Suzy, Drinker Of Coffee

Kerr's Minature Railway owner dies

Mr Matt Kerr, who ran the popular miniature railway at the town’s West Links, passed away suddenly on Monday night. He was 62.

He had been ill for some months, although he did not let his illness unduly affect his business and he did a full day’s work at his railway on Saturday.

Kerr’s Miniature Railway is the oldest of its kind in Scotland and has carried hundreds of thousands of passengers, young and old, in its 71-year history.

The railway was established in 1935 and run for the next 42 years by Mr Kerr’s father, Matthew Kerr, sen.

Operating during the summer, the railway proved a popular attraction with holidaymakers, carrying no less than 60,000 passengers during the summer of 1955, although it suffered and was threatened with closure as tourist numbers declined in the 1960s and 70s.

Mr Kerr, jun, took over in 1977, although he had been driving the trains since the age of 13, and the railway’s popularity returned and it has grown to include six engines, together with the rolling stock to carry passengers, a station and tunnel, earning it a four-star grading from the Scottish Tourist Board in 2001.

Although best known for his railway, Mr Kerr also found the time for a successful teaching career and he was a long-serving teacher of history at Montrose Academy.

He was also interested in local politics and fiercely proud of his town, prompting one of his peers, Angus journalist Ian Lamb, to describe him yesterday as “probably one of the best town councillors Arbroath ever had.”

Mr Kerr was a Labour councillor for Arbroath’s East Ward from 1973 until the reorganisation of local government. He returned to the council chamber in 1978 as a district councillor for the town’s Abbey ward.

Prior to that he had worked as a signalman with British Rail. His educational career began in 1972 after he graduated from Dundee University.

He was a former chairman of the Arbroath branch of the Labour Party, a member of Tayside Health Board and a past chairman of the Angus association of the EIS.

posted by Suzy Scott @ 10:43