762 Club Newsletter 4 contains the latest updates on the construction and design of LYN, including CAD drawings of various parts, and an interesting story of a Baldwin recently discovered in Burmuda!

The 762 Club membership now stands at 175 - half of the maximum 350 places available (for £762 each, payable as a one-off amount, or at £30 per month). This is a tremendous achievement, particularly in light of the current global financial situation, and even better, the equivalent of around 17 additional members has been raised through the sponsorship of key components. In the meantime, detailed design continues, and orders for more components are being prepared and placed with the project's chosen suppliers.

In April the first wheel for Lyn were cast at the Trefoil Steel Company in Tinsley, Sheffield. Ordered via Peak Patterns, the first two wheels - a driving wheel and a bogie wheel - were cast from the patterns made in 2009.

The castings were featured in Heritage Railway Issue no 150, and can also been seen in our website, in gallery 6.

The increasingly mysterious Lyn Baldwin has come up with a new Lyncentives scheme! The 762 Club is now tantalisingly close to having sold 175 memberships (50% of the total). Another 7 memberships will get us there. To encourage sales, "Lyn Baldwin" has pledged to sponsor the Coal Rails (valued at £600) if those extra memberships are taken up by midnight BST on July 31st 2011! Let's make sure we have a L&B loco to pull those L&B coaches we've been hearing about recently!! Martin Ball

As a charity, the 762 Club is able to take advantage of Gift Aid - giving us 28% more from your generous donations.

Due to changes in the tax rules, however, from 6th April this year, the amount we can claim will be reduced to 25%. Still a very useful bonus, but not quite so good for us!

If you are considering making a donation soon, if you can get it to us before 5th April, we will be able to get that extra 3%, and as a well known store says, "Every little helps".

To qualify, you must be a UK taxpayer, and complete a Gift Aid declaration in favour of the 762 Club, so if you would like to let LYN take advantage of this government generosity, and you haven't already done so, please fill in and return the Gift Aid form. Once this is received, we will be able to reclaim the tax on all your donations for the previous six years, so it can soon add up to quite a sum, even at the new, reduced rate.

As an added incentive, Martin Ball has again come up trumps with his latest scheme, and a worthy successor to "Lyncentives"

Martin says:

Lyncentives 1 was extremely successful, with (after Gift Aid) upwards of £9000 raised. With the April 6th change to Gift Aid, I'm launching Lyncentives 2 – The Search for More Money (with apologies to Mel Brooks). This time we're going to concentrate on the Sponsor a Part section of fund-raising for Lyn.

For each pound paid in full to sponsor a part by the end April 5th, I will put 20p (i.e. 20% extra) towards an unsponsored part (rounding up of course). This Lyncentive 2 part will be shown under the name of Lyn Baldwin so we can all see what the campaign produced. As I live abroad and don't qualify for Gift Aid, I can sponsor this extra part after April 6 without loss of funds.

I look forward to seeing the list of sponsored parts growing!

Martin Ball

Martin Ball has been a firm supporter of the Lyn Project since it was launched. To encourage even more people to join us, he has made the following very generous offer:

"Good news Lyn fans! 138 membership allocations have now been sold! Only two more and 40% of the membership places will be sold; only 37 more and 50% will be sold.

As an incentive, I will donate £76.20 for each new membership purchased (including both full payments and subscriptions) by the end of February (from 12.01am 13 February until 11.59pm, 28 February, 2011).

My donations will be rounded up to enough to sponsor some parts, or for a new share if enough is raised this way!

C'mon folks - the boilers on order, now we need enough for the rest of her!!

Martin Ball"

Now that the 762 Club is a registered charity, by signing up for Gift Aid UK taxpayers can also allow the project to claim a further 25% from the Inland Revenue - making it even better value!

Many thanks to Martin for his very kind offer!

The 762 club is pleased to confirm that its application to be a Registered Charity has been ratified by the Charity Commission for England and Wales.

This completes the restructure communicated to members during 2010.

Further details of The 762 Club, including how to support and join this exciting project, are available on the website.

Following a detailed tendering exercise, Bennett Boilers Ltd. of Highbridge, Somerset, have been selected to provide the boiler for the new Baldwin 2-4-2 Lyn for the Lynton & Barnstaple Railway. Final assembly of the locomotive will be by Allan Keefe Ltd.

Bennett Boilers have recently constructed a similar boiler for Baldwin 4-6-0 No. 778, for the Greensands Trust. More details are in the Newsletter recently sent to 762 Club members, and available on the club website after Christmas

Photos of Lyn's cab - as seen at the L&B Gala two weeks ago - are now available on the 762 Club Gallary. Also, several new items have been added to the sponsorship list...

The weekend of the 25th to 27th Sept saw the 762 Club represented at the hugely successful Lynton & Barnstaple Railway’s Autumn Gala. Colin Rainsbury, Peter Miles and Jon Pain were on hand to communicate the activities of the 762 Club answer question and show progress to date.

The recently completed wooden cab was on display as well as the previously made wheel patterns for both driving and pony truck wheels.

A significant amount of interest was expressed by visitors to the gala and a number of new members joined and further sponsorship pledges made. A number of existing members dropped by to say hello.

The weekend demonstrated the impact of a true Lynton & Barnstaple heritage train with Lyd and ex L&B coach no 15 working operational trains. With the Essex Groups heritage coach project well on the way this event was a gateway to the 762 Club starting to commission the build of some of the major items required to construct Baldwin 2-6-2 locomotive Lyn.

All members of the 762 Club recently received a copy of the latest newsletter, detailing recent developments such as the award of contracts, cab construction, and catalogues some of the technical improvements to be applied to the new locomotive - taking advantage of the past 100 years or so of steam technology development - without altering the external look of LYN.

The 762 Club has agreed terms with Alan Keef Ltd for the final assembly of the Baldwin 2-4-2T locomotive for the Lynton & Barnstaple Railway. The assembly work will be carried out at Alan Keef's facilities at Ross-on-Wye. Patrick Keef, who has considerable previous experience working with Baldwin locomotives, will be involved throughout the project.

More information is included in the July 2010 762 Club Newsletter, recently sent to members, and to be published on this website shortly.

The order has been placed for construction of the cab for ‘Lyn’ with AWH Joinery ltd in Luton. The cab will be constructed to the designs & details of the original, in American Ash with hardwood windows and steel infill panels. Drawings were prepared using the original general arrangement drawings plus information culled from photographs taken at various times in the life of the original loco.

Using the demountable features incorporated by Baldwin Locomotive Works the new cab can be stored easily and, more importantly, moved around to various locations for display. The first of these will be at Woody Bay for the Spring Gala. The metal roof covering will not be added until the cab is assembled on the locomotive but the tongued & grooved timber roof boarding will be in place. Hopefully the driver’s seat will also be installed.

The opportunity to sit inside Lyn’s cab, looking out on the Lynton & Barnstaple Railway for the first time since 1935: who could miss that!

The steel bunker should be ready to accompany the cab in the next few months, certainly in time for the Autumn Gala.

Many thanks to all who assisted with photographs and especially to Steve Phillips who provided construction details and advice.

Thanks to the addition of the Google automatic translation facilities, all pages of the site are now available in over 50 languages. Not all text can be translated into all languages, and some of the translations may not be 100% accurate, but we hope that as a result, many more supporters of this project will be kept up to date as the build progresses.

Much work has been taking place in the background, and at last there is evidence to show for it! The casting patterns for Lyn's wheels have recently been on display at Woody Bay. There is much more to do yet, but this shows a solid start.

Following recent suggestions from a supporter of the project, the 762 club website now has an updated format news page, with RSS syndication, which will allow supporters to be informed on their own computers as soon as news is added to the site. For more information about RSS, see HERE

Today, issue 366 of "Britain's biggest selling preservation title" carries an article (page 22) entitled "L&B Baldwin ready by 2012?". Headed by a photo of Lyn in 1927, the article outlines the fundraising and technical progress made to date, and plans for the future. It also introduces the parts sponsorship scheme and reward programme introduced here a few days ago. The article goes on to ask for anyone who may have parts from the original locomotive - scrapped in 1935 - to get in touch.

During July, members of the 762 Club received a copy of the first edition of the 762 Club Newsletter, containing lots of - well - news on the progress made so far, and plans for the future. The newsletter is now available online, as a PDF file.

‘Eastleigh 100’ is aiming to be one of the biggest railway events on the 2009 calendar. The Surrey Area Group of the L&B will be sharing space with the 762 Club to gain more support for the project. In 1928, Lyn came to Eastleigh for overhaul, and returned to Pilton the following year - 80 years ago - in the configuration that will be used for the replica.

Published six times a year, Narrow Gauge World has rapidly established an international reputation. NGW has filled a gap in the market by bringing together news, views and features that could not easily be accessed elsewhere. World-wide in content, it captures the colourful, sometimes eccentric and often impecunious character of its subject. In Edition 63,May/June 2009, The 762 Club and the project to build a replica of Lyn,features, on page 34.

An article in this local newspaper explains about the project, inviting members of the public to join.