WE’VE started the year with an eye to the sky, wondering what the weather is going to bring.

We’ve had a dusting of snow, freezing rain and very frosty mornings, but we continue to run steam trains every weekend and are looking forward to the half-term week on February 18-22, which includes a visit from Chase and Marshall from Paw Patrol on February 20 and 21.

Running trains in all weathers is a challenge and demands a huge effort by our volunteers and small team of staff, so it’s always great to see the efforts resulting in trains running full of passengers enjoying the steam heat on board, the real-ale bar that we convey on the trains, and the roaring fires in the station booking halls.

With the short evenings at this time of year, this provides our passengers a great opportunity to see the stations illuminated by our network of vintage gas lights.

We have changed our timetable slightly from previous years so that you can enjoy an earlier steam-hauled service with the first steam service leaving Oxenhope at 10.15am, which results in some changes to the morning’s diesel service timings, so please do check the timetable.

Looking beyond what we hope will be the worst of the weather, we move to our programme of special events, including our Spring Steam Gala on March 8-10 during which we will enjoy demonstration freight services, express and double-headed trains.

We will have the entire operational fleet in steam and we hope some visiting locomotives as well… check the website for the latest information.

We also have two special excursion rail tours running to Carlisle on February 9 and February 16. These are all but fully booked.

During these rail tours, we hope to launch back into main line traffic for the first time in 25 years the locomotive Bahamas after an overhaul supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Details of the tours and the last few remaining seats are available by visiting kwvr.co.uk.

Later in the year we have our regular programme of events, and some new specials, including a whisky-tasting Scotch Flyer, and premium Prosecco-tasting Sparkle & Steam alongside our regular Haworth Haddocks Fish & Chip supper services.

At the beginning of May we are hosting our Mixed Traffic Steam and Diesel Gala, which sees us welcoming visiting diesel-traction to the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway for the first time in several years.

As ever, we would welcome your support whether as passenger or, even better, as a new volunteer, so please do consider joining the volunteering team in any of our operating or behind-the-scenes roles.

As well as the special events, please don’t forget that we continue to run trains every weekend and through the school holidays, with full times and details available on the website.