THE LATIL PART TWO
f all the people we hadn’t expected to have a walk-on, but very instrumental part in the Latil story was Sir Nigel Gresley, the great locomotive designer and director of the London and North-Eastern Railway, the famous LNER. Sir Nigel had conceived the idea of a switchable, roadrail vehicle around 1924 and approached Latil’s chief engineer, George Riekie to discuss the concept. Riekie had been with Latil’s London office acting in quite a few roles as designer, sales executive and chief engineer, so he was just the man to put together a design which transformed the Latil into a road-going railway engine. The Locotractor, with the aid of hidden flanges, could run on rails and shunt rolling stock. While on the road they were designed to pull ten tons, on the rails they could shift a train of wagons up to 250 tons. Riekie designed and built the wheel-assemblies and made a prototype, receiving rapturous applause when it made its debut at the Firestone Tyre Company sidings at Brentford, off the West Road, in London. It was driven
