Lincolnshire Coast Light Railway Historical Vehicles Trust
Stock Movement to Winthorpe
Text by Chris Bates, photos by Jim Smith Sept 2003
The Trust was set up more than 20 years ago to preserve a unique WW1 ambulance van, class D bogie wagons and a Class P 4-wheel ration wagon which had been used on the narrow gauge railways built by the British forces 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.


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.


Two photos from early 1990 as the ambulance van is prepared to leave the Museum of Army Transport at Beverley...


...for North Lincolnshire by low loader. It is seen here turning into Keldgate and passing Beverley Minster.
 

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