A RESTORED railway coach once used as a holiday home will again carry passengers for the first time in half a century.

The ‘Gresley teak’ No.2701 carriage which ended up derelict in a pub car park will take to the rails thanks to enthusiasts.

The 1922 coach will travel on the Severn Valley Railway from Kidderminster to Bridgnorth station and back on Saturday.

Painstaking restoration work by volunteers of SVR’s LNER Coach Fund during the past nine years and £186,000 funding have made the event possible.

Much of the expensive new teak which went into the project was recovered from the wreck of a cargo ship, sunk in the Irish Sea during the First World War.

The carriage was one of the those designed by Sir Nigel Gresley, famed for the varnished teak used in their construction, and in service until 1958.

The coach was then converted into a holiday camping carriage and, in the 1980s, turned into a Lincolnshire pub annexe.

But cash from Coach Fund secured the derelict in 1994, and its volunteers finished restoration work in July.

During its journey along the heritage railway line, Sir Gresley’s grandson will present his grandfather’s top hat to the SVR, for permanent display in the railway’s Engine House Visitor Centre at Highley.