Lead me not into temptation

Sometimes, some things just happen. Call it synchronicity, call it co-incidence. But sometimes things just happen, and well, you just have to wonder.

Over the years. Many, many years now. I have been writing a “history” of the fictional East Lincolnshire Light Railway. I’ve used this concept on many layouts over the past 30 years or so. It was fun to write it originally, and it’s fun in these modern internet days to do more research to flesh the story of this railway out a bit with local and national history, as well as local folk lore. 

I was digging around the other day looking for something I knew I’d seen before. A picture of an ex-GWR railcar in Louth Railway station. An ex-GWR railcar in Lincolnshire? This would be perfect for my East Lincs Light Railway concept. This little crumb of history could easily be expanded into my fictional reality.

I still haven’t found the picture I was looking for. I know it exists somewhere. 

But it doesn’t matter now because I found something better. This website “tracks through Grantham”  detailed the trials of a GWR Railcar in Lincolnshire in 1952. 

One of these railcars (W20W) was in the region in September being tested as a precursor to Diesel Multiple Units being used in the county. It seemed to be have been based in Boston and the page listed that it had visited. Grimsby, Skegness and Mablethorpe.

Wait a minute!

You’re telling me that a GWR Railcar was seen in my home town? (Granted it was ten years before I was born)

It got better.

I found this site about the fight to save the Horncastle branch. Another long gone Lincolnshire branch line.

It has this picture…

The holy grail.

W20W coming off the Mablethorpe Branch line! Proof positive that the vehicle was in the shire!  Amazing. The vehicle was probably based in Boston for the trials. Ran to Skegness and back in the morning before heading up to Willoughby Junction and thence around the East Lincolnshire loop line into Louth and then up to Grimsby in the afternoon before returning to Boston in the evening. Perhaps it worked each branch on different days. Who knows? It’s wonderful to speculate on this. 

The websites seem to indicate that it was only in the county for four days in September yet I found this photo dated October 9th 1952 of W20W in Lincoln.

So clearly it spent longer than four days in Lincolnshire. How this all fits in to my alternative history of the East Lincolnshire light railway will be revealed later. Right now we need to get to the co-incidence, or is it synchronicity?

Since Hattons closed and I placed an order with Rails of Sheffield, I’ve been getting the usual mail shots with offers. This one offered me an extra 5% off their already drastically reduced bargains. 

Can you guess what ex-GWR railcar is in the bargain section? 

Only W20W. Probably one of the most unlikely rail vehicles to visit my home town. I must have it.