When Vulcan railcar RM56 left Alexandra on ANZAC Day 1976, providing the final day of railcar service on the Central Otago Railway, no one would know that 3 decades, 3 years and almost 6 months later the very same Vulcan railcar would grace the tracks again, but it did.
RM56, which after final withdrawal of all railcar services in the South Island in September 1978, went into preservation, along with two other class members at Christchurch’s Ferrymead historic park.
The railcar has, up until now, only see one other bout of mainline activity in the intervening years, when it travelled over the West Coast.
