About SideTracked Caches
This cache belongs to the SideTracked series. It is not designed to take you to a magical place with a breath taking view. It's a distraction for the weary traveller, but anyone else can go and find it too. More Information can be found at the SideTracked Website.
About Pudsey Lowtown Station
Pudsey Lowtown was one of two stations on a stretch of track known the Pudsey Loop, with the second station, Pudsey Greenside, located on the opposite side of the town centre. Originally a dead-end branch line branching shortly after the now disused Stanningley, it was opened in 1877, with Pudsey Lowtown opening on 1st April 1878 by GNR.
In 1893, the line was extended and doubled tracked to Cutlers Junction by agreement with the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, connecting it with the Spen Valley Line, forming the "Loop" in Pudsey Loop, with an East-facing curve added at Bramley replacing the its Western counterpart at Stanningley, and allowing direct access from Leeds station.
As part of a reorganisation of the railways in 1923, ownership of the line passed to the London and North Eastern Railway, and later passing to the Eastern Region of of British Railways in 1948.
As part of the now infamous Beeching cuts, the station was closed in 1964 along with Pudsey Greenside and the trackbed was taken up, and the cuttings filled in. All evidence of the line between Bramley and Mount Pleasant Road has now been erased by construction work and the Stanningley Bypass, but sections of the path of the trackbed are still walkable to this day, although the deep cuttings were filled to bring them up to ground level.
Besides the Pudsey Greenside Tunnel, one noticeable feature of the loop that remains today are the distinctive blue and grey railway bridges that intersect with the path of the trackbed. This magnetic cache is hidden on one of these on the side that would've overlooked the station roughly 80 years ago. Today, the site of the station is a block of flats, approximately 10ft up from where the station was.
