A REMARKABLE family firm which has charted the development of transport from horse to horse-power has closed its doors after 108 years.

When blacksmith Herbert Raine branched out into building ice cream carts and pony traps in the 1890s, he could not have known that the coming of motor power would revolutionise not only his own life but that of the whole world.

With his sons, Arthur and William, he quickly developed Raine's Carriageworks in Spennymoor, County Durham, into a flourishing business building bodies for some of the first vans, buses and carts seen on North-East roads.

Throughout the 1930s and 1940s the firm specialised in repairing car bodywork, and building and fixing vans, lorries and buses.

The family team earned a reputation for quality craftsmanship, which endured until the end when, last week, Herbert's grandsons, David and Andrew, finally called it a day.

Yesterday, Andrew, who joined the business in 1960, began the painstaking task of searching through documents and photographs recording more than a century of transport history.

Now that he has time, he hopes one day to write a book on the family firm. As well as treasured memories, he retains a prized 1949 1892cc Alvis TA 14, one of only three cars built by the company.

He drives it every year in the Beamish Cavalcade vintage car event and won the overall prize this year. The Alvis took more than a year to complete at the Tower Coachworks, in King Street, where the firm moved after the war. Mr Raine said: "It was a long way from today's big factory lines which have robots turning out cars every few minutes. "Everything here was craftsman-built and there was no mass production."

The firm reached its heyday in the 1940s when, as a reserved industry, its staff were exempt from service and were busy keeping the war effort on the move.

They were engaged in important work getting people to work in factories and mines. Afterwards, working to Arthur's designs, they continued to build new bodies for buses, mobile shops and brightly painted ice cream vans, which became something of a speciality."

Later, more emphasis was placed on repairing accident-damaged vehicles and the last body was built in 1966. After the deaths of Arthur and William in the mid-1960s, the business, by now one of the leading accident repair specialists in the area, was continued by William's widow, Freda, and managed by their sons, David and Andrew, who took control in 1978.

Andrew said: "It was a decision that hasn't been reached lightly but my brother wanted to retire and I didn't want to carry on by myself.

"It is very sad because working here was all I wanted to do, but I am taking a positive view and looking forward to the challenges that lie ahead."