The Cleethorpes Coast Light Railway celebrated 75 years of miniature railways at the south end of the resort over the weekend of July 15th and 16th. Although the 1948 railway was on a different alignment it is regarded as the first incarnation of the present railway for continuity purposes. It is quite a story of private and public ownership, steam, electric and gas-hydraulic propulsion over the years.
To tell this story a new exhibition has opened at Lakeside station telling the story in words, pictures, video and exhibits. A very familiar feature is this mock ticket hut that was constructed for the 'Rails to the Sands' exhibition back in 2010 to the design of Tim Dunn, although yet to feature on his 'Architecture the Railways Built" TV show! You could walk through it in it's previous location, but it now has a very effective background picture depicting the electric age at Cleethorpes in the mid-20th century. This should prove a good 'photo op' for families and children.
Two miniature steam locomotives feature in the display, and will remain on site for the summer season. The first is the locomotive that started it all - the GNR Atlantic that ran in 1948. Remarkably cine film footage of the original line has emerged and is on show, revealing it was painted red (!) Now re-gauged from 9 1/2" to 10 1/4" gauge it is restored in GNR colours.
The first locomotive built specifically for Cleethorpes was the Dove Pacific 'Cleethorpes Flyer'. Certainly not a fine scale machine in engineering or appearance it was based on an LNER Peppercorn outline, but was transformed in later years to depict a British Railways 'Britannia' class locomotive 'Rob Roy' and is usually based at the Eastleigh Lakeside Railway. It has been reunited with an original nameplate for display.
In 1954 the Cleethorpes Miniature Railway was electrified with the arrival of three accumulator powered locomotives with a modern outline. All are now scrapped, but a fourth identical machine was sold to Kerrs Miniature Railway in Arbroath and survived for a longer time before it too was scrapped. Imagine the surprise when the CCLR's owners discovered the cab end on an auction site! John Kerr is co-owner of the CCLR so this is a nice bit of history linking both lines.
On display outside was a 15" gauge visitor depicting an earlier era of seaside miniature railway history was Bassett Lowke 15 'Prince Edward of Wales' visiting from the Rhyl Miniature Railway. It shouldn't be forgotten that rival Lincolnshire resort Skegness boasted a railway operated by a sister locomotive in the early part of last century. It had been planned to run this machine however there were various concerns regarding flange clearances and haulage power so it joined the display of locomotives at Lakeside including CCLR past ('Flower of the Forest') and future in the form of the RVM blue diesel.
Another visitor was running on the main line, in the form of Exmoor Steam Railway built 'Monty' from the Evesham Vale Light Railway. I was familiar with this from a previous life as 'Markeaton Lady' and we will take a closer look at this delightful machine in a future post. As always with these events I tried a few favourite locations for lineside pictures and a few new angles too...
To celebrate the anniversary the CCLR shops are stocked with new designs of postcards, fridge magnets and other merchandise, whilst the Signal Box Inn had a specially brewed CCLR Golden Ale on tap.
Colin
No comments:
Post a Comment