Drewry Car Co.

The Drewry Car Co was a railway locomotive and railcar sales organisation for most of its life. Only at the start and the end of its life did it build its own products, relying on sub-contractors for the rest of its time. It was quite separate from the lorry-builder, Shelvoke and Drewry, but it is believed that James Sidney Drewry was involved with both companies.

History

Drewry & Sons ran a motor and cycle repair business in Herne Hill, London, and started building BSA engined inspection railcars. A ready market was found in South America, Africa, and India. Drewry Car Co Ltd was registered on 27 November 1906. In 1908 BSA (of motor-cycle fame) took over building the railcars in Small Heath, Birmingham. In 1911 building was taken over by Baguley Cars, Burton-on-Trent. From 1930 a lot of Drewry locomotives were built by English Electric companies.

In 1962 Drewry acquired a controlling interest in what had become E E Baguley Ltd, and formed Baguley-Drewry Ltd in 1962, thus once again building its own locomotives, in Burton-on-Trent. The company closed in 1984.

Output

Shunting locomotives
A Baguley-Drewry inspection car (right) on the 2 ft 6 in (762 mm) gauge Welshpool and Llanfair Light Railway in Wales

Railcars
The railcar supplied to the Southern Railway (UK) in 1928 and later used on the Weston, Clevedon and Portishead Railway
Drewry railcar used in Argentine Comodoro Rivadavia Railway in the 1940s.
NZR RM class (88 seater) under restoration

References
  1. Here & There Australian Railway Historical Society Bulletin issue 307 May 1963 page 4
  2. WAGR Takes Delivery of First Diesels for Shunting: Road Engines to Come Railway Transportation January 1954 page 16
  3. Here & There Australian Railway Historical Society Bulletin issue 701 March 1996 page 96
  4. Redwood, Christopher (1981). The Weston, Clevedon and Portishead Railway. Weston-super-Mare: Avon-Anglia. pp. 121–124. ISBN 0-905466-42-X.
  5. Locomotives of the Southern Railway. Part 1, Railway Corresponce and Travel Society, 1975.
  6. Clark, P.R. (1976). "Southern Railway petrol railcar No. 5". Model Railway Constructor. Vol. 43 no. 505. pp. 176–177.
  7. Christmas Island Light Railways issue 29 Spring 1969 pages 6
  8. Tasmanian Government Railways 75HP Bogie Rail Motor Locomotive, Railway Carriage & Wagon Review issue 410 October 1926 page 326
  9. Tasmania's New Diesel Railcars Port Pirie Recorder 26 September 1939 page 2

Sources
  • "The Drewry Car Company:1906-1970". Industrial Railway Record. Industrial Railway Society (40). 1972.
  • Marsden, Colin J., (2003) The Diesel Shunter, Oxford Publishing, ISBN 0-86093-579-5
  • The Railway Products of Baguley-Drewry Ltd and Its Predecessors, Civil, A, and Etherington, R, (2008), The Industrial Railway Society, ISBN 978-1-901556-44-5
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