Thirty or forty years ago before the days of the Lottery , Goverment Grants and Local Authority involvement if you went to a lender and asked for money to buy a railway , a locomotive or a narrow boat for preservation would probably have questioned your sanity or you would at least been regarded with considerable suspicion.
The Telford Railway may have a long way to go in restoring their line but in view of the progress they have made particularly in the last year I have no doubt they will get there in the end.
I suspect it will be the same with other schemes such as the Northern Reaches , Cotswolds Canals and even the Somerset Coal Canal which I hope will all be completed one day by a future generation - whether we are still around to see it is a different matter.