BRADFORD TOWER WAGONS
One of the chief reasons for the expansive use of tower wagons was in the maintenance of overhead cables involved on trolleybus and previously, tram, networks. In the very early days, tramways used horse-drawn, tower-equipped carts to fix line problems and subsequently lorries with hand-crank towers.
Bus undertakings, which used trolleybuses, at Corporations such as Reading, South Shields, Bournemouth, Newcastle Upon Tyne and, of course, London, to name but a few, equally had their own ancillary vehicle fleet of tower wagons to maintain their system.
Bournemouth and Sheffield used old converted AEC Regent Mark 1 single-deckers, Dundee and Derby favoured redundant Daimler COG5s, Hastings and Western SMT preferred Leyland Tiger TS3s, while Blackpool was a bit of an exception as the Corporation ran trams and still does.
As the corporations moved to lorry-based maintenance vehicles, the Karrier CK3 chassis became a popular choice, certainly with Bradford, Newcastle Upon Tyne and Hull. Bradford had four of these Karrier CK3s, bought in pairs in 1947 and 1949, replacing the earlier 1936 CK2s. The Corporation became Bradford City Transport in March of 1952, a name it retained until the 31st of March 1974.
Enter Andy Feather, with friend and work colleague Norman Hinchliffe, who managed to save two redundant Karrier CK3s from the dismantler’s yard. Norman volunteered for the job of towing each one the 70-plus miles to the Sandtoft Trolleybus Museum near Doncaster, with a Series 2a diesel Land Rover, so they could be used to erect the infrastructure (poles and wires) as the museum was being built.
Although one of the Karriers did still run, it used fuel at an alarming rate, so EKY 594 and FKW 972 had to be towed around the
