BR's policy on lines that it wanted to close during

the 1970s and 1980s was to deliberately run them down thus dissuading passengers from using them to then fortify their case for closure. A policy where this was used to good effect was the Clayton West branch line that BR eventually managed to shut on 22.01.83 some two years after this picture of a run down Skelmanthorps station was taken. Even after passenger services were withdrawn the line remained open for another ten months serving the adjacent Emley Moor collieries. In this view, looking due west, the remaining station structure, a rickety old timber waiting room, appears to be subsiding given its jaunty angle. A short time after this photograph was taken it was burnt down. Today, trains now run along the trackbed once again with a new station constructed as part of the Kirklees light railway that runs between Clayton West and Shelley. The land in the background that was where the aforementioned colliery was located now houses industrial units and a new housing development.