Lincolnshire
Coast Light Railway Historical Vehicles Trust
Stock Movement to
Winthorpe
Text by Chris Bates, photos by Jim Smith Sept 2003
A unique collection of World War One military
light railway vehicles owned by the registered charity, the Lincolnshire
Coast Light Railway Historical Vehicles Trust, has been reunited with other
LCLR rolling stock at Winthorpe where the line is being revived.
The Trust was set up more than 20 years
ago to preserve a unique ambulance van, class D bogie wagons and a Class
P 4-wheel ration wagon which had been used on the narrow gauge railways
which the British forces built to serve their trenches on the battlefields
of France. These had become surplus to the LCLR's requirements at its Humberston
site.
The line had acquired them from the Nocton
Estates Light Railway, a system of nearly 30 miles of two-foot gauge line
serving remote potato fields in the area between Sleaford and Bardney,
which was operated by WW1 surplus light railway equipment, several Simplex
diesels and (briefly) one steam engine.
The Trust's collection was renovated with
grants from the Science Museum and won a Transport Trust Award. It was
displayed in the Museum of Army Transport at Beverley, from which it was
removed to the storage on a member's farm when the museum encountered financial
problems in the early 1990's.
With progress on constructing the new LCLR
near Skegness, the LCLR's directors invited the Trust to move its collection
there. This was done in late September/early October 2003 using winches,
low loaders and specially built ramps.
The Trust's Secretary (who welcomes applications
for membership) is Howard Goy, of Cleethorpes, who can be contacted via
the webmaster
A class D bogie four plank open wagon being winched onto low-loader
at a North Lincolnshire location
where stock of the LCLR Historical Vehicles Trust had been stored
for some years.
On arrival near Skegness, the same vehicle is carefully winched
on to a specially built ramp.
The Class P ration wagon mounted on the open sided Class D: the
sides were built to be removed
like this to allow troops to move heavy or bulky loads.
The sheer size of the WW1 Ambulance Van -- the final survivor of
those constructed -- becomes evident as it is slowly winched at the farm
site on to the low loader for the move to Skegness.
The side view shows how the van and its bogies just fit on to a
panel of track secured
on the low loader's base to enable it to make the journey.
Ambulance van being carefully lowered onto transfer ramp at Winthorpe.
When the collection was reassembled at the LCLR's new site one of
the company's
World War 2 Simplex diesels in original condition was placed at
its head for this photograph.
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