Teenager youngest ever volunteer at Lincolnshire Coast Light Railway in Ingoldmells

Matthew stands in front of vintage steam loco Jurassic with left, platform assistant Chris Bates and right, station master Calvin Roberts. Driver Jim Smith looks on from the loco's cab.

Matthew Forman-Clark, who attends Boston College but lives in Skegness, has just qualified as a passenger train guard and handled his first services/.

His addition to the team has come just in time as the railway has, for the first time, begun offering three-day-a-week services in August on its line in the Skegness Water Leisure Park in Ingoldmells.

Matthew began volunteering on his 18th birthday, which is the youngest age at which volunteers can assist.

He has been helping to prepare the 1903-steam engine Jurassic for service and working on renovation and maintenance of the track and carriages and wagons,

some of which were used in the battlefields of World War One).

Chairman of the LCLR's Historic Vehicles Trust, Richard Shepherd, said: "All of us involved with the railway congratulated Matthew on passing his guard's exam and were impressed to see his smart turnout for his first duties.

"He is an indispensable part of our small tam of volunteers who keep our heritage trains on the rails. We're more used to seeing him in a boiler suit with a smattering of soot, from cleaning out Jurassic's boiler tubes and smoke box.

"We hope many more younger volunteers will follow in his footsteps to ensure the railway can continue in the future and enable the public to enjoy this unique part of Lincolnshire's heritage".

Lincolnshire Light Railway was the first heritage railway in the world to be built and operated by enthusiasts when it opened at its original site at Humberston, south of Cleethorpes August 27, 1960.

After the line closed at the end of its 1985 season, Jurassic was still in ticket for a year, so it was taken to the Leighton Buzzard Narrow Gauge Railway to run in their gala, where it attracted much attention and reminded visitors that the LCLR was still in existence.

After its return to Humberston, the track was lifted and went into storage on land next to the former Burgh-le-Marsh railway station.

Eventually the LCLR was offered a new home in the early 1990s in the Skegness Water Leisure Park, enabling volunteers to begin relaying the track. The line was reopened in 2009

Weekday services are being run on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays.