Drewry Car Co.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Strictly speaking, for most of its life the Drewry Car Co was a railway locomotive and railcar sales organisation; only at the start and the end of its life did it build its own products, relying on sub-contractors for the rest of its time.

Drewry & Sons ran a motor and cycle repair business in Herne Hill, London, and started building BSA engined inspection railcars. A ready market was found in South America, Africa, and India. Drewry Car Co Ltd was registered on 27th November 1906. In 1908 BSA (of motor-cycle fame) took over building the railcars at Small Heath, Birmingham. In 1911 building was taken over by Baguley Cars Ltd, Burton-on-Trent. From 1930 a lot of Drewry locomotives were built by English Electric companies.

In later years Drewry offered a fairly standard range of industrial shunting locos, and from 1952 supplied 142 0-6-0 diesel shunters to BR, with Gardner 8L3 204hp engines and Wilson epicyclic gearboxes {{(BR D2200 - D2341 class).

In 1962 Drewry aquired a controlling interest in what had become E E Baguley Ltd, and formed Baguley-Drewry Ltd in 1987, thus once again building its own locomotives, in Burton-on-Trent. The company closed in 1984.

[edit] References

• (1972) "The Drewry Car Company:1906-1970". Industrial Railway Record (40).
• Marsden, Colin J., (2003) The Diesel Shunter, Oxford Publishing, ISBN 0-86093-579-5