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Oakworth station is a complete Victorian station once busy with the shunting of goods via Oakworth loop to other station yards. It took little effort to return the station to its Edwardian appearance with lantern style gas lamps as the station has no electricity supply. Enamel signs and various items of platform furniture such as milk churns, a veteran platform ticket machine and a Midland Railway coffin trolley followed and the transformation was complete. Do you recognise the station? It was used in the 1970 version of the film The Railway Children. The KWVR persuaded the film-makers to keep the name Oakworth in the film, with dramatic consequences. Money earned for making the film was minor compared to the passenger revenue generated after its release. However, this prosperity brought plenty of short term problems. For example, the KWVR was still a single track branch line and could only operate with one train in service. But Easter 1971 was the busiest ever and a seven coach train had to be used to cater for the traffic, with a spare engine to speed up the run round at Keighley. The only solution was to press ahead with the construction of a passing loop at Damems in time for the Spring Bank Holiday. This enabled the KWVR to operate 2 trains on the line and pass them at half way along the Line at Damems Junction, which you will pass through on your journey to Keighley. Oakworth station has been a winner many times of the Best Restored Station competition. The only major work undertaken was during the autumn of 1983 when an outbreak of dry rot was discovered in the entrance hall. Woodwork and plaster had to be hacked out and replaced and professional repairs carried out to the roof. After the remedial attention, the framed portrait of Queen Victoria was securely back in its place over the fireplace which you can still see today. A five-ton crane - still there today - meant that livestock could also be dealt with in Edwardian times. A signal box also used to exist at the Keighley end of the station. However with the reduction in train services and the daily pick up of goods these were dispensed with early in 1956. The station continued to be manned for the level crossing using the remaining signals from a small ground frame at the Haworth end of the platform. You will see the crossing keeper operating these signals whenever a train approaches or leaves the station. The KWVR acquired the keys to Oakworth Station in 1965, three years after it had been closed. On opening the station, it was found just as it must have been left. There was a half full bottle of ink and a large round table in the middle of the office had been tipped over, presumably in disgust. |
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