Robert Hampton

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1st December 2011

Retain the Train
Posted by at 11.46pm | Trains | No responses

Oh hello. Apologies for the gap in blogging. I could offer excuses but the simple fact is that I have been somewhat distracted over the past few weeks. I want to rectify this and get back into writing on this web site, and I hope that December will be a fruitful month.

Unfortunately, my return to blogging today is motivated by some bad news I received from the Friends of the 502 Group, a society I have been involved with since its inception.

We are a group of railway enthusiasts who have custody of two vintage electric train carriages. These two vehicles represent the the last surviving example of the Class 502 trains which ran on what is now Merseyrail’s Northern Line for the best part of 40 years. The 502s were built between 1939 and 1941 and were an early pioneer of features such as automatic sliding doors and the seating layout which became the de facto standard for suburban trains in the UK for the next 50 years. As such they are an important piece of British railway history and need to be saved for posterity.

Unfortunately we now find ourselves without a home as we have been asked to vacate the premises by our current landlords. The full story is over at the Friends of the 502 Group blog, but to summarise: we need money (a lot of it), and soon. We have just twelve weeks to raise £4,000.

We have an online donation page. Any amount, no matter how small, would be appreciated.

Here endeth the begging.