The Railway Children filming locations

It's not a real Christmas without The Railway Children being on television is it? What British person over thirty cannot have seen this classic film? Most of the film locations were at Oxenhope, Oakworth Railway Station and Haworth. This trinity of beauty is only a forty minute drive from my weekend place at Todmorden so one Saturday afternoon I packed a flask and sandwiches and set off to seek film locations.

The story follows the adventures of the Waterbury children who suddenly have to move to rural Yorkshire. They live in a grand Edwardian villa in London but their dad is wrongly imprisoned and they move to foreign countryside. First I went to Oakworth Railways Station where much of the film is shot. Strewn with memorabilia its looks and feels as is would a hundred years ago. I walked up and down the empty platform and it and it was strange to see houses nearby. The crafty camera crew had filmed it in a way to give the impression the station is rural. The ancient waiting room, ticket office and coal fire stubborn refused to change and I guessed only the prices on the board had changed in many decades. A pair of eyes was watching me from a back office but I’m sure they’re used to geeks like me taking 200 photos. A few metres away round the corner is the house of Perks the Station Porter.

Onward to the Oxenhope countryside. In the film the house the family move to is “Three Chimney’s” – not easy to find. I got onto quiet country lanes knowing the house was “south of Marsh Lane.” I had a grainy photo and nothing but else but curiosity. Under hot sun I drove up and down Marsh Lane scanning stone houses across rolling fields but could not see my quarry. I followed my compass south but no luck. I drove up and down the long lane four times then saw five men appear from a cottage door. I pulled up, got out and asked them where “Three Chimney’s” was.

A pause.

“We’re not telling you,” a stern-faced man said from under a steel moustache. His disciples echoed his sentiments: “It’s a local secret”, “We don’t tell anyone,” and “They don’t like visitors so we don’t encourage them.”

Were they joking? I said I was a sad geek and The Railway Children was part of my childhood so how about some help. I tried to keep things light.

“What about I give you a Terry’s Chocolate Orange?” I said pointing to one my car seat, “Is that fair enough?”

“We’ll tell you – for that Sat Nav,” a poker-faced disciple eyeing the gadget stuck on my windscreen. Were they serious? I scanned their expressionless faces. I owned up to being a geek, said I’d walk round the village until someone told me where the house stood. Thankfully a woman appeared from the open door of the cottage, “Ow don’t be so bloody awful you lot!” she said and suddenly the men couldn’t tell me fast enough where the house was. They also told me where other filming locations were. Friends not foe after all.

One of the chaps repeated, “They don’t like visitors” so I felt a little anxious when, half a mile away, I found myself walking down a dirt track that sliced two fields. I could see the rear of “Three Chimneys”. A car was parked outside it so I approached tentatively expecting an anger-contorted, puce-coloured face to appear demanding I got off their land.

Thankfully nobody appeared. The house wasn’t as I expected. In my mind it would be an old stone house, almost derelict and stood alone in acres of grassy fields that rolled on forever. However it had been modernised, was L-shaped and the camera crew had shot it to eliminate the large house next door. Verdant fields rushed out across the front but they didn’t go on forever. I could see a road in the mid-distance and realised I’d passed the house many times. I stroked some heavy-breathing cows and let one lick me.

Next I drove up to Haworth for more locations. I had parked away from the centre and walked in. I was stood at a busy junction when a car approached. The passenger window was down and a lady was holding out a white bag so it would not scuff the metalwork. I guessed she was about to ask me to put it in a bin so I tried to take it from her.

“What you doing?” she said with a crinkled brow. Okay, I thought, don’t grow a tumour; I’m trying to help you.

“Er….you’re handing me this bag for some reason aren’t you?”

“No, what you talking about?”

She said it contained some fresh gutted fish that stank; she had sold the car, the buyer was collecting it that evening and she didn’t want it smelling of fish. Mmmm, fair point, I thought.

At Haworth I walked up the main street directly to the Tourist Information Office. This is the butcher’s shop in the film. I walked up into the graveyard and looked at the Bronte Parsonage in the afternoon sun. I collected a few black feathers from the crows that swoop around the high trees in the cemetery. A man was looking over the wall that surround the parsonage. His eyes were full of interest so I pointed to the grave slab of Tabitha, the loyal servant to the Bronte’s dad for thirty years. Suddenly others appeared behind him and I realised he was Polish when he spoke to them. “We are coming round,” he said and six people tramped right round the wall to view the neglected headstone. I took them to another Bronte-related grave in the cemetery then into the church where the wall plague aloft the Bronte crypt. I left them there, one man saying “Vielen Danke” which I remembered from school was German. Polish and Germans together…..not bad.

Just outside the church side door to the right is the house which is the Post Office in the film. Walking back to the car I passed a man doing renovations to the bungalow. A noisy petrol generator chugged away. A couple passed with a Rottweiler on a lead. It weed on the generator and the plume of steam that puffed up was dense enough to make me wonder if a genie was going to appear. Even the dog glanced at the rising cloud. Those Polish and German folk going round together had impressed me but this dog’s cloud of steam surpassed anything.

After looking round the village I located the bridge at Ebor Lane. After the films ends one final shot is taken at this bridge. Strangely the film cast break the invisible wall and they’re all in their films clothes waving at the camera. This just doesn’t happen with other films. I parked up and tried to find a hole in the fence so I could stand on the rails for a better photo. Barbs of wire in my thighs persuaded me to not to bother (sorry.) As I got up onto the bridge I hoped a train would appear – a steam train that would belch jet smoke all over me, half kill me with fumes. I waited a while and had to settle for a normal engine pulling a train. I saw it was pulled by the “075” engine which I’d seen earlier in the day when calling in Oxenhope Railway Station. I’d asked one geek about it and he told the length/tonnage/age, etc. Built at the time of the Second World War and still going – pretty good. But not as good as those trains-potting geeks – I just love those geeks.

Some Railway Children crumbs…

1. Sally Thomsett (the slightly goofy one) plays 11-year-old Phyllis but she was 20 years old (Jenny Agutter who plays her older sister was 17.)

2. Sally’s contract stated (1) her age could not be revealed during the making of the film, (2) she could not be seen smoking or drinking or going out with her boyfriend or (3) driving a sports car (a hobby.) The filming crew didn’t know her age.

3. The director Lionel Jeffries reprimanded the “sisters” when he heard they’d been out late clubbing in Leeds city centre. They were forbidden to go again.

4. The locomotives have all survived and three are in the exhibition at Oxenhope Station (I touched them!)

5. At the start of the credit sequence a voice shouts "Thank you, Mr Forbes" aimed at Bryan Forbes who put up security for the film to be completed.

6. The Labour MP Bob Cryer (who played the train guard) was a prime mover in restoring the historic railway. In the final scene Station Master Perks can be heard saying, "Right away, Mr Cryer" before the train pulls out.