SideTracked – Damems KWVR Traditional Geocache
SideTracked – Damems KWVR
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(small)
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A small 'click-lock' cache with room for small swaps and TBs placed on a public footpath near to Damems station on the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway. Steam trains call here regularly at weekends and daily during holiday periods, why not arrive by train!
Please be aware that access to Damems Lane by car is not recommended unless you have a 4x4 or wish to damage your car. Please park at the parking coordinates supplied and walk or make use of the train.
There is no need to enter any non public area to access the cache site, please do not walk on the railway track or climb any fences/gates!
Please note the cache is not in the wall, a clear hint is given if you're struggling due to bad GPS reception under the trees.
If you are using the train, please be aware that Damems is a request stop. The train will only stop to let you off if you ask a member of staff when you get on. You should also be sure to travel in the coach behind the engine as the rest of the train will not be on the platform.
Damems station opened a few months after the rest of the line in 1867, built mainly for the benefit of the workers at Damems Mill, still standing as a house nearby. There was also once a siding in what is now the garden opposite the platform where the woollen cloth produced by the mill would be loaded.
Some photos of the history of the station before closure in 1949 can be seen in the waiting room, when the station is open.
Trains continued to operate to the rest of the stations on the line until 1961, during this time the resident Crossing Keeper, a Mrs Annie Feather, lived in the station house and signalled the trains using levers installed in her front garden. The house is still owned by the railway and is currently let to a member of staff.
At the end of 1961, British Railways closed the line and there the story would have ended were it not for a group of forward thinking local people who formed a Preservation Society to reopen the line. Nearly 50 years later, The Keighley & Worth Valley Railway is a major tourist attraction carrying around 110 thousand passengers and helping to put millions into the local economy each year. The railway is operated and administered entirely by volunteer labour, why not get involved.
The station you see today at Damems claims to be the smallest full size railway station in the country, it is an amalgam of different buildings gathered from across the local railway network. The signal box was transported from Earby in 1971, the station building is a new construction based on photographs of the original and the metal lampman's hut at the end of the platform was rescued from Ilkley in the 1980s. Note also the gas lamps (yep, real gas!) and coal stoves used for heating in winter.
Congratulations to Two Tykes for FTF
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Ebbgf bs na Nfu gerr, haqre n fgbar.