from Hare Park Junction, near Wakefield, to the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway near to Wakefield Kirkgate, and lastly a connection to the Midland Railway at Oakenshaw Junction, south of Wakefield. A short curve was also laid in from Applehurst Junction to join the North Eastern Railway main line towards Selby at Joan Croft Junction to allow through running to and from the north.

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