The Bewick depot in Milnthorpe was right alongside the main West Coast rail line and I recall,in the 80’s seeing regular trainloads of new Fords going North on MAT liveried waggons then the same trains coming South again with the empty waggons.How long were they involved in car/van transport ? Cheers Bewick.
MAT were involved in car movements by rail from the start. Arnold Kunzler, MAT’s founder really got going after the war (2) by buying ex mod rolling stock and were big innovators in rail freight and had one of the biggesst fleet of cartics on the railway.Looking up MAT in commercial motors archived pages and it says that MAT had a big say in the safe movement of the new container system by road and helped in the development of the skelly trailer rather than chained on a flat bed. Chuffed to find all the new photos,their on f/book mat transport page, all in lower case.Try and copy them all to this thread soon, hope the Dutch lads don’t mind 
robthedog:
There you go Harryharry_gill:
robthedog:
Here you goharry_gill:
Archie Paice:
Does anybody have a photo of the old Bullnose Merc that was in Hull in the early days. People Street and Freightliner Road. Was talking to Freddie that used to drive it yesterday.Hiya,
Archie, you must have been talking to Freddie Guest who worked with me at W H Bowkers,
the bullnose Merc you mention was a Blackburn based Bowker vehicle and like all the other
vehicles in Bowkers fleet would have been called upon to do work for MAT’s at some time
or another at any of their depots or port offices anyway the “bullnose” is featured on page
two on a thread entitled, Did anyone drive a “bullnose” Mercedes, might have slipped back
a bit but it’s easy enough to find, good luck.
thanks harry, long retired.Hiya,
There is also another picture of the same motor but in W H Bowker livery page two of the
Anyone driven a “Bullnose” Mercedes thread. it’s on the second page at the top, I don’t
know how to post or move pics about but there will be someone who can. Have driven
this old girl about 25 yards pump to parking up place It felt like manual steering or was it
just heavy.
thanks harry, long retired.
Oh! Happy evocations of a recently lost era. Well done Cartrans! Robert