The Rail Trolley Trust has reached an agreement with the Leighton Buzzard Narrow Gauge Railway to acquire a Wickham Prototype Target Trolley.

The trolley was built by Wickham at Ware in Hertfordshire in 1938 as a 2-foot gauge vehicle, and was first based at Lydd in Kent.

After being declared surplus by the army, it was preserved at The Museum of Army Transport at Beverley in East Yorkshire. When that museum closed, a member of the Leighton Buzzard Narrow Gauge Railway provided storage for it.

The trolley is a valuable addition to the Trust’s collection, and will play an extremely important part in telling the story of the development of Wickham Target Trolleys.

After collection from Stonehenge Works on the Leighton Buzzard Narrow Gauge Railway, it was moved to the Bredgar & Wormshill Light Railway, where Trust volunteers will restore it, with the Trust having all the parts needed to return it to operational condition.

Another Wickham trolley of interest to the Trust is a Wickham Type 8S Trolley built in 1948 to 3-foot gauge for Bord na Móna’s Clonsast Bog in Co. Offaly, Ireland.

At one time, it was known to be at the North Wales Tramway Museum’s storage base at Tal-y-Cafn, where there was a short line of 1’3” gauge, where it was fitted with batteries and an electric motor for Overhead Wire Powered operation.

The Trust has now acquired the surviving parts of the trolley, and in late March, they were transported to Andrew Briddon Locos’ site at Darley Dale in Derbyshire, before being moved again in mid-April to the Trust’s site at the Tanat Valley Light Railway.

Another vehicle acquired by the Trust is a Type 17 / 17A Trolley & Target Trolley built in 1946 to 3-foot gauge for the North British Aluminium Co. at Fort William in Scotland.

In 2005, it was converted to a 2W-2 petrol mechanical locomotive but is now an unpowered flat trailer comprising the chassis of a Wickham Type 17A Trolley mounted on a 2-foot gauge wheeled chassis of a Wickham Target Trolley.

Last year, three Wickham trolleys were moved to Keighley Bus Museum where they will be restored, and dismantled remains of a Type 17 Wickham Trolley were moved to Kirby Stephen East on the Stainmore Railway.