The active visiting locomotive at the Cleethorpes Coast Light Railway's 75th Anniversary gala was Exmoor Steam Railway built 0-4-2T 'Monty' from the Evesham Vale Light Railway. Smartly turned out in maroon you could easily be fooled into thinking that this well maintained machine had left the Exmoor works looking like this when first built.
But 'Monty' is in fact a very much rebuilt 'Markeaton Lady', built in 1996 for the much-missed Markeaton Park Light Railway in Derby. Under the ownership of John Bull the loco looked very different, especially as over the years she gained a lovely patina of a working locomotive, a huge contrast to the polished, if sometimes a little wet, appearance she presented at Cleethorpes on Sunday.
The photo above was taken in 2008, and I think was possibly the last time I saw 'Markeaton Lady' in use at Derby. The railway was a handy stop-off when visiting 7mm Narrow Gauge Association events in Mickleover and Burton-upon-Trent, usually a quick visit for a return trip on the way home. The blue Exmoor locomotive clearly had an effect on me, as my own O9 Exmoor model took on the front-end appearance and the colour influence, despite being an 0-6-2T.
Before I built my Exmoor ('St. Edwin') I had originally contemplated an 0-4-2T version on a Minitrains outside-framed chassis. The picture above neatly illustrates why this would not necessarily have worked, as the vertical Minitrains motor would actually be too far forward to fit in the cab. The dimensions could have been juggled a little but as I didn't actually have the chassis at that time it was all rather academic and the 0-6-2T version on an inside framed Bachmann chassis was the result.
The new run-around loop at the CCLR's Lakeside station offers a few new photographic opportunities, I was actually sat on the train taking this photo of the loco approaching the train to take out the next working to Kingsway. Having a loop here makes all the difference to day-to-day operations for the railway by removing the need to top-and-tail workings and just making things much more railway-like for observers such as myself...
The track re-laid last year through the floodgate and up to the first foot crossing is still looking in excellent condition as we see 'Monty' heading out through the gate and onto the coastal stretch of the line. It was remarked during the day that you cannot see as much of the coast as you once could along here, growth in the protected area of the old dunes has restricted this somewhat but there are a few breaks in the vegetation where the water can be seen. From the elevated point on the flood defences you can see a lot more and watching passing ships in the estuary passes time between trains.
The photographs in this entry have not been presented in the order they were taken, in fact the first picture was later in the day when the rain had started. The contrast in weather to this shot is marked, this was before lunch and was one of those moments where due to the lighting conditions the camera on my phone actually produced a better balanced image than my camera. But the weather did not affect my day at the CCLR, even if it did try to interrupt the official proceedings with a storm the day before!
Update: I have now uploaded a larger selection of images at higher resolution to Flickr: Cleethorpes Coast Light Railway Gala 2023
Colin
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