Built by the Hunslet Engine Company in 1883 for use at Port Penrhyn and at the Penrhyn Quarries in North Wales. The locomotive was named after Lilian Douglas-Pennant (1881-1968), daughter of George Sholto Gordon Douglas-Pennant, 2nd Baron Penrhyn of Llandegai. Lilian was one of three locomotives built to the design known as the ‘Penrhyn Port class’; the others are Gwynedd (built in 1883 and preserved at Bressingham Steam Museum) and Winifred (built in 1885 and preserved at the Bala Lake Railway).

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The loco was out of use and in a dilapidated state by 1960 and was purchased in 1964 by Nigel Bowman, then 19 years of age for the sum of £60. Originally fitted with a copper firebox, Lilian soon moved back to Nigel's home in Guilford, Surrey where a full restoration was undertaken in the garden of his parents' home. From 1968 Lilian was kept in full working order at a friend’s farm nearby, where there was a private collection of other narrow gauge locomotives, and a short length of track which Lilian was occasionally tested.

The restoration of Lilian led Nigel to search for a site to build a railway; the eventual outcome was Launceston Steam Railway which opened Boxing Day 1983.

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A new boiler was built in-house and fitted in 1993 and to reduce problems encountered with corrosion in the future, it was decided to convert Lilian’s boiler from side-feed to top-feed. A tender was added in 2008; the wheelsets on the tender are repaired examples formerly used on wagons at the Cliffe-at-Hoo Cement Works in Kent. The springs came from a WW1 bogie, whilst her axleboxes were built, along with the rest of the tender, at the railway. 

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