LMS Route: Rugby to Wolverhampton

LMS Route: Birmingham New Street to Lichfield

LMS Route: Birmingham New Street to Soho and Perry Barr

Curzon Street Good Station: lnwrcs1497

Curzon Street's motorised road transport fleet displayed for the photographer in 1912. The LNWR was an early user of motor lorries for cartage and delivery work with the first experiments being conducted in 1909 in the Manchester area. Richard Foster states that the first mechanised road vehicles trialed in the area occurred in May 1910 and tried out in the Perry Barr and Handsworth parts of the city. The following month the LNWR's Foden steam lorry was transferred to Curzon Street for trials. The trials were considered so successful that the first permanent vehicle for Curzon Street was authorised in November 1910. The first vehicle ordered had a capacity of 2¼ tons and was manufactured by Thorneycroft. In the following April the LNWR authorised spending £35 on a petrol storage tank and £50 on raising the garage roof. By 1913 there was a fleet of ten motor lorries to supplement the work of the horses. The lorries were generally assigned the routes furthest away from the depot leaving the horses to concentrate upon deliveries near to Curzon Street. Their chief advantage was speed and range meaning they could undertake more work in a given time on the longer rounds. Their haulage capacity was however no greater than horse-drawn transport at about 1 to 5 tons. Richard writes, 'they allowed some economies in working to be effected. There was always traffic, known as tranship traffic which came into Curzon Street as part of loads, but which was destined for another depot in the area. This had to be sent on, perhaps to Soho, Monument Lane or Aston. Originally this was done by reloading it into railway tranship vans which were tripped round to the other depot. However, lorries allowed small loads to be transhipped by road much more cheaply and quickly than by rail'.

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