SEVENTY-FIVE years ago the legendary Lynton and Barnstaple Railway across the wilds of Exmoor closed on Sunday, September 29, 1935 and all its handsome tank engines were cut up for scrap save one, which was exported to Brazil and never seen again.

Now, however, a dazzling new Lynton and Barnstaple locomotive has emerged from the Ffestiniog Railway workshop at Boston Lodge in North Wales.

Fifteen years in the building at a cost of £300,000, the engine was approved by the Railway Inspectorate on August 6 and driven up the Ffestiniog line at the head of a test train two days later. But to see — and hear — it in its natural habitat you will only have to go to Woody Bay Station during the Lynton and Barnstaple Railway's Autumn Gala on Saturday, September 25 to Monday, September 27.

All the original Lynton and Barnstaple locomotives were given the names of local rivers — the Yeo, Exe, Taw, Lyn and Lew — and following this tradition, the new engine has been named after the River Lyd on Dartmoor.

Lyd is based on the designs of the youngest of the original locos, Lew, which was ordered in 1925 when the line's new Southern Railway owners decided they needed an extra engine and was the locomotive that disappeared into the Brazilian jungle after the railway closed.

Yet while externally Lyd is identical to Lew, it is not an exact replica as it incorporates a number of technical improvements to suit it to 21st century service.

Stand at the end of the platform at Woody Bay Station on September 25, 2010 as Lyd storms up the 1 in 50 bank and you will be transported right back to September 25, 1935 four days before the railway closed, seemingly for ever.

The Ffestiniog is also loaning two carriages for the Gala as they will match the engine better than the Lynton & Barnstaple Railway's existing stock. One of these carriages is a first-class observation saloon coach built in the style of Lynton and Barnstaple rolling stock and the other — No 14 in the Ffestiniog fleet — started life in 1898 as Lynton and Barnstaple Coach 15.

When the L and B closed the vehicle was bought by a local farmer and parked on a short piece of track near Snapper Halt in the Yeo Valley. For nearly a quarter of a century it was used as a hen house until the Ffestiniog Railway purchased it in 1959 to supplement their existing stock. Since then it has served as the Ffestiniog bar and buffet car, slaking the thirst of generations of grateful travellers in the mountains of Snowdonia. Even more poignantly, running as it did at the back of the Last Train from Lynton on that melancholy Sunday evening 75 years ago it was the very last carriage to depart from Woody Bay Station, its tail lamp disappearing in the enfolding darkness.

The day after it closed a resident of Woody Bay sent the railway a wreath with a card inscribed: "From a constant user and admirer. Perchance it is not dead, but sleepeth." Now the legendary line is once more wide awake and enthusiasts will be flocking to North Devon from all over the world in the last weekend of September. Yet the most important visitors to the railway's Autumn Gala will be the people who live here, for whom the line was built and who will be served by it again – North Devon's once and future railway.

Particularly welcome, of course, will be that diminishing but still significant number who remember the old line and who never thought they would see it again.

Places in the two carriages hauled by Lyd will of course be extremely limited and if you want to ride in one you should send an SAE to Lyd, 61 Butts Close, Witheridge, Tiverton EX16 8AJ or visit the website, www.lynton-rail.co.uk/lyd. Trains will also be operated during the Gala by the railway's own steam engine Axe. Only disabled parking will be available at Woody Bay Station itself on the Saturday and Sunday, when park-and-ride services will run from Caffyns and Blackmoor Gate. Lyd will be in action on the Monday as well and then parking will be possible at the Station itself.

There will also be model railways on display, a children's entertainer and face-painting over the weekend. Gala entry tickets cover the park-and-ride, admission to the station site and all-day travel on the ordinary trains (subject to capacity); travel on the Lyd train will require an additional special ticket.

Seventy five years ago it seemed to be all over. How wrong can you be?