The Lincolnshire Coast Light Railway has received a grant worth £5,000 from the Lincolnshire County Council's Business Recovery Fund.
Based in the Skegness Water Leisure Park, the railway was the first in the world to be built by enthusiasts when it it opened at its original site at Humberston, before it closed in 1985.
The current location, Skegness Water Leisure Park, was opened in 2009 but it was not able to operate any passenger services in 2020, its 60th Anniversary Year, and a whole season of income has been lost.
Instead, volunteers were able to visit to complete repairs and improvements to the site ready to welcome back visitors hopefully in 2021.
The LCLR Company Secretary, John Chappell, said: “The grant from Lincolnshire County Council will be particularly helpful in covering the cost of the new station building under construction at a time when the railway has lost all its income.
“The number of visitors the railway was attracting from all over the country – not just Skegness's traditional “holiday heartland” in the East Midlands and Yorkshire – meant that we needed a new ticket office, shop and facilities to supplement the existing basic waiting room.
“The grant will cover most of the cost at a time when the railway has had no income and faces uncertainty about how many people its trains can carry, as it adapts to restrictions to prevent the spread of Covid.
“All of us who are involved with this wonderful part of Lincolnshire's heritage are extremely grateful to the County Council's Business Recovery Fund. It will help our trains and our passengers steam into the future with renewed confidence and will give a further reason to visit Skegness and contribute to its economy.
“Thanks to the grant, these improved facilities for our visitors will help us overcome the setbacks caused to what would have been the 60th anniversary of our pioneering role in the world's railways”.
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Wow, I’m so happy for the Lincolnshire Coast Light Railway (at Skegness) being Rewarded such an Astonishing Amount of what’ll hopefully cover, and make up for the loss & absence of much wanted income, that’ll hopefully return as soon as the pandemic’s finally passed over.