Leeds Central railway station was a railway station

Train station

A train station, also called a railroad station or railway station and often shortened to just station,"Station" is commonly understood to mean "train station" unless otherwise qualified. This is evident from dictionary entries e.g...

 in Leeds

Leeds

Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...

, West Yorkshire

West Yorkshire

West Yorkshire is a metropolitan county within the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England with a population of 2.2 million. West Yorkshire came into existence as a metropolitan county in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972....

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. It was opened in 1854 as a joint station between the London and North Western Railway

London and North Western Railway

The London and North Western Railway was a British railway company between 1846 and 1922. It was created by the merger of three companies – the Grand Junction Railway, the London and Birmingham Railway and the Manchester and Birmingham Railway...

, the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway

Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway

The Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway was a major British railway company before the 1923 Grouping. It was incorporated in 1847 from an amalgamation of several existing railways...

, the Great Northern Railway

Great Northern Railway (Great Britain)

The Great Northern Railway was a British railway company established by the Great Northern Railway Act of 1846. On 1 January 1923 the company lost its identity as a constituent of the newly formed London and North Eastern Railway....

 and the North Eastern Railway

North Eastern Railway (UK)

The North Eastern Railway , was an English railway company. It was incorporated in 1854, when four existing companies were combined, and was absorbed into the London and North Eastern Railway at the Grouping in 1923...

. It replaced the cramped LNW terminus at Wellington Street, which had opened in 1848 with the line to Dewsbury. It closed in 1967, when its services were moved to Leeds City to consolidate all of Leeds train services in one station.

The station was not architecturally distinguished and was built above street level. The site is now a retail park

Retail park

In the United Kingdom, a retail park is a grouping of many retail warehouses and superstores with associated car parking. Its North American equivalent is a power centre. Retail parks are found on the fringes of most large towns and cities in highly accessible locations and are aimed at households...

 which in turn is to be redeveloped into offices. Part of the Leeds Central station site had also since become a Royal Mail

Royal Mail

Royal Mail is the government-owned postal service in the United Kingdom. Royal Mail Holdings plc owns Royal Mail Group Limited, which in turn operates the brands Royal Mail and Parcelforce Worldwide...

 sorting office that is latterly being redeveloped into the West Central residential development and Lumiere, a 170 metres (557.7 ft) high skyscraper

Skyscraper

A skyscraper is a tall, continuously habitable building of many stories, often designed for office and commercial use. There is no official definition or height above which a building may be classified as a skyscraper...

. A goods lift and a viaduct that approached the station remain extant/

The last train leaving from Leeds Central was an early evening service to Harrogate filled by the usual Birmingham RC&W DMU. (Fog) detonators were placed on the track by Railway staff which exploded as the train rolled away from the platform and past the signal box on its final departure. The return trip from Harrogate into Leeds City was strangely muted.