Steam team on the road

These days, thousands of people visit steam fairs in North Yorkshire every summer, and most of them go to see the colourful, bulky traction engines and road rollers put through their paces. However, not everyone realises that steam was also used to power cars and, more successfully, lorries at the start of the 20th century.

Transport historian Derek Rayner is plugging that knowledge gap with his latest book, Steam Wagons. This completes a trilogy which began ten years ago with Road Rollers, followed in 2002 with Traction Engines. All three slim volumes are packed with pictures old and new, and contain a treasure trove of information about both how steam engines were made and used.

Derek can date the beginning of the golden age specifically because 1896 was the year when the "Red Flag" Act was fully rescinded. From that moment on, the surreal sight of a man carrying a red flag walking in front of a motor vehicle disappeared.

Small companies around Britain and abroad were engaged in the manufacture of steam vehicles. Among them was the Sheppee Motor Company in York.

Colonel Francis Faulkner Sheppee set up in business after a long career in the army, much of which was spent in his birthplace of India. In 1902, when 70, he and an engineer called John E Gibbs set up a workshop in Thomas Street.

Derek said Sheppee was an innovator. "He went into a different form of steam power, in that it was created by a liquid fuel. We are talking about kerosene, or in today's word, paraffin.

"That was distinct from the common means of making steam, by shovelling coal on a fire and boiling the water in a boiler. It made the vehicle lighter.

"He made quite a number of wagons which were used in and around York.

"The records don't exist so exactly how many were made is not known. It's confused by the fact that several were used in different formats."

By clever design, the same basic Sheppee body could be used as a charabanc to transport passengers or converted into a goods wagon.

Just such a vehicle is pictured in Steam Wagons, carrying barrels of beer for the Tadcaster Tower Brewery. It was made by Sheppee's in 1913.

Privately-owned steam cars existed but were not common. "In those days a lot of people still relied on the horse and cart," said Derek.

But local industries saw the benefit of using a steam wagon, which was smaller and lighter than a traction engine towing a trailer.

"The breweries had steam wagons. So did Leetham's Mill in York, and Rowntree's.

"The North Eastern Railway in the early days became one of the first organisations to start using steam wagons on a commercial basis."

Derek's book includes a picture of a 1905 steam wagon outside the NER No 1 Fire Brigade Station, located where the Railway War Memorial now stands.

In his article Sheppee And His Super-Heated Steamers, RA Whitehead reprints the results of a trial of one of the firm's steam lorries. Colonel Sheppee's son Francis went on the 40-mile trip from York to Thirsk, Helmsley and Oswaldkirk with Messrs Pledger and Corner, the two works drivers.

For most of the run, the lorry averaged around 15mph, although it took half an hour to scale the face of Sutton Bank. The trial ended prematurely, courtesy of a broken camshaft.

Although never a great commercial success, the manufacture of such pioneering vehicles did elevate the family's social status.

"Colonel Sheppee's business interests were centred mainly on the City of London, and his residence was in Surrey, but Francis Sheppee had his home at 46 Queen Anne's Road, York, and was closely involved and well known in business and social circles in the area," wrote RA Whitehead.

"One of the minor privileges that came from the regard in which they were held was that of using the roads at York Racecourse as a trial ground for wagons.

"The maximum speed achieved by an unladen wagon on test there was about 40mph, a remarkable achievement for a commercial in the first decade of the century and, unfortunately, an accomplishment that was of no great practical use."

The speed steam power could achieve was surprising, Derek said. "In 1907, a Stanley steam car held the land speed world record of 127mph," he said.

The steam era on the roads soon fizzled out, however. Petrol power became more popular after the First World War when a lot of army surplus vehicles became available. A tax on solid tyres and the introduction of diesel engines in the late 1920s did for the steam wagon.

But that has not dampened the enthusiasm of many people enthralled by steam engines, which Derek describes as "living beasts".

In work and out, transport has dominated Derek's life. At British Rail for 36 years, he was responsible for introducing high speed trains, and then the maintenance of the rolling stock.

Today he is technical editor of the steam engine enthusiasts' magazine Old Glory. He has a 1915 steam roller and a 1935 motor roller of his own, which he takes to the summer shows. And last month he took delivery to his Acomb home of his latest piece of working transport history.

It is a Sheppee Cykelaid, a power-assisted cycle, built in York in 1926. As its two-stroke petrol engine is 131cc, the bike is technically classed as a motorcycle, and is one of perhaps a dozen known to still exist.

He is keen to get it back to its very best, and wants your help. "I would like to get in touch with anybody in York who might happen to have a maintenance manual or instruction book for it," he said.

"I've not come across one here, but that doesn't mean to say there's not somebody whose father or grandfather used to be involved at Sheppee's in York who has got one tucked way in a drawer or in the loft."

Anyone who can help, please call Derek on (01904) 781519.

- Steam Wagons by Derek Rayner, published by Shire, price £4.50, is on sale at the Barbican Bookshop, Fossgate, York

Updated: 12:06 Monday, April 07, 2003