gingerfold:
With the wisdom of age Master Pete I can tell you that Edwards Brothers of Bolton perfected the hydraulic tipping ram just before WW1, and they became market leaders with their various companies, Edbro, Bromilow and Edwards, and Pilot Works. When I was given a tour of the works, (which was Edbro), about 12 years ago, some 70% of their output was exported. Tipping ram steel was imported from USA, there isn’t a British or European steelworks that can make the specification of steel needed.
Mmm, I like ‘Master Pete’ Graham, we youngsters like you and myself appreciate that! Here is another pic, I’m guessing that the building in the background could be the body builder but there isn’t enough lettering visible to confirm it? Many folk are interested as it was local vehicle and company but nobody can find anything about them. Possibly their only vehicle and probably worked from one of the many flourspar mines and quarries in our area, I live in one the pre WW1 quarries myself! A roomy sleeper cab on it though!
21 October 1984
Droitwich Spa
Worcs
ONX 840W.
A Scania 111 operated by Leighton Transport of Ombersley
having a breather… The livery was red,blue and white… age as turned the blue to green…
Captured somewhere in France I suppose? It is missing the gas detector plate from the nearside which military trucks had so I assume it was one of the many trucks requisitioned from UK hauliers who had to hand over their vehicles when the Government ordered them to. Most went to France, and there are stories of soldiers seeing their old lorry there. One haulier never even got to use his new lorry, the day after he collected it the Government took it!
Yes, of course, thousands of cars, buses and trucks were captured by the German Army (Wehrmacht) when they arrived in France. Some of them managed their way through the war and their owners got them back, but most of them had a sad end, in bombings or just abandoned and discarded for spare parts. But that would mean that Foden trucks had been imported in France prior WW ii; any information about that?
Captured somewhere in France I suppose? It is missing the gas detector plate from the nearside which military trucks had so I assume it was one of the many trucks requisitioned from UK hauliers who had to hand over their vehicles when the Government ordered them to. Most went to France, and there are stories of soldiers seeing their old lorry there. One haulier never even got to use his new lorry, the day after he collected it the Government took it!
Pete.
There’s also an important part of British transport history that has interested me for years, but there is very little information to be found. After D-Day and to support the Allied Forces advance a substantial number of civilian British drivers and their employers’ lorries were sent to Normandy to transport supplies of food, ammunition, fuel etc. in support of the advancing armies. The daily tonnages required were very large. The only record of this work I have ever found was in a late 1940’s AEC Gazette, which I no longer have. Among the requisitioned heavy lorries were 43 AEC Mammoth Major eight-wheelers with their civilian drivers.
I wonder if that pic of the Lyons fleet is at Cadby Hall? The chargehand at the BMC agency I was apprenticed at in the sixties worked for them, both at London and later at their Reading depot based in a former laundry where they ran 30 cwt BMC FG’s. He said that one of his first jobs was fitting a clutch into a Morris Commercial ‘tonner’ at the kerbside on the Old Kent Road in the 1930’s, possibly that wouldn’t be allowed nowadays!
windrush:
I wonder if that pic of the Lyons fleet is at Cadby Hall? The chargehand at the BMC agency I was apprenticed at in the sixties worked for them, both at London and later at their Reading depot based in a former laundry where they ran 30 cwt BMC FG’s. He said that one of his first jobs was fitting a clutch into a Morris Commercial ‘tonner’ at the kerbside on the Old Kent Road in the 1930’s, possibly that wouldn’t be allowed nowadays!
Pete.
That is Cadby Hall Pete, I used to live a few hundred yards from there. One of my uncles worked there as a baker. They had a large fleet of vans and lorries, as a kid they seemed to be everywhere. Big Albion users and many lighter Commers. They had their own bodyworks, Normand Garages, that not only bodied all their own vehicles but outside work also. The bodies on their own vehicles were quite distinctive, even after being sold on and repainted I could always spot an ex-Lyons motor. There was a pre-war Commer van of theirs I spotted lurking in a shed near me in Lincolnshire only recently, knew straight away it was one of theirs. Growing up in London I can remember “roadside engineering” being an everyday sight, quite substantial repairs taking place in the gutter, all the bigger operators seemed to have a liveried fitters service van!
Bernard
windrush:
I wonder if that pic of the Lyons fleet is at Cadby Hall? The chargehand at the BMC agency I was apprenticed at in the sixties worked for them, both at London and later at their Reading depot based in a former laundry where they ran 30 cwt BMC FG’s. He said that one of his first jobs was fitting a clutch into a Morris Commercial ‘tonner’ at the kerbside on the Old Kent Road in the 1930’s, possibly that wouldn’t be allowed nowadays!
Pete.
That is Cadby Hall Pete, I used to live a few hundred yards from there. One of my uncles worked there as a baker. They had a large fleet of vans and lorries, as a kid they seemed to be everywhere. Big Albion users and many lighter Commers. They had their own bodyworks, Normand Garages, that not only bodied all their own vehicles but outside work also. The bodies on their own vehicles were quite distinctive, even after being sold on and repainted I could always spot an ex-Lyons motor. There was a pre-war Commer van of theirs I spotted lurking in a shed near me in Lincolnshire only recently, knew straight away it was one of theirs. Growing up in London I can remember “roadside engineering” being an everyday sight, quite substantial repairs taking place in the gutter, all the bigger operators seemed to have a liveried fitters service van!
Bernard
My first driving job was at cadby hall…driving a morris minor van (jreg) for the stationary department. …sadly all gone now, posh apartments.
Hi Tyneside , do you remember how those Newcastle Corporation AEC Regent Mk Vs used to roar when braking for a bus stop due to being fitted with “Ashanco” exhaust brakes that were connected to the brake pedal possibly by having a switch pad attached then a cable to the operating solenoid. I vividly remember them pulling up on Scotswood Rd alongside Marlborough Crescent bus station when heading eastbound.
The back of the double decker heading into the city is a Northern Coachbuilders bodied AEC Regent Mk III and the Northern half cab single decker is either an AEC Regal Mk II or a Guy Arab possibly one of the “Kipper Boxes” What is the guy with the Trader tipper playing at ■■?
A great nostaligic set of photos.
Cheers, Leyland 600
A E Evans’ yard on Ripple Road Barking sometime in 70s. The sleeper cabbed Mandator was originally run by Richard Evans,Albert Evans’ son,trading as Revans Transport.
Here is another pic, I’m guessing that the building in the background could be the body builder but there isn’t enough lettering visible to confirm it? Many folk are interested as it was local vehicle and company but nobody can find anything about them. Possibly their only vehicle and probably worked from one of the many flourspar mines and quarries in our area, I live in one the pre WW1 quarries myself! A roomy sleeper cab on it though! 
How did this Foden manage to end in the Wehrmacht?
