Pre-WWII commercial vehicles? (OO gauge)

[ejstubbs]

I can remember the last few appearances of the Whitbread dray horses in the early 1990s, passing through Finsbury Square on their way from the old brewery (now a Malmaison hotel) in Chiswell Street.  Can't help thinking that there ought to be something there to commemorate their history.

[RANGERS]

There's any number of websites which have pics of both urban and rural transport in the 1930s and they show that the majority of 'local' domestic haulage - butchers, bakers, coal merchants etc - was still in the hands of horse drawn transport. The motor revolution was well underway but they were still an expensive option at a time when labour to look after horses was cheap and the skills needed for vans and lorries much more expensive, not to mention the relatively high cost of buying them in the first place.

 

The war changed everything, surplus vehicles could be ought cheaply and six years of hostilities had trained a workforce capable of operating and maintaining them.

[ed7]

Have a look at the truck kits at

 

http://www.roadtransportimages.com/

 

These are mostly 1940 and later, but there are a few from 1930's

[coachmann]

Only up until the 1930 road traffic act. This effectively removed steam wagons from the roads as it taxed heavy goods vehicles on gross weight (vehicle + load).

I saw steam lorries and steam rollers up to around 1950 in Oldham.

 

Sadly EFE and Corgi never saw fit to produce the buses and lorries so typical of the postwar period. Yes, I'm talking about commercial vehicles produced before the war, which populated our roads for years after the war. Even in the early 1950's, I could bus it from Oldham to Ashton, then Hyde, then Newton and all the buses would be pre-war or wartime on a busy Saturday morning. Even travelling out to Denton was by pre-war Trolleybus. It was down to being selective, as I could also do the journey using new postwar buses. But at workmans time from 1945-1957 it would be impossible to recreate such a scene without prewar buses