Established 1996


Suburban Electric Railway Association      
Support Your Local Train           


About Us


Current list of items in our collection


What are we working on ?


Support Us


Items We Have For Online Sale

Our Contact Details

Links to other sites of interest






Welcome to the Website of
The Suburban Electric Railway Association

The Suburban Electric Railway Association was formed in 1996, then called The Mersey & Tyneside Electric Preservationists. As the name implied the group was set up to preserve the Class 503 EMU and the South Tyneside EPB unit. Over the next few years the group acquired numerous other items of mainly electric rolling stock, changed its name to the Suburban Electric Railway Association (SERA) and took over the running of the Coventry Steam Railway Centre in 2001. In 2007 there was a coming together with other AC electric preservation groups and the Electric Railway Museum (ERM) was created. The Coventry site served as the museum from 2007 until 2018. It was opened to the public on several select open days from 2010 until forced to close in October 2017 as the land, which was leased from Coventry City Council, was sold to a developer and the museum and all resident groups were required to vacate. The closure meant the SERA was restarted from the dormant organisation it had become whilst all attention was focused on developing the museum.

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The stock left the ERM in 2018 and the re-booted SERA carried on with a reduced collection as several items that had previously been with the group were transferred to new organisations who would be better placed to take them forward. The trimmed down SERA can now focus on projects which it can take forward in realistic time scales with some others stored for future restorations.

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The group is entirely run by volunteers and has items based at three different locations. This website will provide you with details of the history and current staus of all our projects and how you can get involved in helping and supporting them.

We are active at:

The Battlefield Railway, Shakerstone, Leicestershire
The East Kent Railway, Shepherdswell, Kent
Hope Farm, Sellindge, Kent

Management Team

Chairman - Graeme Gleaves
Secretary - John Missenden
Finance - Robert Davidson
Membership - Nicholas Hair

Creative Lead (branding) - Mark Walling

Project Manager (Shakerstone) - Allan Hirst
Project Manager (Kent) - Daniel Holness