The Trust offers financial assistance to individuals or groups to carry through restoration or improvement projects to completion. The Trust also invites enquiries about sponsoring one or more Awards.
Michael O'Brien Having just completed a very complex and very expensive conversion of an industrial building into a home, our Preservationist of the Year Michael O'Brien decided to own a wooden boat. He found one in a field in Essex and bought it, a 30ft motor cruiser built in Kingston upon Thames in 1937. The seller thought it might have been...
Rosie Hodgson-Jones Rosie's restoration project started when, at the age of 14, she went to a Model T Ford Register autojumble and successfully bid on a 1926 Model T Tourer body. Her grandfather provided an engine which he had at the back of his garage and, with support from her father, she began to restore the car including an engine strip,...
National Transport Trust Commemorative Awards With the exception of the Sir William McAlpine Award, projects winning a National Transport Trust Commemorative Award are selected from those already awarded Restoration Awards each year, and as such, are recognised as the best of the best of each year's restoration projects receiving a...
Frank Dubleton: Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of more than 60 years service to the Great Western Society and the Didcot Railway Centre. Frank Dumbleton has been a volunteer the Great Western Society, the charity which operates the Didcot Railway Centre, for more than 60 years. He was not actually a founder member but was involved...
Chris Cooper was member number 32 when the Bluebell Railway Preservation Society was founded in 1959. His early life was in the Croydon area, which was rich in all types of transport from the bustling Southern Railway electric traction, freight yards and the private sidings of the power stations and factories. Then there were the countless...
David Ogilvy Aviation claimed David at the age of eight when a Hawker Hart biplane buzzed his school, and it never released him. One way or another it has been his career for three quarters of a century from the age of 18, and continues today. At the age of 22 he decided that an organisation was needed to co-ordinate the increasing interest in...
David Davies: A railway enthusiast from a very young age, Dave became a keen railway photographer but was always most interested in the engineering.In 1965 he saw at Didcot GWR loco 4079 ‘Pendennis Castle.’ and was invited to help in its cosmetic restoration. Although he never met co-owner Bill McAlpine, Bill was indirectly...
Robert Morley: A WWII motor torpedo boat caught Bob’s attention when he was a child and a seed was sown. Many years later he came across a Coastal Motor Boat, a WWI veteran 55ft long. It was sunk and derelict, but CMB 331 is now restored and displayed and at the Coastal Forces Museum at Gosport. Next came Motor Launch 293, even...
Mark Walden Mark Walden joined The Mid Hants Railway’s Watercress Line in its earliest days in 1973 and joined the locomotive restoration group. He was employed as an engineer with the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough, and very usefully was getting components made for the railway by RAE apprentices.He later joined the...
Derek Osborne Derek Osborne rerired as signalman on the Bluebell Railway for the second timein 2015 after 30 years as a volunteer.A regular face as signalman at Horsted Keynes Signal Box on a Wednesday, his links with Horsted Keynes go back further than the Bluebell Railway.His mainline career began 58years ago when he joined the Southern...
Charles and Robin Daniel are very active West Country steam owners restorers and enthusiasts. They have been volunteers on the Talyllyn Railway since 1950s, tunnellers on Festinniog Railway & Steam Rally organisers. They have been office holders in the West of England Steam Engine Society, and of the National Traction Engine Trust. they were...
Ron Barker After a career in the aircraft industry Steady Barker, as he has beenknown almost since he left school, joined the staff of The Autocarmagazine almost exactly 60 years ago, and began to combine earning aliving with his life-long interest in cars. He had attended race meetingshere at Brooklands in the 1930s, and after spending the...
Max Sinclair For his 50 year campaign to restore the Droitwich canals.Canals in the plural because there is the Barge Canal, opened in 1771, and the Junction Canal opened in 1854. They were built to facilitate the salt trade on which the wealth of Droitwich was founded. The canals were abandoned in 1939 and by the 1970s the Barge Canal was...
Gordon Biddle Gordon Biddle is a retired Surveyor who has devoted his expertise to the subject of transport infrastructure and has made a major contribution to increasing awareness of the importance of this aspect of transport, and of conserving it. Gordon achieved recognition as an expert on our industrial and commercial architectural...
Vic Smallshire As a teenager in the late 1950s, Vic persuaded his father to build him a boat to tour the Black Country canals. He found the Government was closing them quicker than he could discover them: so began a 50 year association with the Dudley Canals. From direct action in the early days to prevent official vandalism of locks and...
Alan Moore Alan has made an outstanding long-term contribution to transport preservation, especially heritage railways. He has trigger-funded restoration of the quad-art set, many steam locomotives, the rail motor shed at Didcot and the goods shed at Bodmin. He has served as Chairman of the Bodmin & Wenford Railway and Finance...
John Reeves John Reeves received a lifetime achievement award in recognition of a long career writing about and promoting the restoration of working steam, on the road and on the land. John Fasal John Fasal was recognised for a lifetime's contribution to the restoration and preservation of Rolls Royce motor cars. John...
Michael Oliver MBE and Jean Michael Oliver (MBE) and Jean are the founders of the Great Dorset Steam Fair and its organisers for 40 years. A regular fixture at the end of August each year, The Great Dorset Steam FairGDSF now covers 600 acres ofDorset at the end of August every year and isthe biggest event of its kind in the...
Michael Banfield Michael has had a lifetime involvement in the restoration of historic commercial vehicles and buses, veteran and classic cars. He was a founding member in 1957 of the Historic Commercial Vehicle Society, which merged with the Vintage Passenger Vehicle Society to become the Historic Commercial Vehicle Club, the largest...
The National Transport Trust makes loans to groups, associations and individuals at advantageous rates for the restoration of artefacts - whether mobile or part of the infrastructure. Applications must be supported by a simple business plan which demonstrates the financial viability of the project. A sample business plan is available on request from the Treasurer.
The Trust does occasionaly make Awards for schemes which further the preservation movement. Again if you wish further information please contact the Treasurer.