Railmotors

Friday Facts & Fotos. FFF 55

Friday 11th August 2023

Railmotors

Railways around the world have always been very inventive in finding more economical ways of carrying out their business. When passenger numbers dwindled, or quantity of freight didn’t require a locomotive and wagons, often a rail motor of some sort was the answer.

So today we are not talking about DERMS or Walker railmotors but about buses, trucks, or even cars that were modified to operate on railway tracks. The VR were not slow in picking up these cost-saving trends. Keeping a branch line open to support a town with only a few passengers using a rail motor that weighed only a ton or so was a much cheaper option than running full-size train services. The railways also saw the cost savings in providing a more comfortable vehicle for inspections by the commissioners and more senior staff. The commissioners even had ‘their car’ chauffeur driven! Why should they have to tough it out in all weather like the gangers and track workers?

So the VR got involved in rebuilding or converting road vehicles for rail operations. They were a mixed bag of vehicles with some of them even equipped with an inbuilt turntable so the direction of travel could be changed mid-section. However, they were not set up with hydraulics to change between road or rail like many modern-day inspection vehicles and way & works machines.

Here is a selection of photos from PROV files which illustrate some of the variations that were produced at Newport. Some were provided with high-visibility black zebra stripes like RM 72 in the Jolimont yard. The second photo of RM 72 shows it equipped with gas converter equipment and can be dated mid-20s because of the steeple cab electric locos in the background. All of these are gone except one which we will talk about next Friday.