Suburban Electric Railway Association
Located at the COVENTRY ELECTRIC RAILWAY CENTRE, Rowley Road, Baginton, Warwickshire
Established 1996
Liverpool Overhead Railway Car No. 7
When the Liverpool Overhead Railway closed for good in December 1956 the unique structure and all but two of it's carriages were broken up for scrap. One of the carriages was a near original wooden body car which is now on display in the Liverpool city museum. The other was 1st class trailer car no. 7, an example of the LORs modernised fleet, which comprised of new aluminium bodies on the original 1890s under frame, complete with air operated sliding doors.
Car 7 led a nomadic existence after the closure of the LOR being used as an office by a coal merchant and then a firm of car breakers, at some time after its sale from the LOR scrapline it lost it's bogies and almost all of it's interior fittings. before finally being sold to the Southport railway centre and housed in their shed, mounted on a pair of accommodation bogies. The closure of that centre in 1998 and the relocation of most of their stock to a new site in Preston once again left car No. 7 with an uncertain future as it was regarded as surplus to the requirements of the new centre and in need of a new home and a new owner! SERA submitted a bid to acquire this venerable survivor, which was accepted and thus LOR 7 was moved to Coventry in August of 1998. Funds are now being raised to effect a full restoration on the coach (The first since it's withdrawal over 40 years ago !). The LOR coach will be restored alongside the 503 carriages which together will provide a fine example of the tradition and triumph of Merseyside's suburban electric railways.
The first complete modernised train is seen at the LORs Seaforth Sands workshop
immediately after completion in 1947, car 7 is the middle of the three vehicles.
LOR Car 7 in the sunshine shortly after it's arrival at Coventry from Southport in August of 1998.
Photo: G.Gleaves
