£50K RAISED FOR LYNTON & BARNSTAPLE RAILWAY REPLICAS YEO AND EXE
£50,000 has been raised for the Lynton & Barnstaple Railway’s replica Manning Wardles Yeo and Exe, as fund-raising begins in earnest.
The 762 Club – which built the L&B’s replica Baldwin 2-4-2T No. 762 Lyn (completed in September 2017) – has launched two fund-raising appeals to raise the estimated £500,000 needed for both 2-6-2Ts Nos. 759 and 760.
Payments can be one-off (£750 per fund or £1,500 for both) or spread over 30 months (at £25 or £50 per month). There will also be a list of components to sponsor.
Speaking at the time of going to press, 762 Club Director Jon Pain said: “Funds raised stand at over £50,000 with monies coming in daily, which is a good start. As with Lyn, the start is the hardest phase. Then, especially once the cutting of metal starts, fund-raising takes on a new impetus.
“We estimate that we need to raise £500k for each locomotive, plus a small contingency. Much of the design (and some of the pattern work) is complete with Lyd so we won’t need to start from scratch, as per Lyn.”
Unveiled at the revived L&B’s autumn steam gala on September 29/30 last year (SR483/5), the £1.1 million project seeks to replicate two of the line’s first locomotives concurrently, with Yeo to be built at Killamarsh, Derbyshire, and Exe at Boston Lodge on the Ffestiniog Railway.
Mr Pain says: “The 762 Club aims to recreate all four of the original Manning Wardle locomotives which were based on the original railway. We will start with Yeo and Exe, while taking the opportunity to gain economies of scale by manufacturing additional specific components for [No. 761] Taw and [No. E188) Lew.
“We have substantial support from the team that designed and built the Ffestiniog Railway’s authentic L&B locomotive [No. E190] Lyd. Each locomotive will take five years to complete. Some of Lyd’s drawings will be converted to Computer Aided Design files to ease manufacture. The patterns used for Lyd are also available to this project.”
For more information, contact Mr Pain at jonpain@waitrose.com, or visit www.762club.com