Keighley and Worth Valley Railway

Inception and building of the branch

In 1861, John McLandsborough, a civil engineer, visited Haworth to pay tribute to Charlotte Brontë and was surprised to find that it was not served by a railway. He put forward a proposal for a branch running from the station at Keighley to Oxenhope, which was warmly received by a number of mill owners and other influential people in the area as well as the Midland Railway, the owners of the railway through Keighley. The branch served 15 mills around its terminus as well as others on the line, and these were likely to be a source of traffic.

It was reported to the meeting of these local gentlemen that the line would cost £36,000 to build (equivalent to £3,030,000 in 2015). In light of this fact, 3,134 shares worth £10 each were issued at this meeting, along with the election of directors, bankers, solicitors and engineers. Notable was the fact that J McLandsborough, the original proposer of the line (who dealt predominantly with water and sewerage engineering, but had experience of building the Otley and Ilkley Railway) was appointed acting engineer; whilst J. S. Crossley of the Midland Railway was appointed consultant engineer.

The railway was incorporated by an Act of Parliament in 1862 and the first sod was cut on Shrove Tuesday, 9 February 1864 by Isaac Holden, the chairman of the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway.

The railway was built as single track, but with a trackbed wide enough to allow upgrading to double track if the need arose and the work was estimated to take approximately one year to complete. However, there were some delays: the time taken for the contractors to get possession of the land on which the railway was to be built; a cow eating the plans of the line somewhere near Oakworth; and, complications in digging the tunnel at the direct south end of Ingrow West. This manifested itself in that the tunnel walls, when bored, were oozing quicksand resulting in the application of piles being driven down to the bedrock to support and stabilise the tunnel. Unfortunately, this meant that the Wesley Place Methodist Church was damaged through the vibration and movement of the earth. The KWVR had to pay £1,980 in damages to the church.

Tracklaying was completed in 1866, having started at each end and joined in the middle. The line was tested with a locomotive from Ilkley, which took nearly two hours to get from Keighley to Oxenhope, but just 13 minutes to get back. Before opening, violent storms struck the line in November of that year.

The opening ceremony was held on Saturday 13 April 1867. Unfortunately, the train got stuck on Keighley bank and again between Oakworth and Haworth, necessitating splitting it before carrying on with the journey. Finally, on 15 April 1867, public passenger services on the Worth Valley commenced.

Operation

The line was operated by the Midland Railway, who owned most of the rail network in the area, and was eventually bought by the Midland in part due to interest from the rival railway company, the Great Northern. Upon sale of the railway, the mill owners made a profit, which was unusual for many lines of that type, as (for strategic reasons) the Midland wanted to prevent the GN from taking over its territory. After becoming part of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway in 1923 during Grouping, ownership passed to British Railways (BR) following nationalisation in 1948.

On 6 November 1892 the deviation line between Haworth and Oakworth through Mytholmes Tunnel was opened and the original route abandoned. The deviation was built as a condition of the buy out of the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway by the Midland Railway. The need for the deviation was to avoid a large wooden trestle viaduct that crossed a mill pond, as the locals believed the viaduct was unsafe, and supposedly many alighted at Oakworth and continued on foot to Haworth to avoid crossing the viaduct. The original design for the deviation was to skirt the mill pond then through a cutting to rejoin the original formation. However, during construction the material in the cutting proved to be unstable, resulting in the construction of the short Mytholmes Tunnel. The original trestle viaduct can be seen in a picture hanging in the booking hall of Oakworth station.

Closure

British Railways operated the last scheduled passenger train on Saturday 30 December 1961 and with no Sunday service the passenger service was deemed withdrawn from Monday 1 January 1962. Freight trains continued to run to Oxenhope until 18 June 1962. On 23 June 1962 the new formed Keighley and Worth Valley Railway Preservation Society chartered a special passenger train which ran from Bradford to Oxenhope and return. After this train the section between Oxenhope and Ingrow Junction was completely closed.

Reopening

A preservation society was formed in 1962 of rail enthusiasts and local people which bought the line from BR and reopened it on 29 June 1968 as a heritage railway. The first train to leave Keighley for Oxenhope on that date was the only train to operate anywhere on the network due to a national train strike. The line is now a major tourist attraction operated by 500+ volunteers and roughly 10 paid staff it carries more than 100,000 passengers a year.

The KWVR is currently one of only two British preserved railways which operates a complete branch line in its original form, the other being the heritage Ecclesbourne Valley Railway in Wirksworth, Derbyshire.

Operation as a preserved line

On 10 July 2008, the Duke of Kent visited the railway following the 40th anniversary of its reopening. While at the railway, the Duke travelled on a specially prepared "Royal Train", consisting of tank locomotive 41241, an LMS Class 2MT, pulling a single carriage, The Old Gentleman's Saloon, as featured in The Railway Children, which is a former North Eastern Railway directors Saloon. While visiting, the Duke travelled in the carriage and on the locomotive footplate.

Keighley

Ingrow (West)

Damems

Oakworth

Haworth

Oxenhope

Commuter use

On weekends - in particular Saturday mornings, local residents who live in Oxenhope, Haworth, Oakworth and Ingrow catch the early morning diesel service to Keighley, returning later on steam hauled services. During the weekday outside of the summer months, locals instead use the local bus services.

As a privately owned heritage railway, the line does not specifically serve commuters; however, a study by Ove Arup & Partners funded by Metro looked at the feasibility of a daily commuter service between Oxenhope and Keighley in 2009. After the first stage of the study was released, Metro stated concerns about a lack of funding and available rolling stock, meaning that services are unlikely to run in the short to medium term.

Another study undertaken in 2011 on behalf of the Worth Valley Joint Transport Committee found that running up to four commuter trains each way in the morning and evening is feasible.

Rolling stock

KWVR has a large collection of both steam and diesel locomotives, as well as supporting carriages and other rolling stock. The railway has amassed a large collection of Vintage Carriages over the years. Some are used to carry passengers on specially selected open days.

The railway owns three rail mounted cranes: a 10T Grafton steam P-Way crane, a 15T Taylor Hubbard diesel P-Way Crane and an ex LMS 45T steam breakdown crane. In addition, the affiliated Bahamas Locomotive Society owns a steam breakdown crane, based at Ingrow. Currently the 15T Taylor Hubbard crane and the 10T Grafton steam P-Way crane are in traffic, the latter now in apple green. Furthermore, there are a variety of wagons used by the civil engineering department, largely at either Oakworth or Ingrow West.

Use in film, media and television

The line and its stations has been used in numerous period film and television productions including the film The Railway Children.

In the 1960s (shortly before the preserved line re-opened), a ITV advertisement on chocolate cookie biscuits, featuring Ronnie Corbett, was filmed along the line and at Mytholmes Tunnel (between Oakworth and Haworth). A steam train carries (at the front end) out of the tunnel a shocked Corbett holding onto the handrail of the engine. The locomotive used was Pug 51218.

In 1970 the line was featured in the British drama film The Railway Children. The line was one of only a few heritage railways in the UK and was the only one at the time which had a tunnel (this was one of the most important locations needed for the film). The tunnel used is a lot shorter in reality than it appears in the film, for which a temporary extension to the tunnel was made using canvas covers. Locomotives that were chosen for the film included a Hudswell Clarke 0-6-0T no 31 Hamburg, GWR 5700 0-6-0PT no 5775, Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway 0-6-0 no 957 & GNR N2 0-6-2T no 1744. Railway locations used in the film included Mytholmes Tunnel near Haworth, the location for the paper chase scene was also shot at Mytholmes, as well as the one in which the children wave the girls' petticoats in the air to warn the train about a landslide. The landslide sequence itself was filmed in a cutting on the Oakworth side of Mytholmes Tunnel and the fields of long grass where the children waved to the trains are situated on the Haworth side of the tunnel.

In 1976, The KWVR and Haworth railway station appeared in the premier episode of a Granada TV sitcom called Yanks Go Home (set in 1942), in which a group of US Army Air Force pilots arrive by train and alight at the station (Haworth) and are stationed in a small Northern town in Lancashire, North-West of England, during the Second World War.

In 1979, an episode of the long-running UK TV sitcom Last of the Summer Wine was filmed partly along the Worth Valley route, in which the three main characters Compo, Foggy and Clegg visit and then to attempt to stop a runaway steam train having pulled the brake on purpose (and then only to drive upwards and downwards). The locomotive used was Pannier 5775 in its London Transport guise as L89.

In 1981 a scene from Alan Parker's film, Pink Floyd - The Wall was filmed at the entrance to the Mytholmes Tunnel.

The railway was used in the filming of Peaky Blinders, a 2013 BBC television drama about Birmingham criminals just after World War I.

In 2013, scenes were filmed for the dramatisation of The Great Train Robbery: A Coppers Tale, with locations in West Yorkshire acting as Cheddington's Aylesbury bound platform.

In 2014, Keighley station was featured extensively in the feature-film 'Testament of Youth', as were the interiors of some of the railway's vintage coaches.