Miniature, or narrow gauge railway bullion truck ?

[plarailfan]

Today, I went to the car boot sale at Fitzwilliam, near Doncaster.

A stallholder there, had for sale, a small open goods wagon, with a metal chassis, all complete, but very rusty. The wooden body was in poor condition, with a chunk missing from one corner.

Parts of the body had rotted away with age.

I would say, at a guess, it was, 7 1/4" gauge.

The seller said it was about 100 years old, and had been used in a London bank, for moving bullion around, and, he said 10 years ago, he had the steam loco to pull the wagon, but the loco was stolen from his garage, and the wagon was left behind, untouched.

Anyway, the seller's friend (an antique trader) came along, and took it away, to sell elsewhere, at a later date.

So coming to the point - is the "bank" story likely to be a red herring, or could there be some truth in it ? thanks for your comments, and look out for it turning up at an inflated price, in Builth Wells, or Newark, or somewhere, as it changed hands today, for a mere £20

[Hobby]

I suppose some of the larger bullion places may have used wagons on rails to move the cash around... When i started in a bank in the 70s we used trolleys with rubber tyres, so using technology of the time (say around 1900) rail would not be a non-starter... I doubt if they would use a steam loco though, that's definitely a red herring, they'd have just pushed the wagon around... 7 1/4" is a common gauge for the Model Engineers, but seems a little narrow for this purpose, the trolleys we use would have overturned if run on 7 1/4", red herring I think?

[rockershovel]

I would take any claims of industrial usage for gauges below 18" with a fairly large pinch of salt, notwithstanding occasional protestations from the Heywood/R&ER/RH&DR enthusiasts. Decauville made lightweight portable track down to 40cm gauge, for hand-propelled trucks indoors.