Appledore Devon England United Kingdom - Apprentices at Babcock International in Appledore are to construct the frames for a steam locomotive which is being recreated for the Lynton & Barnstaple Railway.
 
Earlier this year Babcock apprentices built the two side tanks and rear coal bunker for the replica steam engine.
 
Now apprentices will be constructing the most important part of the loco other than the boiler, which has already been built by Bennett Boilers of Highbridge in Somerset.
 
In a major sponsorship deal, this year's batch of 10 new apprentices at the multinational engineering giant will carry out the work under the careful supervision of senior instructors.
 
The aim is to start cutting metal early in the new year in time to assemble the frames in March for delivery to the Herefordshire-based firm of Alan Keef & Son, who are contracted to complete the assembly of the whole locomotive over the next 14 months.
 
Earlier this year Babcock apprentices built the two side tanks and rear coal bunker for the replica steam engine.
 
Tony Nicholson, a spokesman for the Railway said:  "Babcock is currently engaged in constructing sizable parts for the two aircraft carriers being built for the Royal Navy as well as the order for three large coastal patrol ships for the Irish Navy. Cutting, fabricating, welding, and machining are all skills the new apprentices will need, and the Lyn project is a perfect task for the shipbuilders of the future to develop those skills."
 
All the locomotives on the Lynton line were named after three-letter Devon rivers but uniquely, Lyn was constructed in 1898 by the Baldwin Locomotive Works of Philadelphia and shipped across the Atlantic in flat-pack form for re-erection by the railway's staff in its Barnstaple headquarters at Pilton.
 
When the Southern Railway Company took over the line in 1923, it gave the engines numbers as well as names, in Lyn's case, 762.
 
Mr. Nicholson said:  "For 37 years it brought a touch of the American West to North Devon before being cut up for scrap after the Railway closed in 1935. Now a mile of the line has been reopened at Woody Bay Station 1,000 feet up on Exmoor and much more is being planned. The new locomotive will be steamed at the end of 2015, thanks not least to the apprentices of Babcock International."
 
Olivier Vergnault.