A steam railway, one of the biggest tourist attractions in the country, owes its preservation not to a drive to save part of our industrial heritage, but for more mundane reasons.

The dedicated bunch of railway enthusiasts who came together in the early 1960s to save the Keighley and Worth valley line saw the closure as a disaster for community services.

The five-mile railway line from Haworth to Oxenhope - axed under the Beeching cuts - was used by commuters going to work, youngsters heading for school, mums doing their shopping and all those people who took the train to get to Keighley and Haworth to reach the cinema, dance halls and restaurants.

The Keighley & Worth Valley private steam line celebrates its 30th birthday this weekend and most people who flock to the event will be there because of its special place in our heritage.

But among those enthusiasts in their anoraks and brandishing cameras will be a scattering of passengers carrying shopping bags.

Like 65-year-old Joy Exley, who catches the train most Saturdays at Oakworth Station just 100 yards from her home.

"I use the train to get to Haworth to get my shopping and groceries - and to buy kindling for my open fire," she said.

Joy has lived in Station Road for 15 years. "I love living near the railway and seeing the trains. I wouldn't have it any other way.''

Further down the line at Damems - the smallest working station in the country - most weekends will see Gill Whitfield waiting for the train to take her to Keighley.

"I use the train generally to get to Keighley to do my shopping or to catch another train to Skipton. I use it as public transport,'' she said.

Before the line closed it was used by 130,000 people a year. Today the line, which was taken over by the preservation society in 1968, carries about 120,000 a year.

Among the society members who have helped preserve the rail stock is Robin Higgins, 54, of Barnolds-wick. He, too, was a railway commuter and recalls travelling by train to Keighley Grammar School from Barnoldswick in the late 1950s.

He said: "My first memory of the Keighley line is a trip on my first half-day at grammar school. I knew that the engines on the Keighley line were the push-and-pull type as on the Skipton to Barnoldswick line and that's what attracted me."

Mr Higgins, who was among the group of enthusiasts at the first meeting of the society in March 1962, was involved in restoring one of the original engines, the Pug Lancashire and Yorkshire shunting tank engine bought for £450 from British Rail.

It has recently undergone another overhaul - £10,000 - so the 97-year-old engine can pull passengers for the first time along the line.

Also proud to be one of the original members is Chairman Graham Mitchell (membership number 14) who is keen to stress that the line is still an important part of the local community infrastructure.

"The people who saved this line didn't have a concept that it would be a tourist railway," he said. "Their first reaction was a knee-jerk one. They just couldn't let this transport facility go.''

Mr Mitchell was also at the first meeting along with the two men who spearheaded the preservation movement, the late Bob Cryer and the present President Ralph Povey.

"The success of this line is a memorial to Bob Cryer. It was his vision and his resolution that made it a success. He drove on despite all the setbacks and other people's pessimism,'' said Mr Graham.

The two days of celebration tomorrow and Sunday will see some of the engines and carriages back in the combinations in which they were used in those early pioneering days.

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