ABOUT 100 years ago, Bradford had two large stations providing direct trains across the country.

That is a marked difference to the modern day, as while the city still has two stations, they only house seven platforms between them, and - despite some direct services to London - passengers have to travel to destinations such as Leeds and Huddersfield to connect to the Transpennine line.

The city's train services were hit hard by the Beeching Cuts of the 1960s. The Beeching report recommended getting rid of about a third of the network, which amounted to 5,000 miles of track, hundreds of branch lines, more than 2,300 stations, and tens of thousands of jobs.

Its aim was fast journeys between cities - something not evident in Bradford nowadays.

The cuts meant there were not enough services to justify Bradford Exchange's ten platforms - leading to a four-platform station being built off Bridge Street.

It was re-named the Bradford Interchange in 1983, six years after a bus station was built alongside the train station.

The old Exchange station - which was situated where Bradford Crown Court now is - was built in 1850.

According to the Disused Stations website, the new station was opened by the joint efforts of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway and the Great Northern Railway on May 9 1850.

In 1867, the Leeds, Bradford and Halifax Junction Railway, which had previously used Bradford Adolphus Street, built a link to the tracks into Exchange station to join the two existing companies. Adolphus Street station was then closed to passengers.

By the end of the 1870s, the station could not cope with the influx of passengers and it was completely rebuilt on the same site in 1880, with ten platforms and two arched roofs.

Passenger numbers dropped dramatically after World War Two and by 1973 the station, with its ten platforms was deemed too large for the volume of transport using it.

The Bradford Exchange was demolished in 1976 and the site was used as a car park. Part of its perimeter wall and the former entrance steps remain, just off Hall Ings in Bradford city centre.

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