History - 2005

A year full of children's parties, snow and Teddy Bears...

Early days on the LLLR. Still a lot of track laying to do, points to make and ballast to lay. The trees are still very small too.

'Rye' has had an interesting life. Built by Tom Smith in 1978 as 'Build No. 21' and named 'King of the Road' she was originally built as a 7.25" gauge loco, with a tiny 0.25HP motor. By the early 1980s No 21 had arrived at the Ledbury Light Railway and some time later sold to Rich Morris in North Wales. Rich renamed her 'Rye' and had her rebuilt to 10.25" and fitted a new motor. In 1997 Rye moved again to the Little Giant Miniature Railway and by 2001 she appeared, looking very sad, at the Engineer's Emporium which is where we bought her. 

Much restoration later, this is what she looks and sounds like. For more details see David Henshaw's EXCELLENT book, 'The locomotives of Tom Smith' 2016, ISBN 978-0-9575651-1-1