This is what the forgotten Leeds railway station that could re-open used to look like

Marsh Lane Station was open to passengers until 1958

Councillors have called on Network Rail to re-open Leeds' first-ever railway station to serve city centre expansion.

Marsh Lane Station opened in 1834 and was the first of several railway termini to be built in Leeds over the next 150 years.

It closed in 1958 and the goods yard on the site was later cleared.

Now a developer has submitted an application to build 1,000 apartments in five blocks on the old railway land, which has been for sale since 2013.

The station was the first to be built in Leeds

Councillors discussing the proposal suggested that Marsh Lane could be re-opened to serve the expanding population living to the east of the city centre.

The first station was the terminus of the Leeds and Selby Railway, but when the line was bought by the York and North Midland Railway, trains were re-routed to call at the YNMR's own station on Hunslet Lane instead.

In 1863 Marsh Lane was re-developed into a goods station, and a six-storey grain warehouse was built there. In 1869, passenger services returned when the North Eastern Railway built an extension from Marsh Lane to the Leeds New Station on the site of the current Leeds Station. Marsh Lane was now a stop on the way into central Leeds and the facilities were expanded in 1894.

The station closed to passenger traffic in 1958 and the grain warehouse was destroyed in a fire in the 1970s. The Leeds to Selby line still runs close to the site.

These old photos from the Yorkshire Post archive show what the station looked like during its operational years.