The Railway Children at Keighley and Worth Valley Railway

It was more than half a century ago when three children waving red petticoats on a Yorkshire railway line captured the nation’s hearts.

Lionel Jeffries’ beloved 1970 film The Railway Children, starring Jenny Agutter as Roberta and Bernard Cribbins as station master Perks, was famously filmed on the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway, with other locations including Oakworth and Haworth.

This summer, 55 years after the film was released, the Railway Children are back on the heritage line, in an acclaimed theatre adaptation of their much-loved story.

Bradford 2025, York Theatre Royal and Keighley & Worth Valley Railway have joined forces to bring the Olivier Award-winning stage production of The Railway Children to the tracks as a highlight of Bradford’s City of Culture year.

The Railway Children return to their ‘spiritual home’ this summer. Photo: Karl Andre

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Audiences are invited to step into one of Britain’s most cherished stories when The Railway Children steams back to its spiritual home along the heritage railway for an evocative journey.

Featuring a real steam train, this memorable family-friendly production has a specially-built auditorium with the audience seated on each side of the train tracks.

Based on E Nesbit’s classic children’s book, Mike Kenny’s charming stage adaptation has been re-worked especially for Bradford 2025. The production will run on the historic Keighley & Worth Valley Railway from nearly two months.

Audiences will begin the experience by taking a steam train from Keighley station, and will travel the same five-mile route along the heritage line immortalised in the film. At the end of the line in Oxenhope, the story will unfold in a performance in a purpose-built theatre in the station’s historic engine shed.

The Railway Children at Oxenhope Station in 1970 from the orginal film. supplied With audience seating flanking the very tracks the train arrives on, the immersive production places steam, stagecraft and story at its heart.

The Railway Children is directed by Damian Cruden, who revives his hit production which was first staged at the National Railway Museum in York in 2008, then at London’s Waterloo station in 2010, where the show won Best Entertainment in the Olivier Awards.

The production will run across the summer holidays, with half-price tickets for children aged under 16.

Set in 1905, The Railway Children tells the story of three children, Roberta, Peter and Phyllis, who are forced to move from their home in wealthy Edwardian London to rural Yorkshire after their father, an official in the Foreign Office, is falsely imprisoned on charges of espionage.

Oakworth Station during filming of 1970 movie The Railway Children Image: Robin Higgins Trying to adjust to a simpler life with little money, the siblings find adventure and hope on the railway that passes nearby, and they befriend a variety of passengers from the trains. The railway becomes a lifeline not just for their family, but for the community they come to love.

The Keighley & Worth Valley Railway opened on April 15, 1867, funded mainly by local mill owners. For nearly 100 years the railway, from Keighley to Oxenhope, served the mills and people of the Worth Valley.

It became part of the Midland Railway then in 1924 was absorbed into the London Midland & Scottish Railway. After the Second World War, when railways were nationalised, the line became part of British Railways.

Oakworth Station today. Image: Jonathan Smith When the branch closed in 1962 strong opposition led local people and railway enthusiasts joined forces to try and save it. Thanks to the hard work and dedication of the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway Preservation Society, the railway re-opened on June 29, 1968. Diesel railcars were purchased to operate a passenger service, a diesel locomotive to work goods trains and several steam locomotives and carriages to operate a tourist service.

Since then, the Worth Valley branch line has been operated and managed almost entirely by volunteers.

Today the KWVR is one of the country’s premier heritage railways, operating rail services on more than 200 days a year.

Jenny Agutter catches a train to the world premiere of The Railway Children Return in July 2022. Picture: Danny Lawson, PA Wire The railway is very much a character in itself in Lionel Jeffries’ film. Several memorable scenes take place on the line – including the children trying to stop a train from hitting a tree that has fallen onto the tracks by waving flags made from red petticoats – and there are also scenes at Oakworth Station, where the film’s most poignant moment unfolds through mist on the platform.

Many local people appeared in the film as extras, including volunteers who ran the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway at the time.

Back in 2010 the film’s stars, Jenny Agutter, Bernard Cribbins and Sally Thomsett, who played Phyllis, returned to the heritage railway to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the film.

Directed by Jeffries, who also wrote the screenplay, the film was a hit with critics and audiences and remains a classic.

The Railway Children runs from July 16 to September 7. For tickets go to bradford2025.co.uk