Lincolnshire Potato Railways, Some history

Perhaps before I get started on this journey, a word or two about Lincolnshire Potato Railways.
Whenever people ask me where I am from in England and I tell them "Lincolnshire", the vast majority have absolutely no idea where it is. Some will be honest and say they have no idea, others say yes, they know. But the blank look on their face tells me otherwise. So a quick geography lesson is in order.
Lincolnshire, historically speaking is the second largest county in England. Situated on the East side about half-way up the country. It can be said to be ignored by much of the rest of the UK, despite having some of the best beaches in Europe and a truly wonderful area of outstanding natural beauty in the Lincolnshire Wolds.

Lincolnshire. The area in Red. The should clear up any confusion.

It has always been a agricultural county, having some very fertile land for growing crops, and a very varied range of produce is grown on the land. We, of course, are most interested in the humble potato.
The "Taates" as they are known locally, are grown on the low lying coastal land, known as The Fens, and on the flood plain of the River Witham towards the county seat of Lincoln.

Lincolnshire. The major Potato Farm railways were just to the South East
of Lincoln, and the area bounded by Boston, Spalding and The Wash (The Fens).

The first railway was laid in 1908 as an experiment that was clearly found to be successful. The real explosion in the development came after the end of WW1, when ex-War Department track and stock became available at very cheap prices.
It is difficult to estimate just exactly how many farms and how many miles of track there was. The accepted estimate is approximately 140 miles of railway on 50 farms. Some were short lines that would run from the middle of a field to a loading dock alongside a road barely a mile in length. While the estate at Nocton covered 8,000 acres and had about 22 miles of track.
Why is this rich source of railway inspiration for the modeller ignored? Well, most of these lines were horse worked. The farms already had horses, it was a convenient source of power.  There are only about a dozen locomotives recorded as operating on these lines. One steam loco, (that turned out to be too heavy for the ground). A unique paraffin fired rail truck, and a few internal combustion loco's Simplex,  Rustons, and one from Robert Hudson. The lines by nature, could also be temporary, with rails being laid into a field when the crop was ready to move and when that was done, moved to the next.
Inspiration does exist in the form of photographs and later on I'll share some links. But if you're really interested in learning more, the 'bible" of Potato Railways is Stewart Squires excellent book called, quite unsurprisingly, The Lincolnshire Potato Railways. Published by the Oakwood Press. It's is also known as Locomotion paper number 163.