The Lincolnshire Coast Light Railway Historic Vehicles Trust has opened an appeal to raise £25,000 to overhaul its historic locomotive, Jurassic.

Jurassic is an 0-6-0ST built in 1903 by Peckett and Sons for Kaye and Company’s cement works quarries at Southam in Warwickshire, which later became Rugby Portland Cement Company.

It now needs the boiler to be lifted out of the frames so it can be examined and the boiler tubes replaced.

Rugby Portland Cement Company switched to road transport in 1956, and Jurassic was stored out of use until 1961, when it was purchased for £50 by the Lincolnshire Coast Light Railway for use at the railway’s original site in Humberston, south of Cleethorpes.

Running occasionally until 1985 when the Humberston site closed, Jurassic operated for a year on the Leighton Buzzard Narrow Gauge Railway until being returned to Lincolnshire and placed in store with other Lincolnshire Coast Light Railway equipment.

The locomotive remained there until the railway moved to a new site at Skegness Water Leisure Park in Walls Lane, Ingoldmells, when that line was rebuilt from 1992.

Following the award of a grant by the Heritage Lottery Fund, Jurassic underwent a full overhaul and statutory 10-year-examination and return to service in 2017.

The current appeal is needed to fund another overhaul and statutory 10-year examination, with the hope that the work can be completed over the winter of 2026/2027.

In 2023, the Lincolnshire Coast Light Railway was awarded a grant from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund to build a new station and interpretation centre at its southern terminus beside Skegness airfield, where passengers couldn’t disembark.

“There’s been a most encouraging start to the appeal. One of the first letters I opened contained a cheque for £1,000. Many of our members are contributing £25 a month. We’ve asked various grant-giving bodies, including the Heritage Lottery Fund, to help us with a grant, but we know there’s great competition for these, so donations from the public will be essential to enable us to complete the work on time .”

Lincolnshire Coast Light Railway Historic Vehicles Trust’s Appeal Co-ordinator, Geoff Hankin