Volunteers have started repairing a historic railway carriage damaged by vandals.
The vandals caused £10,000 of damage to the Royal Deeside Railway Preservation Society’s 1950-era carriage, which was in a yard between its Milton of Crathes station and Banchory on August 12.
The British Rail coach was left in ruins, with its costly double-glazed windows smashed. A nearby locomotive engine was also ruined.
But now – following a massive response to a fundraising appeal for the restoration, which was boosted by Prince Charles – work is underway to bring the carriage up to scratch.
Bill Halliday, secretary of the rail society, said: “We have had to take everything out of the coach to repair the damage and just finished that and we are starting the work next week.
“The actual restoration will come. We need to do some welding on the body work before we can refit the windows so that is the first stage, in the mean time the glass is being cut for the windows.
“The longer it remains without treatment the further it was going to fall into disrepair. It will take us a while. It will take us a year without a doubt. It is a lot of work.
“We have got the money so we figured – lets do a decent job and make it last for much longer.”
Police are still investigating the incident, which is believed to have been carried out by three teenage boys.
Since the vandals struck, the volunteer organisation has also had CCTV cameras donated from Aberdeen-based Revolutionary IT.
Mr Halliday added: “I don’t think we had great hopes of the people who did the damage being traced because there was just no witnesses.
“I think the main thing for us was we had this tremendous response from everybody for the appeal and we are now well funded for doing the repair of the coach, and just in fact started on the destructed element.”
The line was in use from 1853 until 1966 and the volunteer group is aiming to restore the track between Banchory and Crathes.
Last month the Press and Journal revealed the Duke of Rothesay had stepped in and donated a significant sum to the group.
And Mr Halliday said the duke was “very keen to see what is going on” following his donation.
A police spokesman said inquiries into incident are ongoing, and appealed for anyone with information to come forward.
