"The Howard range of petrol locomotives" - advert issued by Howards of Bedford, UK : : advert in The Municipal & Road Engineers' Standard Catalogue, 1929 - 1932 ; The Standard Catalogue Company ; London ; 1933
Howards, based in Bedford, and founded in 1837 were one of the smaller companies that produced agricultural steam locomotives and that had in c1919 become part of the larger Agricultural & General Engineers Ltd. One gets the impression that, rather like the United Alkali Company's doomed attempt to keep Leblanc production going by 'merging and rationalisation', AGE was doing the same with smaller regional or county based engineering concerns - I wonder. AGE went bust in 1932 so this ad must be amongst their last and Howards were bought out by F C Hibbard of Park Royal in London, primarily because of Howards foray into petrol locomotives, and who continued to construct small locos until the late 1960s.
The small petrol loco, for shunting, light railway and tramway duties, gave much economy as against the firing and maintenance of steam locomotives, and many businesses that relied on small scale or narrow gauge railways such as quarries, agricultural estates and the like, would have bought locos such as those seen here.
The second edition of the vast publication the "Municipal and Road Engineers' Standard Catalogue, 1929 - 1932" contains many hundreds of pages of adverts showing plant, appliances and supplies across a wide range of 'municipal' engineering such as road construction, lighting, refuse disposal, water supplies and sewerage and park equipment.
"The Howard range of petrol locomotives" - advert issued by Howards of Bedford, UK : : advert in The Municipal & Road Engineers' Standard Catalogue, 1929 - 1932 ; The Standard Catalogue Company ; London ; 1933
Howards, based in Bedford, and founded in 1837 were one of the smaller companies that produced agricultural steam locomotives and that had in c1919 become part of the larger Agricultural & General Engineers Ltd. One gets the impression that, rather like the United Alkali Company's doomed attempt to keep Leblanc production going by 'merging and rationalisation', AGE was doing the same with smaller regional or county based engineering concerns - I wonder. AGE went bust in 1932 so this ad must be amongst their last and Howards were bought out by F C Hibbard of Park Royal in London, primarily because of Howards foray into petrol locomotives, and who continued to construct small locos until the late 1960s.
The small petrol loco, for shunting, light railway and tramway duties, gave much economy as against the firing and maintenance of steam locomotives, and many businesses that relied on small scale or narrow gauge railways such as quarries, agricultural estates and the like, would have bought locos such as those seen here.
The second edition of the vast publication the "Municipal and Road Engineers' Standard Catalogue, 1929 - 1932" contains many hundreds of pages of adverts showing plant, appliances and supplies across a wide range of 'municipal' engineering such as road construction, lighting, refuse disposal, water supplies and sewerage and park equipment.