The Keighley & Worth Valley Railway

The Keighley & Worth Valley Railway is a unique 5-mile branch line railway set in the heart of West Yorkshire, running heritage steam and diesel trains from the industrial landscape of Keighley to the stunning Brontë Country of Oxenhope.

The Keighley & Worth Valley Railway is a preserved standard gauge line which joins the national railway network at Keighley and runs 5-miles up the valleys of the River Worth and Bridgehouse Beck to Oxenhope. The Keighley and Worth Valley Railway Preservation Society was formed upon the closure of the line by British Railways in 1962 with the aim of returning a daily passenger service to the Worth Valley area.

The Society reopened the branch line from Keighley to Oxenhope in June 1968, just weeks before steam finally ended on British Railways in August of the same year. Despite the original aim of the Society to reinstate a daily service on the branch, it soon became clear that a full-time commuter service would not be possible, certainly in the first instance, and probably ever, although this has not stopped the subject of commuter trains being discussed at some length in the last 50 years or so.