Compared with the glamour of a big artic pounding the motorways, the humble refuse collector may seem like a poor relation, but this is hardly fair. Both do a vital job and both in their different ways are equally high tech. Indeed, one could argue that the modern municipal vehicle embodies just about everything that has been learned over the ages about economic operation and ingenious loading.
Of course, it wasn’t always so, with lorries starting out as one type of chassis that fitted just about any purpose. In those faraway days steam seemed to hold many advantages especially as it could idle on minimal fuel whilst the bins were collected. It was also flexible at low speed and could also create its own vacuum in sludge gulping roles. Indeed Fowler, whose steam wagons had been none too successful, made a virtue of the difficulty in maintaining steam pressure in regular goods haulage by making complete Hygeian drain and cesspool machines in the 1920/30s where their stationary benefits were a positive advantage.
These Fowler wagons were designed by WJ Lewin who had previously been responsible for Yorkshire Patent Steam Wagons, which we’ll be discussing later in this article. Lewin went on to make motor street sweepers under his own name in Leeds in 1930, which makesstranger is the fact that Fowler recorded WJ Lewin emigrating to Australia in 1926 just as wagon sales faltered - perhaps he simply went for a holiday and to get away from the problems!
