We are very proudly a railway and tourist attraction with a national reputation, thanks in no small part to The Railway Children film putting us on the tourist map.

Because we are the only complete standard-gauge branch line railway that remains, we are preserving a very important part of the country's railway heritage that could otherwise be lost for generations to come.

However, we are also very mindful that we are a local railway and are always keen to help community groups when we can. As well as participating in Go Local Sunday (held in April each year), where local residents can enjoy free entry to their local attractions, we support a number of other events.

For example, we have arranged a 'park and ride' service for the popular Magical Fairy Fest event at Holden Park in Oakworth in August, as we do for the incredibly successful 1940s weekend in Haworth to assist traffic management around the valley, to help minimise inconvenience for local residents.

We are now talking with the organisers of a new Steampunk event on November 23 and 24 about how we can support their venture.

Whilst a charity in our own right, we also run fundraising events for other worthy causes, such as the annual community Carol Train service to support the Manorlands hospice. We are very pleased to be able to support an Asperger's charity close to Olly Morgan's, one of our younger volunteers, heart. He raised £1,500 by having his previously long hair shaved at Haworth station, and we run trains with the Asperger's Flyer headboard to support the National Autistic Society.

We also know how important it is to engage with local schools, not only because we should be an important part of the pupils' education of social history and engineering, offering a local opportunity for an insight into what life was like in days of yore. The children may well grow into being our future volunteers so getting them interested in the railway from an early age is vital to the sustainability of our operation.

With this in mind, more than 100 school children from local primary schools travelled with us in June. Based on their experience the teachers are preparing learning materials that will be available to other schools to use in the future to help develop our offering to schools across the region.

We are also working with our educational experts on how we can engage further with schools throughout the academic year and are looking to extend the work to the secondary school curriculum. If you have suggestions on how we can support local community groups, or have other comments on the Railway, do please get in touch: matthew.stroh@kwvr.co.uk.