Jurassic passes her steam test ready to return to traffic

The locomotive was built in Bristol by Peckett and Sons for use in the quarries of Kaye and Co. Ltd, cement manufacturers, at Southam in Warwickshire and was acquired by the LCLR in 1961. She is described as a coal-fired 0-6-0 saddle tank and her elegant lines, long chimney, shimmering brass and sinuous curves have earned her many admirers over the intervening 118 years.

The railway did not operate in 2020, which was the 60th anniversary of it opening as the first heritage railway in the world to be built by enthusiasts on a greenfield site (the second such line being the Ocean Beach Railway, at Dunedin, New Zealand, which opened in 1963). Because of the pandemic, Jurassic and the other locomotives and carriages in the LCLR's fleet had not operated in public service since the close of the 2019 season -- the tenth anniversary of the line reopening in Skegness. (It had ceased to run on its previous site in Humberston, near Cleethorpes, in 1985).

Hydraulic and steam tests of the locomotive for the insurer's boiler inspector were successfully passed and the loco first ran to the new station under construction at the LCLR's Wall Lane terminus and then to the line's southern end, at a point called South Loop. Refamiliarisation and training of footplate crews then took place, with similar refreshers planned for all the line's volunteer workforce on all aspects of operation before the reopening date.