Walking floor 40 years old
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YOUR article on the Walking floor tipper (CM, Aug 25) reminded me of a similar system in use 40 years ago. I was training as a gas engineer at Dudley (we made real gas in those days) and the coal was delivered by LMS railway lorries from Dudley goods yard.
Initially, two very ancient Karrier six-wheelers were used, and their loaded speed on the climb up Trindle Road was about walking pace. They sported tongued-and-grooved cabs with half doors, and I well remember noticing the front wheels wobbling slowly from side to side as they came down the rough cobbled works yard, where the driver wielded an outsize crank handle to tip them into a ground level hopper.
About 1944, they were replaced with two Thorneycroft eight-wheelers, with completely enclosed cabs, and a discharge system rather like a horizontal version of a roller shutter door, to which an internal headboard was attached. The floor slowly moved along from front to rear, taking the headboard with it, and the tailboard was pivoted at the top, being pushed open as the load discharged. The method worked very well.
Incidentally, at that time, tar was collected by the Midland Tar Distillers in a very ancient Leyland two-axle tanker on solid wheels with smooth tyres, and I seem to remember a chain driven solid rear axle. The driver really had fun during the terribly long snows of the early Forties! K. W. VIGUS Abergele, Clwyd