The Ro Railer

[John Jennings]

After much additional information has come to light I have re written my essay on the Ro Railer. The original version is elsewhere on this site but before I ask Andy to replace it with the new version I would be obliged if you would all read it and if there are any comments, errors or additions please enter them in this discussion. This will enable fine tuning or corrections to be made. You will note that it now has a more comprehensive history of the conception and development of the vehicle in addition to its contribution to the history of the ex SMJ route. I feel this is justified because I can find no other account that pulls all of the known information together. The only real gap in our knowledge now is what really happened to it post SMJ line use? There are a number of somewhat conflicting reports and we are not helped by the fact that the road transport registration archive pre DVLA for the authority concerned has to date been "lost". Apparantly the old County Councils who undertook registration prior to DVLA were not obliged to pass their old records over and varied attitudes prevailed as to what happened to them depending on the whim of the Council concerned. This failing has frustrated the efforts of many road transport historians over the past few years. I can find no record of a disposal in the LMS records but as you can imagine the records of that large company spread over more than one archive collection are immense and not always well catalogued. The matter is confounded in that the Ro Railer sometimes is dealt with in the Road Transport dept files and sometimes in the Carriage dept files! If anyone knows of a photograph taken after mid 1932 please get in touch. The comment that the body ended up separated from the chassis has some authority as it has cropped up from more than one source. I hope you all find the new version interesting.

 

John            02.04%20Ro%20Railer.doc

[Martin Broughton]

Brilliant !!! I like it alot and appreciate the work and research that goes into any of these articles. I believe the rorailer captured the imagination of the population at the time much like the idea that kids in the sixties believed by the year 2000 we would all jump into flying vehicles and take off to where ever we want. ... The ro railer legacy lives for a similar reason. Its mind blowing to think how this machine if developed and continued through history to today could have perhaps not only saved our rail infastructure during the fifties /sixties but gone on to provide the future answers to transport and the worlds drive to better transport solutions. It can't possibly happen now but for me I can certainly feel the drive and enthusiasm for the developers at the time.

[Ian Scott]

Seen at the TelfordSeen at the O gauge guild show in September of this year, The model is a 'one off'.