[3][4][5] Economic damage was caused by the railway as no rail link was made between Wetherby and the major trading and commercial centre, Leeds.

Two Wetherby businessmen; Henry Crossley and James Coates exerted pressures on the railway companies.

[8] The junction at Wetherby only faced towards Church Fenton which meant that the Cross Gates branch was little used for Harrogate services.

[8][9] Improvements were made between 1897 and 1902 which saw the line doubled and a south-to-west curve installed to form a triangular junction facing Wetherby.

[12] The line went into decline under British Railways despite dieselisation in 1958,[13] eliminating the problem of trackside fires.

[1][13][14] In March 1963, the Beeching report was published which called for the withdrawal of passenger services on the Leeds-Wetherby-Harrogate and Church Fenton-Wetherby lines and the closure of their stations.

[16][17][13][18] A headline, "First Lamb to the Beeching slaughter", mentioned that "No Regular Passengers Object at Inquiry",[17] which was the case for only the Church Fenton line.

The route had originally been of strategic significance, linking the East Coast Main Line with Harrogate.

Through freight traffic via Wetherby was costly and slow because of steep gradients and became uneconomical following the quadrupling of the track between Thirsk and York in 1959.

By the 1970s the tracks had been filled to platform level but the main station buildings remained in a dilapidated state.

Sustrans National Cycle Network routes 66 and 67[23] use part of the track bed from Wetherby to Priest Hill which opened in 1992, and the "devil's toenail" triangle, which was completed by the Wetherby and District Lions Club in summer 1993.

A small stretch has been built on in Linton and Bardsey so reconstruction would be expensive and require either the demolition of properties or re-routing.