Title:BRITISH AMRMY VEHICLES BEING STOCKPILED FOR SHIPMENT OVERSEAS [Allocated Title]
Film Number:BTF 73
Other titles:RAILWAYS IN BRITAIN, 1935-1976 [Allocated Series Title]
Summary: British Army vehicles going into storage and being loaded aboard vessels for shipment overseas. The first sequence on the film features “mechanical rollers” (steamrollers) being transported on flat railway wagons at Woking Station in Surry.
Description: (12-15 January 1940) Steamrollers pass through Woking Station, Surry, on flat railway wagons. Preceded by two posters mounted in “SOUTHERN” frames; “YOUR CHRISTMAS PARCLES MUST REACH FRIENDS BEFORE CHRISMAS DAY…” and “A MIGHTY WAR EFFORT - RAILWAYS ARE VITAL… ”. A Southern ‘700’ class 0-6-0 (?) locomotive (No. 695), from a low angle, hauls a freight of steamrollers into the station. They are all covered with a canvas tarpaulin.
Inside storage shed 105 (presumably at Southampton Docks) the camera pans across stockpiles of Bedford MWD military trucks, all with motorcycles stowed in their trailers. British Army personnel remove petrol from a Morris-Commercial 8-cwt truck before it goes into storage. (1 min 30 sec)
Dockside workers manually load petrol cans (or jerrycans) from pallets onto an adjacent vessel. The cans are collected, via motorised pallet trucks, from freight railway wagons. (2 min 08 sec)
A Bedford MWD truck is loaded onto a vessel, by being manually pushed onto a cargo net and lifted by dockside crane. (2 min 44 sec) CH1
(15 January 1940) A mobile crane on a caterpillar trailer, British Military Police and a War Department truck. Followed by, an “RAF car” (Standard 12 HP ‘Light Utility’) being lifted from the dockside by crane and loaded onto a cargo vessel. (3 min 33 sec)
A brief close-up of a hessian sack used for wheelbarrow parts. Followed by two vessels, the EMPRESS OF BRITAIN and AQUITANIA, being hauled by tugboats at Southampton Docks. (4 min 04 sec) CH2
(16 January 1940) A convoy of British Army Bedford OYD 3-ton, Austin K30 2-ton, Bedford MWD and Morris Commercial PU 8-cwt trucks are driven down a long road near Southampton Docks. They are then shown parked-up in a line on Herbert Walker Avenue, ready to be defueled and moved into storage sheds. An Austin 8 (HP Series AP) is also driven upto the storage sheds. (Technical: overexposed in parts). (5 min 08 sec) CH3
(16 January 1940) A convoy of trucks (primarily Bedford OYD 3-ton) continue to be loaded into storage sheds from Herbert Walker Avenue, Southampton. Some of the trucks carry British Army troops in their trailers; others are fitted with witches. (7 min 16 sec) CH4
Alternative Title:RAILWAYS IN BRITAIN, 1935-1976 [Allocated Series Title]