The Yorkshire Film Archive collects, preserves, and shows film made in, or about Yorkshire. Our collections are non-fiction, dating from the 1890s to the present day, and providing a rich and visually compelling record of all aspects of lives, cultures, landscape, industries, major events and everyday activities, many of which are available to watch, free of charge, on our website.
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Worth Valley Railway
Be transported back in time through Brontë country, looking out from the footplate as passengers hang their heads out of the windows with the steam blowing through their hair.
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Overview
Back to the 1950s via 1982 with the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway, on a round trip from Howarth and back on board lovingly preserved carriages pulled by a classic Fowler 4F locomotive. Thanks to the efforts of railway enthusiasts we can watch as the train pulls into Oakworth Station, just as the railway children did some ten years, or seventy seven years, earlier.
This is one of many very fine films made by Halifax Cine Club member Ted Warburton, dating from the end of the war through to this, his last, film. Worth Valley Railway, from Keighley to Oxenhope, was first opened in 1867, closed in 1962 (prior to Beeching) and then re-opened in 1968, thanks to a preservation society, and still operates as the KWVR. The line was bought from BR in instalments over 25 years with no interest. The recreation of 1950s detail has made it popular with film makers and TV producers. Locomotive 43924, featured in the film, was the first to be rescued from the cutters torch at Woodham’s scrapyard, and, after a period out of commission and restoration, is back running on the line.
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