Gone but not forgotten

With the increasing interest in preservation of electric multiple units, the closure of the Electric Railway Museum near Coventry in 2017 was widely publicised.

However, the closure of the former ‘museum’ operated by the Coulsdon Old Vehicle Engineering Society at Finmere station, on the former GCR route, may have almost gone unnoticed - the site was in the path of HS2, which took over the site earlier this year, requiring everything there to be cleared out.

I was particularly interested in the four 1959 Tube Stock cars that were moved there some years ago - DM 1018, DM 1034, NDM 9305 and T 2304, all ex-Northern Line and privately owned.

I was able to obtain confirmation that all four cars were moved south from Finmere and are now stored in the yard of Southern Transit bus depot at The Old Cement Works, Shoreham Road, Beeding, near Shoreham by Sea, West Sussex, on the route of the long-closed Shoreham to Christ’s Hospital line. There is no public access to this site.

All but one of the remaining ex-BR vehicles at Finmere were moved to storage on part of the Bicester Military Railway at MoD, Bicester.

The only ex-BR vehicle not to move to Bicester was the former 4SUB Augmentation Trailer S10400, which was converted to a De-Icing Trailer in 1960 and renumbered DS 70087. It was subsequently renumbered ADS70087 in about 1970, and again in 1981 to ADB977364.

This vehicle was repainted into NSE livery in the late 1980s and then into Railtrack brown, grey and white. After being allocated to Selhurst Depot, it was withdrawn in 2005, going to store at St. Leonard’s Depot until 2010, when it was sold into preservation and ended up at Finmere.

The Railway Heritage Register Partnership website shows ADB977364 as: “From St Leonards to Finmere late 2009/early 2010 … 02/20: broken up at James Watson, scrap merchant in Stafford.”

It was apparently in very poor condition and although it was offered for sale, there was no interest in it and it was scrapped.

So, this last surviving Southern Railway 1946 ‘Augmentation Trailer’ no longer exists.

The only surviving 4SUB vehicles are those from 4732 now located in store at the 1:1 Collection Building (the Hornby Warehouse) in Margate, having been moved there in May 2018 from the closed Electric Railway Museum. It is rather a pity, as 10400 could have been a better spares donor vehicle than the ex-4EPB trailer 15354 (from 5176) currently at Margate.

Paul Raven-Hill, Middlesex