The LMS-Patriot Project, the charitable group who are building the Royal British Legion endorsed National Memorial Engine ‘The Unknown Warrior’ – has launched a £50,000 appeal for the cylinders. The appeal has been launched as a result of the discovery of a pattern maker – Precision Patterns of Oldbury who can make polystyrene patterns at a fraction of the cost of traditional wooden patterns. This will result in a significant saving in the overall costs of building the new ‘Patriot’ class 4-6-0 steam locomotive ‘The Unknown Warrior’.

Britain’s leading family-owned, independent oil blenders and marketers, Morris Lubricants, is throwing its weight behind an exciting £1.5 million project to build a new 'Patriot' steam locomotive.

The Shrewsbury-based company, which is the market leader in steam heritage lubricants, is enthusiastically supporting the project to build a locomotive to the original Sir Henry Fowler parallel boiler design, capable of running on the mainline.

The project team hope to complete the new national memorial engine, named 'The Unknown Warrior', in time for the 100th anniversary of the Armistice in 2018.