The world's first DIY line!
60 YEARS OF THE LINCOLNSHIRE COAST LIGHT RAILWAY
While the Bluebell was setting a blueprint for the future revival of closed parts of the national network, fresh ground was being broken in Lincolnshire with volunteers building a new heritage line to run regular public transport services, write Chris Bates and Robin Jones.
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Aswe mentioned earlier, the 1950s saw a succession oflandmarks which paved the way for the British and indeed worldwide rail revival movement - the reopening of the Talyllyn and Ffestiniog railways by volunteers, the takeover of the Middleton by university students and the launch of the Bluebell Railway.
In each instance, a closed or closurethreatened railway was revived by enthusiasts who were prepared to give their labour and time free of charge in order to ensure that historic routes, locomotives and rolling stock could continue in operation for appreciation by future generations.
Yet towards the end of the decade, another group of enthusiasts, this time in Lincolnshire, went one stage further - and built their own railway on which to preserve part of the county's unique railway heritage, and on a virgin greenfield site too. Not only that, within years they were using it to provide genuine public transport.
Members of that group, in which the founder of what became the Lincolnshire Coast Light Railway, William ( always ' Bill') Woolhouse from Fotherby, near Louth were involved in the early preservation of the Talyllyn, Ffestiniog and the Welshpool & Llanfair Light railways. Bill became member No. 13 of the Talyllyn
Railway Preservation Society and had played a founding and active role in the establishment of the world's first preserved railway.
Today, it is still a long way from rural East Lincolnshire to central and North Wales, but in the Fifties, for impecunious young men crammed into a car of the time on twisting, congested cross- country roads to Merionethshire and back, it was both an expensive and time- consuming journey.
So they asked - how do we develop our interest in operating narrow gauge railways? Answer - build your own!
In the embryonic days of the heritage sector back in 1958, there was no blueprint for
them to follow. However, while the flatlands of Lincolnshire bear no similarity to the mountains of Wales and the steep gradients on that region's fabled narrow gauge lines, there was a treasure trove of historic rolling stock on their doorstep just crying out to be given a third lease oflife.
The stock had its origins in the trench railways of the First World War, and since that conflict ended, had been sold second- hand for use on the 23 miles of the N octon Estates Railway, which transported potatoes, sugar beet and fertiliser across the Lincolnshire Fens. That system, immortalised in the Oakwood Press volume The Lincolnshire Potato Railways by Stewart E Squires, was winding down as road transport and roads themselves became more efficient, so surplus rail, locomotives and wagons and vans would soon become available.
The group set out, from the outset, to create and commercially run an all- new railway in a locality which offered good prospects of success, and in an age when most people still took summer holidays at home, well before the emergence of cheap Mediterranean package holidays, a popular local seaside resort seemed ideal.
The first site that these pioneers looked at lay between what was close to the southern terminus of the then lO ¼ in gauge Cleethorpes Miniature Railway ( now the superb 15in gauge Cleethorpes Coast Light Railway) and a point where buses of Cleethorpes Corporation Transport on route 12 turned round.
However, Cleethorpes was not too keen on encouraging development close to its rival, Grimsby Rural District Council ( RDC), which looked after Humberston and operated the substantial Fitties Holiday Camp close to the beach - and so it was to the RDC that Bill and his friends turned. Meanwhile, they had arranged for the loan of Bagnall 0- 4- 0ST No. 2067 of 1917 Peter owned by the Narrow Gauge Railway Society and it moved to Louth in preparation for renovation and operation on their planned new railway.
There was an enthusiastic response from the RDC and on April 7, 1960, the company which was to build the world's first heritage railway to be constructed by enthusiasts on a greenfield site, was formed: the Lincolnshire Coast Light Railway Company Limited ( LCLR)
Construction of the 60cm gauge line ( usually referred to as 2ft gauge, but more accurately 1ft 11 % in) started that month with the help of a hired digger to clear the site of old holiday cottages and to lay ash ballast and rails from Nocton.
Everything - rails, locomotives, wagons and vans - were delivered by rail from Nocton & Dunston station to, it is believed, Waltham station on the East Lincolnshire main line from Grimsby to Boston. Later additions to the LCLR collection came by road, as BR had hiked its freight charges, and Nocton & Dunston, which closed to passengers in 1955, ended freight services in 1964, although the Peterborough to Lincoln line which it served is still open.
Just 20 days after that first Bluebell train •••
A combination of wet weather and remedial work on the freshly laid track delayed opening until August 27, 1960, when Mrs SC Tovey, wife of one of the directors, waved the green flag for driver John Chaple ( no relation to the railway's current company secretary, John Chappell) who drove the line's Motor Rail Simplex 4w diesel ( No. 3995 of 1926, Nocton No. 5) the 700 yards to Beach station, where a footbridge across the adjacent ditch took passengers to the beach, car park and tea stall on the edge of the Fitties.
This chalet park has its origins immediately after the First World War when the shortage of housing for the homeless, hopeless and dispossessed lead to an acceleration in the building of an informal architecture, unfettered by planning regulations and the like. The term ' fitties' is believed to derive from the Viking word for salt marsh, which is what the camp was built on.
The little line was an immediate success. More than 8000 passengers and their luggage were carried in the three weeks of operation before closure for the autumn and winter, reopening at Easter 1961.
Trains could be so full that the initial carriage, converted from a War Department Light Railways Class D wagon ( complete with shrapnel holes from German artillery, as the Grimsby Evening Telegraph of the day noted) that occasionally one or two of the Class P ration wagons would be added to carry suitcases and camping gear.
A second Class D was converted for passenger use, a midway passing loop with storage spurs was added, the ballast improved and many improvements made for the 1961 season.
Traffic rose to 64,000 passengers that year. Two of the huge Gloucester Carriage & Wagon coaches built for the defunct Ashover Light Railway were acquired from a sports field at Clay Cross and mounted on Class D bogies and were pressed into service at night, even before restoration could begin. Trains started at 9.30am and were scheduled to run for 12 hours ( sometimes later when holidaymakers leaving from the pubs of Cleethorpes wanted a train back to the Fitties). A paid driver and booking clerk were needed to supplement the volunteers' efforts and cope with the traffic.
It seemed a time of unprecedented success and progress: Peckett 0- 6- 0ST No. 1008 of 1903 Jurassic was acquired from Rugby Portland Cement's works at Southam in Warwickshire, along with a Ruston & Hornsby 4w diesel - which proved near- impossible to start and so slow that frustrated passengers were known to climb out of the train and walk ahead!
Jurassic was steamed almost upon arrival as the original Simplex, now named Paul, failed; it was overhauled the following year and proved immensely popular with visitors. Peter was returned, unrestored, to the Narrow Gauge Railway Society ( and is now at Amberley Museum & Heritage Centre near Arundel in West Sussex) - the less- than- impressive Ruston was eventually disposed of, mostly for scrap but some parts went to the Talyllyn and West Lancashire Light railways.
The ' Ashovers' were renovated, fitted with former tramcar seats and new torsion bars to cure a sag and looked fine and handsome behind Jurassic steaming past newly erected ex- GNR and LYR signalling. It was in every sense a ' proper' narrow gauge railway - steam powered public transport.
Motor transport competed with the railway here too!
Railways big and small, especially the light railways of the ilk which made up the empire of the legendary Colonel Holman F Stephens, went into decline after the First World War, with car ownership in the ascendancy and motor buses proving a more versatile alternative to rural lines.
The bus operations of Grimsby and Cleethorpes were combined by their controlling local authorities and the success of the LCLR as public transport, albeit over a comparatively short distance, was too tempting a target for the town hall mandarins to ignore.
The road beside the LCLR was not strong enough to allow for a service with doubledeckers, even single- decker buses - so an
Austin ( or Morris?) minibus was acquired, painted in the joint operators' livery and set to work to compete with the trains.
It could bridge the gap between the bus turn round and the LCLR's North Sea Lane terminus and significantly, run into the Fitties. With the added factor of a wet summer, the 1962 passenger figures were 50,000, dropping to 42,000 in the following year.
By 1964, even allowing for Jurassic being out of service all season, traffic was back to 60,000, but it was realised that the railway needed to go further into the Fitties to compete with the buses. The RDC landlords wanted the original alignment to develop for camping and an agreement was reached to lift the original track and rebuild and extend the line further into the camp on a new alignment 50 yards to the south.
Work began in 1966, installing a link from the original line to the new formation, where rails from Penrhyn and Nocton were being laid, some on halved ex- BR wooden sleepers.
The only carriage built for the Sand Hutton Railway arrived ( again, having been a sports pavilion) and was mounted on new frames made from two ex- WDLR Class D underframes.
Traffic continued to increase to 70,000 people a year, despite the bus competition and the increasing popularity of package holidays to Spain, trains running 13 hours a day, seven days a week, during a four- month summer season.
Jurassic's weekend appearances were a great attraction locally, but the line struggled to attract attention from the wider enthusiast community, at a time when narrow and standard gauge lines were being opened and because of the comparative isolation of North East Lincolnshire from the rest of the country.
Tapping into a new market
Traffic inexorably declined and the line took on an overgrown and neglected appearance, but then in the late 1970s, sprang into life at weekends with the operation of a Sunday market in the adjacent Beachholme Holiday Camp, which somehow circumnavigated the strict Sunday trading laws of the time.
Trains filled with passengers travelling to the market from South Sea Lane terminus in the Fitties, returning with shoppers laden with everything from carpets, trays of eggs, clothing, car spares and all manner of bargains. The trains were made up of two Ashover carriages, the restored Sand Hutton carriage, an open coach and sometimes, one of the line's WDLR ambulance vans fitted with platform seats - top and tailed by Jurassic and one of the Simplexes.
The only passenger carriage built for the Nocton Estates Railway had been rescued from its role as a Lincoln scrapyard's office and was mounted on WDLR Class D bogies, but as entrance was over one of them it was never restored for passenger use ( and remains unrestored today).
However, it was all to be in vain; the 1984/ 85 miners' strike hit the Cleethorpes area hard, with many of its traditional holidaymakers unable to afford their annual holiday because of the financial hardships caused by the acrimonious and prolonged industrial action.
Package holiday competition was intense - a fortnight in Spain could cost less than the same time at Humberston or Cleethorpes - the adjacent road had been strengthened to allow double- decker buses to run from the centre of Cleethorpes straight into the Fitties, and the local authority wanted the LCLR's land for a new caravan park.
Faced with demands that in any new lease the LCLR would have to erect a 6ft fence and pay higher rents, the directors reluctantly decided not to take a new lease and with traffic receipts falling and other difficulties, decided to close the line at the end of the 1985 season - a few weeks after celebrating its 25th anniversary of opening.
In the meantime, Hunslet 0- 4- 0ST Elin, fitted with a Marshall's ' launch boiler' and which was owned by director John Burdett, had proved too heavy for the line, damaging the rails when steamed on two occasions, left the line for the private Yaxham Light Railway in Norfolk.
The end - first time round
Bravely, the directors decided not to wind up the company or dispose of their rolling stock and equipment. Over following months, the track was lifted, the locomotives, carriages and
wagons were taken to storage in an open- air site at Burgh- le- Marsh, near Skegness.
Already, one of the WDLR ambulance vans, two of the Class D bogie wagons and the 4w wagons had been sold for a nominal sum to a newly- formed charity, the LCLR Historic Vehicles Trust, which moved them for restoration and display to the Museum of Army Transport at Beverley.
Another of the ambulance vans had been sold to the embryonic South Tynedale Railway ( where it was apparently lost in a fire) and two of the four- wheelers and a useful permanent way trolley were sold to local trout and watercress farms.
Yet this wasn't the end of the LCLR, which has on several occasions survived against the odds - it was the beginning of a new future for what has been dubbed ' The Lazarus Line'.
The trust's collection was safe in the Museum of Army Transport in Beverley and its restoration provided a focus for volunteers, while the company's stock remained out in the open at Burgh- le- Marsh at the mercy of the elements.
Southern shift to Skeggie
The directors continued a search for a new location, combing much of Lincolnshire for a suitable site. In the meantime, the Skegness firm of Ellis Bros Ltd was diversifying from its house building business into the development of a caravan park, but one with a strong emphasis on the environment, conservation and heritage.
The firm began work on its site in Walls Lane, Ingoldmells, near Skegness, a seagull's
hop from Butlin's Funcoast World. It occupied a site on which Sir Billy Butlin and the LNER had planned to build a branch line from just outside Skegness, skirting the west of the town and giving direct access to the pioneering camp at Ingoldmells, ( as they did at Filey). The Second World War put paid to that, but the plans still exist.
Ellis Bros decided that a railway around the site would be ideal in terms of an attraction and as transport. Discussions were held with the LCLR about how to make this happen.
At the same time, an airfield was being developed by the firm next to the railway and it soon became apparent that its runways would prevent a circle of track being laid ( though it is shown as such on some OS maps of the time).
Plans were amended to create a formation to the west of the airfield, giving views over surrounding arable farmland as far as the foothills of the Lincolnshire Wolds.
Therefore, in 1995 John Burnett dug out the first of the formation with just two or three volunteers to assist.
Jurassic, the Simplex diesels, Ashover, Sand Hutton and Nocton Estate carriages and a 4w wagon were delivered - a tree was growing out of the roof of one of the Ashovers, and a corrugated iron stockade was built around Jurassic to protect it. Work got underway, slowly, but steady progress was made - and one of the Simplex diesels started straight away, despite years out of use.
Gradually the line crept forward, first to the site of a new station ( to be called Lakeview, later renamed Walls Lane) and then advanced around the side of the airfield to a point in a clearing in the trees called South Loop.
Generous support from the increasingly-successful Skegness Water Leisure Park and its owner, Ellis Bros, provided use of a shed in which to store and restore the locomotives and carriages; one volunteer ( Astling Evison, subsequently a director) worked tirelessly on weekdays on his own, laying ballast, sleepers, spiking rails in a manner reminiscent of construction of the Egyptian pyramids. Eventually the new station platform was erected, fitted with handrails rescued from a part of Wainfleet station and its sidings, bought by the park's owners on which to develop housing.
By May 2009, the line had been inspected and passed for opening, the volunteers had been trained and passed out to drive, guard and operate the line, which now had a safer and more sophisticated system of tokens and interlocking ground frames.
The directors sent out an invitation to the media to see the mayor of Skegness, Coun Neil Pimperton, with that most famous of seaside icons, the resort's very own Jolly Fisherman, a party ofButlin's Redcoats and the Butlin's mascot Billy, dispatch the official reopening train.
Back in the late Fifties, the LCLR had broken much new ground for the heritage sector to come - in not being content to revive a moribund railway, but going as far as building a new one on a greenfield site. Now they had done it again, moving their railway 42 miles to the south, and had relived their dream for a second time.
Running again
As reported in Heritage Railway issue 124, the LCLR reopened on Sunday, May 3 that year.
At the time, LCLR Historical Vehicles Trust chairman Richard Shepherd said: "The original LCLR was a wonderfully quirky, eccentric little railway which had a unique character loved by many. After closure in 1985, none of us dared believe that one day we could operate it again. Now, thanks to the dedication of all those who have worked so hard for its revival, the LCLR will run again."
That year's Heritage Railway Association's Small Groups award honoured the LCLR jointly with its near neighbour, the Lincolnshire Wolds Railway at Ludborough ( as featured last issue), for reopening their lines.
Passenger traffic grew through the low hundreds with trains running on summer Sundays, with the restored Ashover No. 2 and the Simplexes still in Humberston blue as work progressed on upgrading the track and rolling stock. More of the old Humberston volunteers returned and newcomers were recruited.
Running days were switched to Saturdays when it was realised many visitors to the park left by mid- morning. Passenger numbers, still largely reliant on park guests, showed a healthy increase, with fares at just £ 1 each return. Word of the LCLR's historical significance, now that it had reopened, was spreading.
As plans were being made for Britain to commemorate the First World War and the sacrifices of its service personnel, the local Boston & Skegness MP, Mark Simmonds ( who was also the Minister for Overseas Territories) was invited to take a journey on Friday, April 5, 2013 to see how British soldiers fighting in the war ( and their supplies) travelled to and from the trenches and battlefields in France and Belgium. He took a journey on the line, accompanied by the local media and saw the restoration of the WDLR vehicles and posed for the cameras on the footplate of one of the Simplexes.
Royal recognition
In November 2014 the LCLR's charitable Trust won the regional ITV People's Millions competition, which resulted in a grant of £ 43,000 to restore the original carriage used in 1960, a converted WDLR Class D bogie wagon, to turn it into a disabled access open carriage. The project was hugely successful and the carriage in its new form is immensely popular with passengers, especially those with limited mobility, who can now enjoy a ride with friends and family. Photographs of its progress are on the trust's website at lclrhvt. bravesites. corn/ peoples- millions
Two further very significant developments were in the offing - the award of a similar amount from the Lottery Heritage Fund for the restoration of the line's flagship, Jurassic and its return to steam - and a royal visit.
Jurassic'sb oiler, firebox and smokebox were sent to the North Norfolk Railway's workshops at Weybourne for overhaul; much other important work was carried out by the volunteers in Skegness and it was successfully steam tested in early 2017, reassembled, repainted and lined out and put back into service toward the end of the season - a moment of pure joy for all connected with the LCLR.
Sadly, company secretary and director Bill Woolhouse died on March 16 that year in the Diana, Princess of Wales Hospital in Grimsby aged 91, so did not see Jurassic run again.
Nor did he see Princess Anne travel on the line on Tuesday, April 25, as reported in issue 228, during her visit to the leisure park to see how Lincolnshire seaside holidays have changed since Hi- de- Hi days.
In 2019, the 10th anniversary of the reopening at Skegness was held, with the mayor, now Coun Mark Dannatt, and the Jolly Fisherman waving off Jurassic and its train from an enlarged Walls Lane station with crowds of onlookers watching - the mayor having loaded an iced celebration ' cake' ( made from an off- cut of an old sleeper) into Jurassic's firebox, as reported in issue 256.
Such were the numbers attending the end of season Skegness Classic Wheels Show, held on the adjacent airfield and the LCLR, that £ 5000 was raised for local charities.
Showcase for unique local heritage
The never- say- die durability of this remarkable preservation era product is testament to the immense value of the plethora of smaller heritage railways and museum venues.
The LCLR will never be another Bluebell, Severn Valley or Great Central Railway, but neither has it ever intended to be.
The beauty of smaller lines like this lies in the fact that it can major in on unique localised heritage which, if tackled by a major line, would probably by necessity end up being relegated to a sideshow dwarfed by more illustrious locomotives and stock of far wide relevance. In this instance, the collection of First World War trench railway stock and the legacy of the Lincolnshire Potato Railways provide a valuable and worthwhile extra dimension to British railway heritage, and all in a county where the substantial role of the narrow gauge was in danger of being forgotten. Yes, the heritage railway sector has never been exclusively all about A4s, ' Black Fives' and Bulleid Pacifies: a classical symphony is not just about the ' popular bits' everyone knows, but about the entirety of the piece.
An impressive schedule of special events to mark not only the 60th anniversary of the LCLR ( planned for July 18), the 30th birthday of the Skegness Water Leisure Park and the 25th anniversary of the opening of Skegness Airfield ( which had been announced for July 4) have been postponed due to Covid- 19, as was the June 6 Motor Rail Through The Decades event celebrating Simplex locomotives.
Richard Shepherd said: "We are disappointed not be able to stage these events, but the Government's measures to control the spread of the virus and our concern for the safety of our volunteers, our intending passengers and the many people in the Water Leisure Park whose support makes possible the operation of our railway, leaves us no choice.
"These are postponements, not cancellations. Preparation for these events takes our volunteers many months of work and at the moment, we cannot access our site or its equipment. If we have to leave it a year to celebrate our anniversaries, we'll just point out the train is running one year late.
"That's probably another world record for the LCLR."
➔ As we closed for press, the LCLR remains closed. Updates on the future running of services on the Lincolnshire Coast Light Railway will be posted on www.lclr.co.uk