JURASSIC AND PETER PAN RAN TOGETHER IN SKEGNESS TO CELEBRATE 65TH ANNIVERSARY
OF OPENING OF LCLR AS WORLD’S FIRST HERITAGE RAILWAY TO BE BUILT BY ENTHUSIASTS
Peter Pan being prepared by it`s owner for the photo shoot on Friday 29th Aug 2025 at the LCLR`s shed
Shunting taking place to assemble the trains
Jurassic on left with WW1 stock and Peter Pan on right with skips, flat wagons & a sleeper truck.
In the platform road at Walls Lane station.
A spirited departure of both trains from Walls Lane in continuous rain.
Reversing back to the station for another take.
Peter Pan now out on the line at No 2 curve...
..and into the wooded section - no fear of lineside fires today thanks to the rain!
Passing the permanent way storage area.
Peter Pan in the platform road as Jurassic enters the loop at Seathorne Bank station.
The two locomotives pose together.
A passenger train is being provided here for ITV local news who broadcast a nice piece from Walls Lane on Fri evening news.
Sat 30th August saw blue skies and 3 coach trains needed. A double header, seen here on No. 1 curve, having no trouble with the many passengers. (Photo Stuart Yates)
Pulling into Seathorne Bank station watched by the stationmaster Calvin. (Photo Stuart Yates)
Ready to run round at Seathorne Bank. (Photo Stuart Yates)
For the first time in the 65 years since the opening of the Lincolnshire Coast Light Railway as the world’s first heritage railway to be built by enthusiasts, two steam locomotives ran together on the line to celebrate the anniversary..
The line’s 1903-vintage 0-6-0ST Jurassic, built by the Bristol firm of Peckett & Sons Ltd for Kaye & Company’s quarries at Southam in Warwickshire, was joined by the diminutive and well-travelled Peter Pan, owned by Graham Morris, of Daventry. It is one of the “Wren” type steam locos built by Kerr Stuart & Co. Ltd in Staffordshire in 1922, mainly used by contractors on lightly-laid tracks on construction sites..
The visit of Peter Pan, after its a tour of other railways in the UK and Belgium, took place on Friday 29th August 2025, when a photo charter was operated for fee-paying enthusiasts and on regular service trains on Saturday 30th August.
The event celebrated the 65th anniversary of the opening of the LCLR on 27th August 1960 at its original site at Humberston, south of Cleethorpes, when 1926-vintage Simplex diesel Paul left North Sea Lane station with the first service to Beach station, making it the first heritage railway in the world to be built by enthusiasts on a greenfield site.
Richard Shepherd, Chairman of the LCLR’s Historic Vehicles Trust, said: “It’s a momentous occasion in our history – indeed in the history of heritage railways in the year that Britain also celebrates the 200th anniversary of the opening of the world’s first public passenger service on the Stockton & Darlington Railway – but it’s not the first time that Jurassic and Peter Pan have operated together.
“That happened in 1986, on the Leighton Buzzard Narrow Gauge Railway in Bedfordshire, a year after our original site at Humberton had closed. Jurassic’s boiler was still ‘in ticket’ enabling her to run, so Peter Pan’s owner, Graham Morris, arranged to take her there for their steam gala and I was among the people who drove her at Leighton Buzzard, sharing the footplate with him, for what I feared would be her last outing.
“Happily, of course, that proved not to be the case; the LCLR reopening in 2009 on its current location in the Skegness Water Leisure Park where Jurassic has been delighting visitors since her overhaul and return to service in 2017”.
Peter Pan’s owner Graham Morris was reunited with Jurassic a couple of years ago when visiting the LCLR and that was when the idea of Peter Pan visiting Skegness was first mooted. He and Richard Shepherd had driven and fired Jurassic together on that visit in 1986 and they were able to repeat the experience at Skegness two years ago. It was agreed then that any visit of Peter Pan to Skegness would have to wait until the LCLR’s new station at Seathorne Bank had been opened on Saturday 28th June 2025.