Steam trains continue to draw crowds. Those still operating today, on preserved lines or excursions, attract excited onlookers, armed with cameras to capture the grand sights of days gone by.

How these magnificent locomotives must have looked in their heyday, when they chugged and puffed their way along main and branch lines, their great wheels turning and chimneys belching out steam.

A new book by Yorkshire author Peter Tuffrey looks at last workings of steam on branch and main lines and in colliery yards, and the first years of British Railways.

The Last Years of Yorkshire Steam features sights that were commonplace in those days. A wide variety of black and white and colour photographs taken across the region include many from West Yorkshire and Bradford district.

There are glimpses behind the scenes, in the many engine sheds that housed these iron** beasts. One, at Low Moor, was built by the Lancashire 7 Yorkshire Railway in 1866 but replaced more than 20 years later with a 12-track dead-ended building. The facilities included a coal stage- a platform used to load coal into the locomotive - water tank and a turntable. The shed was rebuilt in 1948 but closed in October 1967.

The Stanier-designed Jubillee Class 4-6-0 locomotive, number 45565 Victoria is standing in the shed.

The Queensbury lines linking Bradford, Halifax and Keighley were among the most spectacularly engineered in Yorkshire. With stations built on a grand scale, they were also some of the least profitable. Great Horton Station was opened in October 1878 by Great Northern Railway and closed in June 1965.

Many of the photographs were taken by Geoff Warnes, who died last year and to whom the book is dedicated.

One of his more atmospheric images shows the grimy interior of the brick-built, square shed at Manningham, opened by the Midland Railway in 1872 and closed in 1967. Four brooding locomotives are shown in a line.

Another shows a train refuelling at Bradford Exchange station. Opening in May 1850 by the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway, the building was rebuilt in 1880 with ten bay platforms and two arched roofs. Closure came on January 14, 1973.

A photograph taken in March 1952, from the David Joy collection, shows Class 2MT 2-6-2T locomotive number 41325 heading from Keighley up the Worth Valley branch. Opened in 1867 by the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway, the line closed in 1962 but was reopened six years later after a long struggle by the Keighley & Worth Valley Preservation Society.

The stations are arranged alphabetically, making this an easy book to dip in and out of. It contains a wide range of locomotive classes, from Gresley’s A4s to British Rail Standard engines.*The Last Years of Yorkshire Steam by Peter Tuffrey is published by Great Northern and costs £19.99.

W:greatnorthernbooks.co.uk