Help with my WWII vehicle loads

[dube]

Looking for some help with putting WWII vehicles on appropriate wagons, layout when built will be based on the southern area 1944.

 

Firstly the airfix / Hornby lowmac is I think very similar to a design used by the big 4 so I need to repaint, source transfers for these, looks like the Matador would be out of gauge but the Bedford and CMPs Oxford make look good, need to be tied down and wooden chocks used, although not sure if they would have been typically moved by rail 

[Fat Controller]

There have been several designs of Lowmac, RTR and kit, available in the UK. The RTR ones were from Hornby Dublo and Hornby (formerly Airfix), whilst Airfix, and subsequently Dapol, made a smaller type. Although all were BR types, the designs were pre-Nationalisation, even possibly pre-Grouping. I've not seen any photos of 'soft-skin' vehicles on railway wagons during WW2, though I have seen several views post-war. New vehicles might have been delivered by rail, but more usually, drivers would be sent to collect the vehicles, being given a course in basic maintenance by the supplier before driving the vehicle back. My father-in-law went from Catterick to Canterbury (where Rootes were preparing the lorries) to pick his lorry up.

Tracked vehicles would have moved by rail over any but short distances, but the various support vehicles would go by road, as there would be a lot of setting up to be done prior to the AFVs arriving. These support vehicles would include mobile workshops and personnel carriers, with soldiers and their tents etc.  

If the AFV movement was between sites (Catterick to Salisbury Plain or Dorset, for example), then there'd probably be a coach to convey the drivers and mechanics.

I notice you've saved the wooden crates from the Lowmacs; these could be loaded into open wagons. The Navy, and the RAF, were partial to large wooden cases...

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

2 hours ago, dube said:

... the airfix / Hornby lowmac is I think very similar to a design used by the big 4  rail ...

That one derives from a GCR design which the LNER adopted as standard, and progressively developed for load capacity increases and continuous brakes, with construction for both LNER and LMS during the war and then continuing under BR.

 

I see you have the smaller Airfix now Dapol kit lowmac, a GER design which BR 'revived' in batches built 53/54.

 

I would think more of bulky loads for these vehicles. Sheeted over to conceal them from interested eyes during wartime, as they moved 'whatever it was' to the South coast ports for shipment into occupied Europe.

[The Johnster]

Despite the model trade’s tradition of wooden crates with lowmacs, they are really only used for loads that would otherwise be out of gauge, although I suppose more ‘normal’ items might

feature as return loads, particularly if end loading was an advantage.  Not sure if JCBs are out of gauge for lowfits; out of period for the OP anyway...