Heritage Railway Magazine 249 Back Issue

CHRISTMAS has deservedly come early for the 1903 NER Electric Autocar Trust, and not before time. Yet again, I cannot praise highly enough the efforts of those who rediscovered one of the world’s most historically important passenger vehicles and against a sea of ‘insurmountable’ difficulties, rebuilt it to running order – and with an appropriate trailer too.

Now it has just been awarded the preservation sector’s highest honour – the Heritage Railway Association’s Peter Manisty Award for Excellence. No surprises there, because this pioneer Edwardian vehicle – the forerunner of all of the world’s internal-combustion passengerailcars and DMU sets – cannot be defined by any word other than ‘excellence.’

Minus a chassis and running gear, No. 3170 spent nearly three quarters of a century on a North Yorkshire farm, and surprisingly, its fabric was fairly well looked after in the circumstances. However, at any time it could have been converted to a hen coop, left to rot as a storage shed, or worst of all, turned into a bonfire.