Great newsreel film archive - British Pathe ..

G'day all! - Just a heads up, to tell you all, that I came across the British Pathe film newsreel archive today, and have been having a great time looking at these old clips.

The clips vary between about 40 seconds, and 20 or more minutes, and they cover the period from before WW1, to the 1970's. There's some great footage in there, you just have to do some digging. Unfortunately, the search is a bit hit-and-miss .. I typed in "machinery" and got over 800 hits, covering everything from Royalty to factories ..

Half the problem is the limited amount of search keywords that are applied to each film clip. You can type in "World War Two", and only get half the clips that encompass WW2 activities.
However, I found that when you find an interesting clip, they have another menu on the RHS that gives you "related videos", which can be useful.

Here's one that will probably be of general interest .. a British Army production, in conjunction with Pathe, to tell the story of the Royal Army Service Corps (RASC).
There are two clips, one of about 21 mins that encompasses from before WW1 to WW2 .. and a 2nd clip, about 13 mins, that encompasses post-WW2.
There's a lot of posturing for the camera, and general BS, as with all military films .. but there's also a lot of very interesting RASC scenes, during WW1, and WW2. The Normandy landings are covered, as well as transport in Europe during WW2. Overall, pretty good, I thought. The link to "Part 1" is below. You'll find "Part 2" listed on the RHS menu, if you want to watch post-WW2 activity.

Have fun searching this archive .. it's absolutely enormous, and covers everything from growing ground nuts in Tanganyika .. to knocking down trees with surplus WW1 tanks, in Canada ..
Put aside plenty of time .. you can waste more time here, than on YouTube ..

The RASC story - Part 1 .. www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=75429

G'day Onetrack

Thanks for the great link.
As you say, an easy way to pass time.

I will admit that I have seen many of them before....
In the days when Pathe used to be on before the Main film at UK cinemas.

Check out this one.

www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=79961

Does anybody know what trucks they are ? ( I Don't)

Cheers
RS

These trucks are "Morris Commercial "D" Type Six Wheelers" to give them their factory designation.

They were made as 1927 to 1932 models but at least two exist (chassis number 032 in Australia and chassis 052 in England) that have been positively dated to 1926.

Motor was a 15.9 horsepower 4 cylinder petrol until changed at engine number 30147, to a 17.9 horsepower version.

Early production had an epicyclic "low reduction" auxilliary gearbox to meet military requirements that the vehicle carry two thirds of its rated carrying capacity at two thirds of its cruising speed over a freshly plowed field! At some time after chassis 052, this was replaced with a more conventional spur-gear type two-and-a half-to-one reduction box.

The trucks shown have, resting on the running boards, the optional "All Over Tracks" that could be fitted over the rear tyres in very soft or muddy going.

"D" Types were rated by the manufacturer as having a 30 hundredweight carrying capacity with single rear wheels and 2 tons with duals.

The rear fully-floating load sharing bogie was designed and patented by the British War Department in 1926 and thrown open for any manufacturer to use. It was used by Morris Commercial, Austin, Guy and Thornycroft but the others were larger than the Morris version and used on larger trucks. Thorneycroft used the same supension on its Nubians until at least the 1960's

Trucks in the movie, except for one which is a Staff Car configuration, are standard military pattern with 23 inch wheels (duals on the rear) and military "tilt" canvas roof over the driving position.

In or after 1932 the "D" Type Six Wheeler was replaced with the "CDSW" which had a six cylinder petrol engine and a sheet metal radiator surround, very similar in shape to that on contemporary Bedfords.

As Morris says these were a standard war dept design. At the time they favoured 6x4 to get traction on soft and uneven ground but by 1939 4wd was favoured. They are quite rare because most would have gone to France with the 1939 expeditionary force and left behind at Dunkirk.

Only the rear bogie was designed by the British War Department. My comment regarding standard War Department design referred to the canvas "tilt." Civilian models were built with wood framed, sheet metal clad cabs with full doors.

The trucks were built to comply with the lightest category (one and a half to two ton carrying capacity) of the British War Department Subvention (or subsidy) scheme whereby a civilian operator would be reimbursed one third of the cost of the new vehicle each year for three years i.e. he got the cost back in full over three years, on condition that he agreed to surrender it to the Military in the event of war. The "D" Types were built from 1926 to 1930 and war was declared in 1939. Many of them, although several years old, were claimed for the war effort and left behind in Europe. General Erwin Rommel, the Desert Fox, is on record as having instructed his troops to abandon their German truck if they could seize the "much superior British Morris"

The British Army built one prototype with TWO DRIVEN front axles, making it an 8x8 in British terminology, Bogie-bogie in Aus? but in trials decided the advantages it gave were outweighed by the extra mechanical complexity. Remember, this was in the nineteen twenties!

The Pathe newsreel link below, is a BMC film about William Richard Morris, who is probably better known as Lord Nuffield .. and the Morris car and truck story. At around the 6 minute mark into this newsreel, tandem-drive Morris trucks are seen leaving the factory in numbers. I would estimate the date of this clip to be around 1927-28.

www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=81592

G'day OneTrack

I have just watched the BMC film.
About 7 minutes in there is a shot of the MG Factory.
I can see that same building from my house.
It has been converted to up-market apartments.
The film bought back a few memories as I also used to work in the Cowley factory, and later on for Morris Garages which were a truck sales outlet and part of the Nuffield trust.

Very nostalgic stuff.
Cheers
RS

Great stuff a lot of history in there.