Archive Series Volume 5 - West Riding Steam Part 2

This programme views three major rail arteries within the West Riding of Yorkshire at a time when steam traction was an everyday sight. Mirfield depot is the starting point of the programme, with scenes in the busy locomotive depot, together with film of passing traffic from nearby Heaton Lodge Jct., where the Colne and Calder Valley routes, linking Lancashire and Yorkshire, diverged. From Leeds City, the former Midland Railway route through the Aire Valley is followed to Shipley, where a spur to Bradford’s Forster Square Station left the main line. Across the city, where trolley buses still operated, the ‘Queensbury Route’ is traced from the city centre through Horton Park, Queensbury, Holmfield, Thornton, Denholme and Willesden before reaching the Worth Valley Branch. On the branch, the daily goods working is filmed in the early 1960s, before rejoining the Midland main line at Keighley. After Keighley, steam workings at Skipton and Hellifield - where ex-LMS ‘2Ps’ could still be found in the company of ex-LNER ‘A3’s - are followed by detailed scenes on the line from Clapham Jct. to Ingleton, Kirkby Lonsdale and Low Gill on the WCML. Returning to the S&C main line, film taken in 1962 from the cab of a ‘Peak’ diesel locomotive on the climb to Ais Gill Summit concludes the programme.