A number of Hockley's GWR designed horse drawn vehicles
together with a range of commercially designed lorries. Whilst the horse-drawn
carts seen here are almost all to a common design, the three motor vehicles
photographed at Hockley on 2nd May 1940 are all different models. The nearest
is a three-wheel 3 ton Scammel tractor, which was called a 'mechanical horse',
because it was designed to haul demountable trailers in confined spaces and had
an excellent turning circle. The next motor vehicle is a 2 ton Morris
Commercial forward control chassis fitted with a Swindon van body carrying the
words Express Cartage Services on the rear portion and an
advertising space was provided on the forward portion. The final motor vehicle
is a 4 ton Thonycroft PB chassis and cab with what appears to be a flat
platform body (again this would have been manufactured and fitted at Swindon
Works). Earlier Thornycroft designs had open cabs, but safety-glass in
windscreens became a legal requirement in 1937 and the road licence incentives
introduced in 1933, meant that solid tyres (which caused more damage to road
surfaces) were replaced with pneumatic tyres from 1933.
A new motor fleet numbering system was introduced in 1938,
which used a prefix letter to identify the vehicle type and the first of the
subsequent numbers to indicate the vehicles carrying capacity in tons. Below
are examples:
Code |
Description |
A2xxx |
Motor van with a
2 ton capacity |
B4xxx |
Four wheeled
motor lorry with a 4 ton capacity |
C3xxx |
Three wheel
mechanical horse tractor with a 3 ton capacity |
D8xxx |
Tractor unit with
8 ton capacity |
E1xxx |
Electric van with
1 ton capacity |