ANOTHER collection of previously unseen colour photographs of the Lincolnshire Coast Light Railway (LCLR) – the world's first heritage railway to be built on a greenfield site by enthusiasts – has been discovered.
In issue 269, we published a series of pictures of the 2ft gauge line unearthed by Peter Bryant, a director of the Cleethorpes Coast Light Railway, during a Kingsway office sort-out during the lockdown.
The publication led to Mike Swift, one of the founding supporters and earliest shareholders in the LCLR Company and the former secretary of the Narrow Gauge Railway Society, recalling having taken colour slides on the opening day, on August 27, 1960, and it prompted a search for more.
Mike has now passed to the LCLR's Historic Vehicles Trust a series of unpublished colour photographs taken on visits in 1961, 1962, and 1970 by colleagues Trevor Dodgson, a retired metallurgist from Stockbridge, near Sheffield, and the late Gordon Green, also a metallurgist, from Tinsley, Sheffield.
As first built, the LCLR ran from North Sea Lane, in Humberston, south of Cleethorpes, and was used as public transport taking holidaymakers to the nearby beach and the Fitties holiday camp.
However, changing holiday patterns and the after-effect of the 1984/85 miners' strike led to the line's closure in 1985.
The LCLR collection went into store at Burgh-le-Marsh, from where it was eventually relocated 42 miles south to the Skegness Water Leisure Park in Walls Lane, Ingoldmells, and reopened in 2009.
LCLR spokesman John Chappell said: “These wonderful old photographs help us record the history of our pioneering railway and its place in demonstrating the history of the world's narrow gauge railways.
“We hope that when lockdown restrictions are eased, we can again let people sample the experience of riding trains dating back to the trench railways of the First World War battlefields and before.
“We are very grateful to everyone who has sent us these photos, and especially to our friends at Cleethorpes and in the NGRS for initiating this.”
It’s a sunny June day in 1961 and the LCLR has been open for less than a year but is developing rapidly. A train of two open carriages converted from First World War Class D bogie wagons is ready to depart for Beach station behind the line’s first locomotive, Motor-Rail Simplex No. 3995 of 1926 Paul. On the right are former First World War ambulance vans that once carried potatoes on Lincolnshire’s Nocton Estates Railway, while spare bogies can be seen on the left. GORDON GREEN
TREVOR DODGSON
To allow its landlord, Grimsby Rural District Council, to use the site for the burgeoning caravan trade, the Lincolnshire Coast Light Railway was relocated from 1966 onwards 50 yards to the south, and extended on a new formation to a new Beach station via a halt at Anthony’s Bank Road, and then to a new terminus in the Fitties, known as South Sea Lane. Ironically, its original route was very close to what is now the 15in gauge Cleethorpes Coast Light Railway, which has a station called North Sea Lane and hopes to extend further towards the original LCLR terminus. Peckett 0-6-0ST No. 1008 of 1903 Jurassic, supplied new to Kaye & Co’s cement works, later Rugby Portland Cement, at Southam, Warwickshire, stands at the line’s second North Sea Lane headquarters alongside Motor-Rail Simplex bow-frame 4wDM No. 1935 of 1920 Nocton, ready for the day’s duties in August 1971.
TREVOR DODGSON
In 1962 at the original North Sea Lane station, recently acquired and rebodied Motor-Rail Simplex No. 7481 of 1940 Wilton is ready to depart for Beach station with one of the former Ashover Light Railway carriages, restored by the LCLR after years as a sports pavilion at Clay Cross, Derbyshire.
TREVOR DODGSON
Under lowering skies, a reminder of why so many holidaymakers deserted British resorts for Spanish sunshine, Jurassic and its train head to Beach station and the Fitties camp in 1970.
TREVOR DODGSON
For many years, Hunslet 0-4-0ST No. 705 of 1899 Elin, which was owned by an LCLR director, the late John Burdett, of Louth, was based on the LCLR but proved too heavy for the track. Elin was built for Penrhyn Quarry in north Wales and, after closure of the Humberston site, was moved first to the Yaxham Light Railway in Norfolk. It is now on the Richmond Light Railway in Kent.