The Isle of Wight Steam Railway is very pleased to announce that the appeal to fund the boiler repair for it's flagship locomotive, the unique O2 Class No. W24 'Calbourne', has reached it's target. The Railway received some very good news recently in the form of a substantial and very generous donation which means that the fund-raising for 'Calbourne's Boiler is now complete. The repair is being financed by the very generous donations received in response to the appeal and by a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund. Many thanks are due to all those who have contributed over the past two years, we can now look forward to 'Calbourne's return to traffic, hopefully in 2007.

Having ensured the 'Calbourne' is able to continue in operational service for many years to come the next major project for the Railway is to be the construction of a building to provide covered accommodation for our historic collection of carriages and other rolling stock. It is intended that this will be the subject of another grant application to the Heritage Lottery Fund, but as always it will mean raising a substantial part of the finance ourselves. Plans are afoot to formally launch this appeal at the 'Works Outing' weekend at the end of May by which time preliminary plans and costing should be available.

Further details of the 'Calbourne' Boiler Appeal can be found HERE