Since the K&DR’s acquisition of 3 Fairmont MT14 Speeder cars back in 1997, these vehicles haven’t been used much. In 2010, they were subject to a restoration programme by some of our volunteers, a couple of whom have since left. At least 1 of these cars entered service again in 2015, however they have not been used for some time and require further restoration due to deterioration.
The restoration programme resumed roughly around August 2025 with attention from some of our volunteers. Since then, one Speeder (Car 3) is in working condition, requiring further finishing touches, while the remaining two are not working and still require extensive restoration work.
Recently, we have been focusing our restoration efforts on our CNRail 144-55 Speeder car. As of 07/02/2026, the fuel tank has been connected and an inline filter added, the throttle and choke are both connected to the engine, and in theory the engine would start up. However, we can’t test this yet because the next step of the restoration process is to re-wire everything. We’ve still got a fair bit of work to do, but it’s nice that these little cars are getting some attention, considering we’ve got around half of the total number of Speeder cars in the world.