Remembering Lincs Coast stalwart Paul
Members of the Lincolnshire Coast Light Railway are mourning the passing of Paul Walkinshaw, described by LCLR Trust chairman, Richard Shepherd, as making a “huge and invaluable contribution” to the railway.
Paul, who died on 7th May aged 59, led the restoration of the Trust’s 1903 Peckett 0-6-0ST ‘Jurassic’ and was treasurer of the railway’s charitable Historic Vehicles Trust.
Born in Grimsby, the son of a marine engineer and keen model engineer, Paul produced his first steam model, a 31/2-inch gauge locomotive, while still in the sixth form.
His interest in the LCLR was spurred when he was regularly dropped off at the line’s original North Sea Lane station to catch the train to its terminus at South Sea Lane, where he helped to crew a yacht owned by his father and moored close by. Paul became a youthful volunteer, then a shareholder and still in his early ’20s a director of Lincolnshire Coast Light Railway Company Ltd.
In 1983, when the Lincolnshire Coast Light Railway Historic Vehicles Trust was founded to conserve more historically-significant vehicles which had become surplus at Humberston, he became treasurer – a post he held continuously until his death.
He remained closely involved with the LCLR after its initial closure in 1985, driving three hours from his home to the Museum of Army Transport in Beverley, where the LCLRHVT collection was housed, to work on the wagons. When the LCLR relocated to the Skegness Water Leisure Park around 1995, he regularly made the long journey there to help towards the reopening in 2009.
Paul also owned a Fowler 4nhp steam tractor which he rallied extensively. His fascination with working steam power took him around the world and during his travels in Burma he met his future partner, Barbara Reid.
He worked in the frozen food industry and then for many years for Scottish transport and logistics company, Christian Salvesen, before taking early retirement due to ill health brought about by an industrial accident some years earlier.
His railway interests encompassed membership of The Heywood Society. He placed his replica of Heywood loco ‘Effie’ on loan to the Cleethorpes Coast Light Railway and gifted the loco to the line shortly before his death.
Praise for restoration
The Simplex diesel famed for its inundation in the East Coast Floods of 1953, and for which the LCLR won two commendations for its 20-year restoration, was also originally purchased by Paul and donated to the LCLR’s Historic Vehicles Trust.
On the line, he was one of a select group of drivers who could handle a 1926 bow-frame Simplex diesel, also called ‘Paul’, which requires ‘careful’ operation. He drove this loco on the Royal Train operated by the LCLR when HRH The Princess Royal, Princess Anne, visited the line in 2017.
Paul also built a new metal body for another of the LCLR’s Simplexes, ‘Wilton’, to replace the wooden body with which it had been fitted after acquisition from Humberston Brickworks.
He will be most fondly remembered, however, for his passion for the line’s steam locomotive, Jurassic. He organised and oversaw the extensive overhaul to working order in 2015 – 2017, this also commended in the HRA awards.
In its tribute to Paul the LCLR Trust observed that Jurassic will remain as a memorial to his vision, determination and skill for generations to come.