In an area that has drawn visitors in their millions since it was made famous by Romantic poets and painters in the early 19th century, the Lakeside and Haverthwaite Railway is today one of the most popular tourist attractions. The line runs from Haverthwaite on the southern fringes of the Lake District to the shores of Lake Windermere, where it connects with steamer service across the lake. It is one of the country’s most successful steam railways, carrying around 100,000 passengers every year.
The railway’s volunteers set up a charity, the Furness Railway Trust, to look after assets such as historic locomotives and rolling stock. They have completed the restoration of one of the most remarkable survivors from the age of steam, the Victorian locomotive Furness Railway No. 20.
Built in Manchester in 1863, this engine originally worked on the Carnforth to Whitehaven line. However, the burgeoning demands of industry soon called for bigger, more powerful freight locomotives, and No. 20 spent the next 90 years shunting in a Barrow steelworks before being retired in 1960 to a local children’s playground. Here it quietly rusted away until it was acquired by the Furness Railway Trust, who believed – much against the odds as it seemed at the time- that No. 20 could be restored to run on the lakeside line.
Supported by an HLF award of £97,500, restoration involved 120 separate work packages and took two years to complete in a Barrow shipyard. Traditional engineering skills were combined with new computer and laser techniques, and much of the work carried out by the Trust’s volunteers.
Says Alan Middleton, a Trust member who supervised the restoration process; ‘”We began with what was basically a bag of bits - though fortunately most of the essential parts were there! A new firebox and boiler had to be built, and we also had to remove a later saddle tank and construct a new tender. This was based on period drawings from the National Railway Museum and built by work-experience students from Furness College at Barrow”.
The fully restored No.20 is Britain’s oldest working standard-gauge locomotive. Repainted in the dashing Indian red of the Furness Railway, and with its distinctive tall chimney, the engine is a star of the local scene and a magnet for railway enthusiasts.
Tim Owen, Chairman of the Furness Railway Trust, says: ‘It has certainly caused a buzz in the area and brought people here from all over the country, contributing to a significant increase in business for the railway. Altogether, the interest this project has created has gone far beyond our wildest expectations. Local people feel that it has been a really worthwhile use of lottery money”.