Steam Roller Wagons

Aveling Porter steam roller on NE 20T MAC-L

Initially I was uneasy about mounting such a mighty machine as this on a 4-wheeled truck as I thought  it overpowered the wagon and I had no evidence that rollers were in fact carried on these. I knew that the GWR had four bogie well wagons to carry their own departmental rollers, these were dia. F-2 steam roller wagons of which a kit is available from Scorpio Models. I thought it would be a better idea to put the roller on one of these.

Meanwhile, however, I noted in "LNWR Wagons Supplement No.1" that the LNWR built a 20ton Agricultural Engine Trolley (diagram 78) about 1910 that was designed "to cope with the increasing size of traction engines and so forth", presumably this encompassed steam rollers. This ill-documented wagon was a 4-wheel low-loader with sloping ramps down to a 15ft long flat bed, rather a longer load space than the MAC-L that I had built, so ample to take a roller. I began to think that perhaps steam rollers were indeed carried on 4-wheel wagons after all.

Then...a breakthrough! My Internet searches came up with the photo below, from the NRM collections, of a steam roller being unloaded from a 4-wheel low-loader at Derby Station in 1906. So I know that I'm right to mount a roller on the similar 4-wheel NE Mac-L as pictured above... I can sleep easy now!

Steam Roller at Derby Station 1906

The above photo is copyright National Railway Museum and SSPL and is from the collection "Derby photos"  Here's a link to this that you'll like...

http://www.nrm.org.uk/ourcollection/photo?group=Derby&objid=1997-7397_DY_11517