Re: Hand-worked track trolleys

["Bob Merchant" <bob.merchant@bigpond.com>]

Pump Trolley is the term I have heard and used over the last 50 years or so
for the type on which you and a mate stood facing each other and pumped up
and down on horizontal handles attached to whatever.

The three wheeled trikes where also common in NSW.

The Sydney Tramway Museum had a trolley which had started life as a vertical
pole type, the pole being attached to the wheels by a crank similar to a
loco driving wheel.  They would have been hard work!

Regards,
Bob Merchant
"B." <gunzel412@dingoblue.gunzel.net.au> wrote in message
39d9a2c4$0$12419$7f31c96c@news01.syd.optusnet.com.au">news:39d9a2c4$0$12419$7f31c96c@news01.syd.optusnet.com.au...
| Roderick Smith <rodsmith@werple.net.au> wrote in message
| 39D97FED.11AD3B0E@werple.net.au">news:39D97FED.11AD3B0E@werple.net.au...
|
| > Extracted from posts to a South African newsgroup,
| > responding to requests for nomenclature (for a local
| > dictionary).  What names applied in Australia and New
| > Zealand?
| >
| > What's a handcar in SAThis will go into the dictionary);
| > English and Afrikaans please.
| > Handcar is a light railway vehicle propelled by cranks or
| > levers, used by workers inspecting the track It is marked
| > as being the North American term for this vehicle.  It
| > sounded foreign to me (handcar).  What would we would call
| > it here?
| >
| > The agreement was: Gandy Dancer (USA) referred to the track
| > workers, not to the trolley.
| > Gandy Manufacturing company made tools for use on
| > railroads, especially track tools.  The track gang men who
| > used them were referred to as "Gandy Dancers" for obvious
| > reasons.
|
| > Pump Trolley / Pomptrollie were the correct terms as
| > applied to railways in South Africa.
|
| > "Ganger's Trolley" was a flat trolley without the pump
| > handles but with a screw-brake device which gangers used in
| > addition to the pump trolley.
| > Tese flat trolleys were far more common than the pump
| > trolley.  They were propelled by pushing them!
|
| > I have ridden on a four-seat hand-propelled trolley of VR
| > design: people sat on seats, in opposed pairs, and pushed
| > the hand back & forth in front of them.
|
| > Did we ever have designs in which people stood?
|
| There was a design of a 4 wheel flat top trolley where a rod is
| connected to the wheel similar to a steam loco, but this rod goes
| up vertically, and is operated while standing on the flat top.
| Refer pages 9 & 15 of "Railway to Walhalla - Pictorial History"
| published by Walhalla Railway Museum, Erica.
|
| There was also a design of 3 wheeled 'tricycle' trolley where you
| sat on a seat and operated a hand pump as you described above, but
| it appears only one person operated the pump.  I have seen this on
| both 5'3" and 2'6".
|
| --
| B.
|
| Email - gunzel412 at dingoblue dot net dot au
| ICQ#  - 82329734
| Phone - long, long, short, long.
|
|