Keighley and Worth Valley Railway, Yorkshire

As I’ve mentioned previously my dad is a big train enthusiast and in fact this is one of the few steam railways that he’s never travelled on so I knew I would have to be taking a lot of photos to show him in particular. Haworth is conveniently the site of one of the stations and an easy 15 minutes or so walk from Main Street where I was staying, though it is quite a steep walk downwards.

It’s cheaper to buy tickets in advance but I bought mine on the day from the ticket office because it wasn’t until the night before that I really finalised what I was going to do. While I enjoy train travel I’m not an enthusiast to the extent that I can just endlessly go up and down the same route so I was looking for other things I could do along the way. I finally settled on an All Day Rover ticket which cost £23 on the day. With this I was able to hop on and off the trains as I pleased and also gives free entry to the two train museums en route (more of which later). I chose the Thursday of my visit deliberately because that was when the steam trains were running – the steam trains don’t run all year round, sometimes they have diesel engines instead and sometimes there are special events on such as the 1940s week so if there’s something particular you want to do you should study their comprehensive timetable on their website for the best time to visit. You are also given a paper copy of the timetable with your ticket if bought in person.

Studying the timetable I decided to get the first train from Haworth (10am) down to Keighley Station, walk to a nearby museum (to be featured in the next post) where I’d have about two hours or so before I could get the train from Keighley to Ingrow West where there are two train museums (more to document for my dad than my own interest!) and then because of how the timings worked I went back to Keighley and then up to Haworth again. I spent the majority of the day hopping off and on trains, so definitely money well spent.

The Keighley and Worth Valley Railway was opened in 1867 to transport coal and textiles to and from the mills that dominated the area. It was also a way for locals to travel until bus and cars took over and the line closed in 1962. But in 1968 after years of hard work from train enthusiasts it reopened for passengers.

Ingrow West

When the line originally closed Ingrow West Station in particular fell into such a dreadful state that when the line was reopened the building had to be demolished. To fix this they moved another station building brick by brick and re-erected it here. You’d certainly never know it wasn’t original.

Turn right out of the station and head towards the two museums. The first one you come across is the Engine Shed Museum. This museum gives you a brief history of the railways and a number of train engines are on display and some technical models about steam engines.

The next museum along is the Carriage Works which is larger and has more items on display. The volunteers who manage the museum wanted to preserve these carriages here, many of which these days are loaned out to production companies for filming movies and TV series like the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes, Swallows and Amazons etc. And of course The Railway Children which was filmed in the area.

A few of the carriages had recordings triggered by motion sensors that gave you a taster of what it would have been like to travel on the trains and you could enter some of them and even sit down if you liked.

Travelling along the railway was very comfortable and there’s long enough gaps between journeys that you get plenty of time to hop off and explore other stations as I did.

The Practicalities:

As always there are lots of different tickets available to purchase depending on what you want to do. For me the Day Rover was the best option but you can of course also get singles and returns. The Day Rover is the only ticket that includes entry to the museums, with the other ticket types you will have to pay a small entrance fee.

There are a number of special events that take place including 1940s themed and of course Santa related shenanigans in December. There is also information on The Railway Children film which was shot in the area and at Oakworth Station, one of the stops I didn’t really have time to make. They do periodic events around the film so if you’re a fan keeping an eye on their timetable is a must.

Tickets are slightly cheaper if you book at least three days in advance online.

There is sometimes a bar in one of the carriages if you fancy a drink or a simple snack. There are also cafes at some of the stations, particularly at Keighley where there is also a small shop on the platform where you can buy some snacks and souvenirs. The Keighley part of the route is right next to to the Keighley mainline station so if you time it right you can hope off a “regular” train and then walk straight onto a steam train.

It takes roughly 25 minutes to travel from one end of the line to the other.

A fun experience I’d recommend it even if you’re not much of a train person for the views alone.