It is located on New Station Street to the south of City Square, at the foot of Park Row, behind the landmark Queens Hotel.

The station is the terminus of the Leeds branch of the East Coast Main Line (on which London North Eastern Railway provides high speed inter-city services to London King's Cross every half hour from the station) and is an important stop on the Cross Country Route between Scotland, the Midlands and South West England connecting to major towns and cities such as Glasgow, Edinburgh, Derby, Birmingham, Bristol, Exeter, Plymouth and Penzance.

There are also regular inter-city services to major destinations throughout Northern England including Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle and Sheffield.

Leeds is a major hub for local and regional destinations across Yorkshire such as to Harrogate, York, Scarborough, Hull, Doncaster and Sheffield.

[7] The railway station is situated on a hill falling from the south of the city to the River Aire and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal basin.

[8] Retail facilities in the station include coffee shops, fast food outlets, a bar, newsagents, chemists and supermarkets.

The facility opened in summer 2010 and is designed to encourage visitors and commuters into Leeds to continue their journey from the railway station by bike.

Leeds New Station was one of the primary targets, along with the Town Hall, Kirkgate Markets, the Central Post office, the Quarry Hill flats, Hotel Metropole and part of the Inner Ring Road.

The building was lambasted in 1967 by poet John Betjeman who said it blocked all the light out of City Square, and was a testament to money with no architectural merit.

Engineering work included replacing 100-year-old bridges over the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, the construction of the south concourse and an overall roof, along with major platform and track layout alterations and the commissioning of a new power signal box to control the railway station area.

At the time of this rebuilding, the railway station was served by 500 trains on a typical day, with 2.75 million passenger journeys a year.

Wellington (or City North) became entirely devoted to parcels traffic at this time with the track layout extensively changed.

The station had overhead electrification installed under the ownership of British Rail in 1988, to facilitate usage of the new Class 91 services on the East Coast main line.

This project saw the construction of additional approach tracks at the western end of the railway station, improving efficiency by separating trains travelling to or from different destinations and preventing them from having to cross each other's routes.

The most visible change to passengers, however, was the replacement of the 1967 metal canopy with a new glass roof, considerably increasing the amount of daylight on the platforms.

Ancillary improvements included a new multi-storey car park and railway station entrance, refurbishing the North Concourse and expanding retail facilities.

[20][21] It widens the railway station's western footbridge and provides escalators, stairs and lifts to a partial deck over the River Aire in an iconic structure.

The original plans for High Speed 2 proposed a separate new station in Leeds to the south of the River Aire at New Lane.

[39][40] However, on 18 November 2021, Grant Shapps (Transport Secretary) announced that the eastern leg of HS2 would be cancelled, terminating at East Midlands Parkway instead of going all the way to Leeds.

[41] Eventually, the leg reaching East Midlands Parkway was scrapped too, with no new track north of Birmingham Curzon Street.

Two evening northbound and two morning southbound services operated primarily to cycle InterCity 125 sets through Neville Hill TMD.