The thread started with a request to list variant styles.
We began with the classic two-wheel trolley. They were tricky to load: hold them too vertical and they would jam to a halt, or the load would fall off; hold them too low and too much weight was on the hands of the person doing the wheeling. The type survives today with metal frames, and belts to hold the load onto the frame. There is also the rotating triple-wheel stair-climbing variant.
The others which I have shown were the wooden trays built like a billy cart: fixed rear axle and steerable front axle. They could be propelled by hand, or linked together via the towing handle and hauled by a small tractor. Sydney Central was famous for having rakes of 15-20 towed through the crowd on the concourse. Melbourne Spencer St's 1962 rebuilding separated the trolleys from people.
A variant from my next selection is similar, but the trolley sits high on much bigger wheels. That was common in USA: low-level platforms serving normal-floor vans. South Australia had a lot of USA influence, also had low-level platforms at a lot of places, and also the high trolleys.
Stations also had wooden wheelbarrows: not hopper like a garden one, but a wooden-tray top, with a restraining riser at the front. They were very easy to tip over sideways if stowed thoughtlessly.
Today's pair show another NSW variant. Two equal portions each side of a central pair of wheels, with stoppers at each end. They would rest at an angle (like a DC3 aeroplane), then be brought horizontal when wheeled. The one shown at Murwillumbah looked to be longer than the ones which I recall seeing in Sydney, and the deck was straight. My memory of the Sydney ones is that the deck kinked at the axle. They were used a lot for trundling water bottles to carriages. As with most of my photos for this thread, they are cropped from small portions of photos taken for other reasons, and the quality is lost.
700110Sa Murwillumbah NSW trolleys R Smith
Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor