MILITANT

There was the odd AEC Militant built especially for the specialist commercial market and one has survived and is restored in commercial colours. Enthusiast John Rignall rebuilt 899 UKM, which had started life as a special-build machine for the National Coal Board in its Mines Rescue division. This colossal rig of 18 tons, comprised of a Militant loaded down with a huge 195bhp, six-cylinder, English-Electric diesel generating set pushing out 78 Kws at 320v D.C. to drive the accompanying winch and mobile winder. The control room and winding drum for lowering cable down a pit shaft, to access below-ground accidents, was positioned on an equally large, three-axle trailer while the generator was mounted on the lorry, showman-style.

When John bought the 1958 Militant, which had worked all its life around the mines of Kent, it was a derelict wreck and he rebuilt it during 1998/99, as a six-wheel flatbed, in the colours of his local haulier Greenwoods of Ramsey in Huntingdon. In December 2010, it was up for sale in magazine for £4,000 with only 7,000 miles on the clock, a very fair price even then. On the same page there was a Militant chassis-cab for £4,800, its fifth wheel and winch had been shot blasted and given a first coat of primer; it