Re: Emailing: IMG_0039.jpg
  Tony Galloway

Hi Graham

Here’s a bit of video showing Karachi trams in operation, including some shots of how the controls were operated :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVnkS6Y8VVI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVnkS6Y8VVI

The system (at least part of it) lasted longer than you suggested, with the final run 30 April 1975.

Tony G


> On 22 Jul 2017, at 2:12 pm, Graham Hockingpf4366@... [TramsDownUnder] TramsDownUnder@...> wrote:

>

>

> Your message is ready to be sent with the following file or link

> attachments:

> IMG_0039.jpg

>

> This is my 1/24th scale model of a Karachi four foot gauge petrol tram

> as originally built in 1909 by The Lion Works, Lewes, East Sussex for

> the East India Tramways Company, later, in 1911 incorporated as the

> Motor Rail Company. The model was built in 2006 with a Mashima

> motor/ABC gears,and runs on 2 rail '0' gauge track.

>

> The original design featured the Dixon-Abbott patent two sped gearbox

> permitting equal speeds in either direction. Engineer John Dixon-Abbott

> was an East India Tramways director, and he and his father and brother

> were directors of the Motor Rail Company.

>

> These 1909 petrol trams plus some later examples were rebuilt over many

> years, were fitted with Perkins diesel engines, and after the creation

> of Pakistan in 1948, the company became Mohammed Ali Tramways, closing

> finally in ?1959, services having become very unreliable.

>

> Nothing remains today. Plan for the model supplied by Terry Russell,

> who served in Karachi durng his National Service in he RAF, and drew the

> plan from life at that time..

>

> Trading under the name 'Simplex', Motor Rail later moved to Bedford and

> famously made many hundreds of 2 foot gauge petrol tractors in various

> forms for trench railway use in the 1914-18 war, and light locomotives

> in many gauges with both petrol and diesel propulsion for many years

> afterwards. Today, Simplex Mechanical Handling is owned by Alan Keef Ltd.,

> who continue to manufacture and market the Simplex brand of small

> locomotives.

> Regards

> G.

>

>

> <IMG_0039.jpg>