About The Rail Trolley Trust
Railway preservation in the UK has always had groups dedicated to Locos, Carriages, Wagons, Signalling, Buildings and even Man Powered Velocipedes & Pump Trolleys. However, up until now, there has been no group dedicated to petrol/diesel/electric powered Trolleys.
I have always been interested in railways, but have only ever had time for a very limited practical involvement and so in 2005, I decided I would look for a suitable small vehicle to purchase and restore. I started looking at small narrow gauge diesel engines but soon decided against this option, so I started researching Wickham Trolleys. Thanks to contacts that I made through the Industrial Railway Society and the excellent on-track plant website, I was soon tracing down suitable examples, but every time I managed to contact the owners, they "had plans" for them.
Eventually, in 2006, I found on a Tram website, a grainy picture of a rather forlorn-looking Wickham Trolley at Laxey on the Isle of Man. I eventually managed to ascertain that it was owned by the Isle of Man Government and so began 10 months of correspondence, until eventually it was agreed I could purchase the Trolley. The Trolley was Works No. 5864 of 1951. A Type 18 Special built for the Air Ministry for use on the Snaefell Mountain Railway. Although it was not the ideal purchase, being 3' 6" gauge. In June 2007 I flew out to the Isle of Man to oversee the collection of the Trolley.
Alongside my search for a Wickham Trolley, I realised from conversations with owners and enthusiasts along the way, that there was significant interest and so I launched the following groups to connect to those interested parties:
- The Wickham of Ware Yahoo group was formed in December 2007 and has now been superseded by Groups.io - WickhamofWare.
- I added a Facebook group in March 2010 for Wickham of Ware fans
- And finally a Flickr group in August 2011.
- When The Rail Trolley Trust was formed (in 2014), we also created a Facebook page for it Rail Trolley Trust Facebook group
All of this did not feel enough, as I uncovered more and more information and details about Wickham and other makes of Trolley and so after discussions with some like-minded friends, in March 2014 we decided to form The Rail Trolley Trust. The Trust's aim is to purchase, restore & demonstrate a collection of Trolleys and also to house a display of associated equipment and paperwork.
The Trust's collection currently stands at 43 Trolleys and 24 Trailers (with others individually owned by the Directors) and we hope to eventually restore them all to working order. We now have two sites, where we are working on restoring the fleet for display and demonstration, with a third to be launched soon.