Haworth, W Yorkshire - Railway Station - steam train, snow - postcard c.1980s

• Postcard

   

• Picture / Image:  "Steam trains run on Sundays throughout the winter. No. 31 Hamburg departs from Haworth with an Oxenhope train in January snowstorm"
• Publisher: Keighley and Worth Valley Railway
• Postally used: no
• Stamp:  n/a
• Postmark(s): n/a
• Sent to:  n/a
• Notes / condition: 

Please ask if you need any other information and I will do the best I can to answer.

Image may be low res for illustrative purposes - if you need a higher definition image then please contact me and I may be able to send one. No cards have been trimmed (unless stated).

------------------------------------------------

Postage & Packing:

Postage and packing charge should be showing for your location (contact if not sure).

No additional charges for more than one postcard. You can buy as many postcards from me as you like and you will just pay the fee above once. Please wait for combined invoice. (If buying postcards with other things such as books, please contact or wait for invoice before paying).

Payment Methods:

UK - PayPal, Cheque (from UK bank) or postal order

Outside UK: PayPal ONLY (unless otherwise stated) please.   NO non-UK currency checks or money orders (sorry).

NOTE: All postcards are sent in brand new stiffened envelopes which I have bought for the task. These are specially made to protect postcards and you may be able to re-use them. In addition there are other costs to sending so the above charge is not just for the stamp!

I will give a full refund if you are not fully satisfied with the postcard.

----------------------------------------------

Text from the free encyclopedia WIKIPEDIA may appear below to give a little background information (internal links may not  work) :

*************

Haworth railway station serves the village of Haworth in West Yorkshire, England. It was opened in 1867 along with the rest of the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway,[1] and closed in 1962.[2] Preservation led to the line being reopened in June 1968[3] and now serves as the headquarters of the railway.[4] The former goods shed in the railway yard has been expanded into the locomotive shed for the railway providing facilities for the storage, maintenance and overhaul of the locomotives on the line.[5]

The station, its immediate environs and the railway workshops are all designated as part of the Haworth Conservation Area by Bradford Council.[6]

The Keighley and Worth Valley Railway is a 5-mile-long (8 km) heritage railway line in the Worth Valley, West Yorkshire, England, which runs from Keighley[1] to Oxenhope.[2] It connects to the national rail network at Keighley railway station.

Inception and building of the branch

In 1861, John McLandsborough, a civil engineer, visited Haworth to pay tribute to Charlotte Brontë but was surprised to find that it was not served by a railway. He proposed a branch running from the Midland Railway's station at Keighley to Oxenhope. The line would serve three small towns and 15 mills along its length.

A meeting of local gentlemen were told that the line would cost £36,000[3] to build[4] (equivalent to £3,380,000 in 2019).[5] A total of 3,134 shares worth £10 each were issued at this meeting, along with the election of directors, bankers, solicitors and engineers. 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.[6]

The railway was built as single track but with a trackbed wide enough to allow upgrading to double track for expansion.[4] Although the work was estimated to take approximately one year, delays including buying land for the line, a cow eating the plans near Oakworth and engineering problems meant the work took nearly two years to complete. In particular the southern tunnel to Ingrow West had quicksand oozing through bore holes that required additional piles to be driven down to the bedrock to support and stabilise the tunnel. Unfortunately the work damaged the foundation to the Wesley Place Methodist Church resulting in the church receiving £1,980 from the railway company.[4]

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.[4] Before opening, violent storms struck the line in November of that year.

The opening ceremony was held on Saturday 13 April 1867.[7] 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[citation needed], 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.[8] 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.[9]

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.[10] 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.[11] 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.[12]

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

Operation as a preserved line

On 10 July 2008, the Duke of Kent visited the railway following the 40th anniversary of its reopening.[13][14][15] While at the railway, the Duke travelled in the carriage and on the locomotive footplate of 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.