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The drive home from York could either be direct, or leisurely (with a pub lunch???) - we chose the latter, and took the somewhat circuitous route to Oxenhope, terminus of the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway. Slow traffic meant we arrived with only a minute to spare before the train was due to leave - but in best railway tradition, it left a few minutes late anyway, so we needn't have worried.

I had hoped for one of the rarer locomotives - perhaps the L&Y 0-6-0, or the Taff Vale tank. In the event, we had stalwart class 5 no 45212, recently returned to working order on the North York Moors Railway, and only lately returned to its original home in preservation.

The run down the valley is inevitably a gentle one, given the gradients. Damems loop is the usual passing place for trains - "I wonder what the other service will be?". There in the loop was one of the smallest standard gauge passenger trains operating anywhere - the German-built (Waggon und Maschinenbau) four-wheel railbus, one of a set of five built in the early BR DMU era in the late 1950s.

The breeze was chilly - we didn't hang around at Keighley, and having photographed the run round manoeuvres, we rejoined the train. In contrast to the downward journey, the regulator was well-opened, the exhaust echoing loudly off the surrounding hills and mills...

And so we arrived back in Oxenhope, in plenty of time for the promised lunch, just a little way up the Hebden Bridge road, which like our short rail trip, was excellent.

Links:

• Keighley and Worth Valley Railway

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