Crewe Tractor

Insight into the work involved in the recreation of a Crewe Tractor – based on some 130 vehicles adapted by the London & North Western Railway (LNWR) at Crewe Works in the 1916-1917 period.

It is said that the inspiration for the idea came from the daughter of the LNWR’s Chief Mechanical Engineer, CJ Bowen-Cooke, who had become aware of a lack of powered transport on the lightly laid trench tramways operated behind the trenches across France and Belgium. The design saw the adaptation of a standard Ford Model T (manufactured in Trafford Park) complete with a lightweight utility body and kit-form railway chassis. So it was that they could, within one hour, be adapted from road trim to a two-foot gauge locomotive with load space. Initial trials appear to have used the brass-radiator Model Ts then being manufactured, though the actual production run would seem to have entirely utilised the pressed radiator type of the Model T variant. They did not form part of the War Department Light Railway (WDLR) fleet, rather being part of the motor transport pool – and were marked and numbered as such.

The design would seem to have been of indifferent success, and it is recorded that all remained in railway guise once so converted, possibly due to convenience but also perhaps due to the poor state of the roads at that time.

The first vehicle through our workshops was a US imported Model T with left-hand drive and built in 1922. It had been brought to the UK at some point in the past and fitted with an English-style van body. At Beamish it worked as a general delivery vehicle until withdrawn for overhaul and conversion to the Crewe Tractor. The conversion work was carried out in the museum’s Regional Heritage Engineering Centre and was largely the work of volunteer John Hodder, with assistance from Mike Davidson. The work was completed at Christmas 2016 and the Crewe Tractor can now be seen in use around the Museum. The loadbed includes a toolbox as well as a storage container of suitable period style, in which I can pack the laptop and other work regalia – a First World War padlock completes the picture!

You can follow the story of the Model Ts, and other vehicles at Beamish, on the Transport Blog at www.beamishtransportonline.co.uk.