The Moseley Railway Trust is proud to announce ListerFest! To be held over the weekend of 18 & 19 May 2024, this event will take place at the Trust’s Apedale Valley Light Railway. This 2’0” gauge railway is located at the Apedale Community Country Park, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire.
R A Lister & Co was an engineering company located at Dursley, Gloucestershire. They became well-known for the production of small internal combustion engines. The company branched out into industrial vehicles which used these engines. Initially, these were the road-based Auto-Truck and then the Rail Truck. These characterful little locomotives were noted for being lightweight, and they therefore found a particular niche in industrial use. Some of the very last locomotives to be used on industrial narrow gauge railways in the UK were of Lister manufacture.
ListerFest will celebrate all things Lister! Inevitably, there will be a focus on Rail Trucks, but the event will showcase the vast variety of machines of all shapes and sizes which came out of the factory. As a starting point, the Moseley Railway Trust already has four operational Lister locomotives in the collection at Apedale – the fourth being Lister 52031 of 1960, which has been recently subject to a thorough restoration, and was launched into service at Apedale during the “Anything Goes” event of 24 & 25 June.
The Trust invites owners of anything Lister, but most especially Rail Trucks, to get in touch to operations@avlr.org.uk to register interest in attending. Further details will be released as event planning progresses. This information will be found on the Trust’s website at www.avlr.org.uk and will be announced both on the website and via social media. In the meantime, fans of small industrial locos and green machines should clear the weekend in the diary and prepare to head to Staffordshire!
