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The Kirklees Light Railway is a long gauge minimum gauge railway in Kirklees metropolitan borough, West Yorkshire, Northern England. First opened on 19 October 1991, the KLR runs along the trackbed of the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway's now long closed/former branch line, from the village of ''Clayton West'' via ''Skelmanthorpe'' to the village ''Shelley Woodhouse'' (a few yards close to the former ''Clayton West Junction'' just half-a-mile, near ) on the Penistone Line from Huddersfield to Sheffield, (via Penistone and Barnsley). ==History== The Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway opened their branch line from Clayton West Junction to on 1 September 1879. The branch line was built with bridges, tunnels and earthworks suitable for a double line, but only one line was ever laid. The line survived the Beeching cuts (in large part thanks to the mineral traffic generated by the collieries at the terminus and at Skelmanthorpe, in-between) but was sadly not adopted by the West Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive unlike nearly all other passenger lines in West Yorkshire and was closed on 24 January 1983. Construction of the minimum gauge railway started in mid-summer 1990, following a joint application for a Light Railway Order between Kirklees Council and the Kirklees Light Railway Company on 22 February 1989. Construction was aided significantly by the amount of redundant materials available from a number of collieries in the area which were slowly beginning to end their mining operations. The Light Railway Order was finally granted on 27 September 1991. The line was originally in length running from Clayton West station to a specially constructed halt called ''Cuckoos Nest''. This name is historic to 15 inch gauge railways as a station on the Eaton Hall Railway, near Chester, built by Sir Arthur Heywood bore the name. Trains to Cuckoo's Nest commenced running on Saturday 19 October 1991. The KLR was later extended to Skelmanthorpe in 1992 and again to a station at Shelley in 1996/7 with a grant from ERDF for the regeneration of coal mining areas. The journey gives fine views of the Grade II listed Emley Moor Radio Mast, passes through the ancient woodland of Blacker Wood which is mentioned in the Domesday Book and includes a trip through the long Shelley Woodhouse Tunnel,〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Railway Ramblers Kirklees )〕 the longest tunnel on any gauge line in Britain. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Kirklees Light Railway」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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