Leek railway station (Churnet Valley Railway) is the northern terminus of the Churnet Valley Railway serving the market town of Leek in Staffordshire, England. It was opened in 2024 after 30 years of restoring the line between it and Leek Brook.
The original station opened in 1849 by the North Staffordshire Railway on the Churnet Valley Line.
Passenger services though Leek were withdrawn in stages, ceasing entirely in 1965. Freight services ceased in 1970.
Plans were first mooted to re-open Leek as a heritage railway as far back as 1970 when services were first curtailed, but following the council's short notice demolition of Leek station and the threat to Cheddleton in 1973, these plans were shelved and efforts concentrated on Cheddleton. The remaining Churnet Valley Line from Oakamoor Sidings to Leek Brook Junction was mothballed in 1988, and taken over by the Churnet Valley Railway in 1996. It has always been stated that the long-term aim was to restore services to Leek eventually.
First announced in 2015, an article on the news website StokeSentinel.co.uk. announced efforts by Moorlands & City Railways to reconnect Leek back to the mainline with the article quoted as saying:
In January 2014 Moorlands & City Railways, in collaboration with the Churnet Valley Railway, announced their plans to rebuild this missing section of about between Leekbrook Junction and Leek. Because the former station in Leek is now the site of a Morrisons supermarket, a new station was proposed as outlined in the Staffordshire Moorlands District Council's Masterplan for developing tourism in the area. This includes the proposed redevelopment of the Cornhill area with a new canal marina and railway station planned.
With MCR's planned western extension to Stoke, this new station would have provided an interchange for CVR services, via the StokeâÂÂLeek line, to the national network.
With regards to the actual extension, the project was set up under the title "Reconnect Leek" and the main items of this was:
Since then, CVR have taken on the Leek project themselves, slimmed the scope to just include the construction of the leek line, north-east curve, and Leek station, and after much dialogue with the council received outline planning permission for their own proposal in May 2018. They then launched their own project publicly on 1 February 2020.
In late 2024, track laying was largely completed towards Leek, with the first passenger service to the site of the new Leek station planned to run in early 2025 On 31 December 2024, a train operated by Churnet Valley Railway travelled for the first time from Froghall to the new temporary terminus at Leek, carrying 400 invited guests.