Miscellaneous

The Austin Motor Company: misc_indust228

Another interesting photograph from the www.austinmemories.com website showing two crates labelled ‘Austin Tractors’ being loaded on to an unidentified single bolster railway wagon by a steam crane in the early 1920s. In addition to components being shipped to the Liancourt factory in France for assembly, Austin ‘model R’ tractors were exported to many parts of the British Empire.

Four wheel bolster wagons were built in large numbers by all British Railway Companies to carry unsawn 'round' timber traffic and from March 1922 they came under the 'Common User Agreement' (except GWR bolster wagons which only joined the Common User Agreement on 31st May 1927). The single bolster wagon in the photograph appears to be a Midland Railway - Long Timber Truck to Diagram 389. These bolster wagons were 14 feet, 11 inches over the headstocks with a nine foot wheelbase. Some 1,400 Diagram 389 wagons were built as follows:

Lot	Date Built	Quantity
7	1882	200
505	1901	540
698	1908	100
704	1908	50
742	1910	100
770	1911	200
787	1911	200
895	1915	100

Robert Ferris

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