The Lincolnshire Coast Light Railway’s recent Narrow Gauge at Work event was preceded by the almost unprecedented scene of 11 locomotives coupled together.

The lineup of 11 steam, petrol, and diesel locomotives was held on Friday, before the event officially started the following day. Organised for photographers who had paid for exclusive access to the line, participants from around Britain and the Netherlands viewed combinations of locos and rolling stock that brought back memories of the 1950s.

Friday’s event provided a reminder of the large number of farm railways that once operated in Lincolnshire a century ago. One of these was the Nocton Estates Light Railway that ran for 23 miles across the Fens from Nocton to the outskirts of Bardney. A wagon from the railway was hauled by a horse named Trixie, which had been trained to operate on light railways and is usually at home on the Silverleaf Poplar Railway, a private line at Old Leake, near Boston in Lincolnshire.

Also making an appearance was a rake of tipper wagons, once in daily use on construction sites and brick pits around Lincolnshire a century ago. These were also loaned by the Silverleaf Poplar Railway, and were hauled by the Lincolnshire Coast Light Railway’s steam engine Jurassic to provide a recreation of its work until 1955 at the Southam quarries of Rugby Portland Cement in Warwickshire.

Other locomotives appearing during the weekend were Simplex diesel No. 1935 Nocton, built in 1920, which used to run on the Nocton Estates Light Railway. This was its first time on the Lincolnshire Coast line, and was fitted with a replica wooden cab to recreate how it looked in the 1930s.

Another first was the first journey by a petrol-powered Simplex loco dating from World War I, which had recently been acquired from the Imperial War Museum, as well as other World War I rolling stock from the Nocton Estates Railway. These included Simplex diesel No. 3995 Paul, which had been acquired by enthusiasts to construct the original Lincolnshire Coast Light Railway at Humberston. Paul had been restored to the 1960 condition and colours that it wore when the Humberston line opened in the 1960s.