Category:Wickham Trolley

The SVRSevern Valley Railway has five Wickham Trolleys in various states of repair. Originally built by D. Wickham & Co Ltd of Ware in Hertfordshire, these trolleys were used in service as railway engineering personnel carriers, transporting PWPermanent Way working parties and materials to sites along the line.

The trolleys were designated 2w-2 PMR under the Whyte notation, denoting that they were 4-wheeled, petrol-engined, mechanically driven and reversible. They were lightweight, cheap to operate and very flexible, so they were popular with operators of railways of all kinds. The SVRSevern Valley Railway includes one Pre-War example; post-War more than 600 were built for BRBritish Rail or British Railways before the Wickham factory closed in 1991.

The Wickham trolleys feature an unusual stepless variable speed and reversible transmission.
Power is transmitted via a steel flywheel attached to the engine to a wheel with a friction lining on its surface which is able to slide along a splined shaft set at 90° to the crankshaft. Sliding the driven wheel towards the outer edge of the flywheel increases the gearing. Sliding it across to the opposite side of the flywheel reverses the drive.

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  Detail of the Wickham transmission

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  Detail of the Wickham transmission

See also

List of other rolling stock on the SVR

Links

Wickham Trolley page on Wikipedia
Video of Wickham Trolley run from Highley to Arley on YouTube