Bradford & District | Archive | 1998 | May | 16

Steam railway pulls in the crowds

From the Telegraph & Argus, first published Saturday 16th May 1998.

Crowds flocked to Ingrow Railway Centre on Saturday for the official opening of £235,000 extensions to the Vintage Carriages Museum. The cash - £220,000 from the National Lottery heritage fund and £35,000 from Keighley's Single Regeneration Budget - has paid for workshop extensions, disabled access and a sound loop system to assist people with hearing problems.

Brian Handley, director of the Yorkshire Tourist Board, commented on the enthusiasm and involvement of members. He said the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway was important to tourism and tourism was important to Keighley.

And he said the biggest growth in the industry was not in the traditional tourist areas such as Scarborough and York but in places like Keighley and Bradford because people wanted to see interesting places and things. The Vintage Carriages Museum fitted beautifully into that category.

Andrew Scott, of the National Railway Museum, said Keighley should be proud of the achievement of the Vintage Carriage Trust, which took a leadership role in the world of railway preservation. He paid tribute to members' commitment to high quality. "This is a class outfit," he commented.

Trust chairman Trevor England said the opening - the third by the trust - was a way of showing its continued development. He said it had begun in the late 1960s and early 1970s by buying stock and restoring coaches at Haworth and later at Oxenhope.

President Robin Higgins said it was barely a year since the second phase of extensions, which took up all the trust's resources, was completed. He was grateful and proud that VCT was felt worthy of the financial support now shown. Mr Higgins thanked trust secretary Michael Cope and his wife Jackie and architect Philip Waddington, of Haworth company Atkinson Robinson, for their work with successful funding applications.

Councillor Andy Mudd, Keighley SRB chairman, said the event showed how the town's regeneration programme was beginning to work through partnership. It was an example of the realism of a dream of regeneration, investment and jobs in Keighley. He hoped that projects such as this would ensure that some of the people who visited Haworth would also go to Keighley and see what it had to offer visitors.

A Spring Enthusiasts Weekend on the K&WVR was a runaway success. Figures just released show that around 2,700 tickets were sold. Organiser David Pearson, the K&WVR's heritage events co-ordinator, says: "We were astonished to find there was hardly a spare bed to be had in the Worth Valley on the Saturday night. Others, who intended to go on to events elsewhere on the Bank Holiday Monday, remained at the K&WVR for three days. Several groups of visitors said they just did not want to leave the Worth Valley, its railway and the general atmosphere."

The weekend was part of a new-style heritage event on the five-mile line, which this year is celebrating its 30th anniversary. Special vintage trains will run on Sunday, there is a diesel weekend in early August, an anniversary event in September and a whole month of attractions in October.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.

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