Things you never suspected about railways #394½ …
The Severn Valley Railway (an English preserved steam railway, M’Lud) is now midway through a project to spend £75,000 restoring a Gresley designed LNER Gangwayed Brake Pigeon Van. Yes, that’s right, they’re spending around three times the UK average annual salary restoring a specialist railway coach for carrying pigeons!
Source: The Railway Magazine; March 2014
Its part of our history, so why shouldn’t it be restored? You may as well say whats the point in having a steam railway in the first place! It’s a preserved railway, so they’re preserving the rolling stock. Would you say it was bizarre to preserve some of the artifacts in the British Museum?
No reason at all why it shouldn’t be restored. My curiosity was more that the railways had vans with such specific purposes as carrying racing pigeons.