We wish the Swindon and Cricklade Railway well in their five-year restoration of the AC railcar pictured here.
You likely know little or nothing about railcars, but in the 1950s or 1960s it became clear that railways were being abandoned for roads and reducing cost on the former meant replacing locos and carriages with such as this: a coach that did rails as well as roads.
Some were literally adapted from an original chassis, like that Leyland introduced in the mid-1980s, which were replaced hereabouts just forty years later as part of the UK's effort to build Europe's worst rail service.
Readers in the US will be surprised, as I was, that the example being restored was originally built by AC of Cobra fame. Even more surprising, and this the joy of the internet, learning that AC was best-known until late for the 'Invacars' provided free by the government to those known as invalids until relatively recently.
The people driving them were truly invalided as you'd have no reason for driving it otherwise... though the head-boy had a Messerschmidt scooter that we'd fly around Ormskirk at an altitude of two feet on occasion.
As a part of successive governments efforts to expand the welfare state, people at a rate of a thousand a week are applying for disability benefits that as often as not include a regular car, ex-showroom, on a three-year recurring basis.
Nice work if you can't get it?
I accompanied our good friend Karl, at death's door during Covid, to apply for such a concession viz. PIP or Personal Independence Payments. Most passing through the waiting room appeared compos mentis, although our good friend was refused... and dead inside six months. I'd take him again to see if he qualifies now, but doubt his family would approve.
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| Carroll Shelby's Invacar led the pack at Le Mans in 1964 and 1965 |
