A family of Thomas the Tank Engine fans from America steamed over to Keighley at the weekend to see the famous train in action.

Hiroyuki Shamoto flew his family from their home city of Boston especially to see Tho-mas and friends performing on the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway (K&WVR). After arriving in London last Thursday the family travelled to Keighley - appropriately by train - on Saturday morning.

And the life-size locos were a big hit with five-year-old Yasu and two-year-old twins Taka and Nori who watched excitedly from the platform.

Mr Shamoto told us: "The Thomas the Tank Engine programme is shown on television every morning in the states and the children are very interested in it. I saw the event advertised on the internet and decided to contact the organisers and buy some tickets."

After a day spent watching Thomas and friends acting out different stories, the family returned to London for a spot of sight-seeing, before jetting off to Paris and Switzerland.

The Keighley and Worth Valley railway has had its own web site for 18 months, with its 50 pages providing timetable and events information.

The site is updated regularly by K&WVR member Chris Ogilvie. He says: "As well as Mr Shamoto contacting us we received a message from someone in Dusseldorf (in Germany) who was interested in coming to the event. Since we started the web page we have had inquiries from people in Japan, Australia and America."

The Thomas and Friends weekend was a big success for the K&WVR, with more than 5,000 turning up for the steam spectacular.

Figures for the weekend were up on last years show with 558 people turning up on Friday, 1629 on Saturday and 2746 on Sunday. The number of pre-booked sales is still to be added to the total.

Chairman of the K&WVR Graham Mitchell says: 'Overall it was a tremendously successful weekend, and from comments made by by members of the public, we know the event brought a lot of pleasure to people young and old.

A park and ride scheme which the K&WVR operated in tandem with the Keighley Bus museum, was also a big success according to organisers.

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