Smith Electric Vehicles and general Milk Float tat

[cms206]

Not a huge deal of experience with anything electric (the closest we got to a milk round when I was growing up in a delightful* garden suburb** of Paisley was "The Ginger Man" in a Dodge 50) but we did have a sizeable fleet of Lansing P200s when I was at the airport; the last batch (AV01506-1510) replaced a mixed bag of earlier examples.

 

Servisair 29-3767 by cms206, on Flickr

 

AV01509 in particular for some reason was an absolute flyer; didn't drive many of the earlier examples.

 

Keeping the road going theme, British Airways' Lansing P200s were all road registered; the two used by BA Cargo at Glasgow were F512 PLA and H379 FLD...

 

British Airways - H379 FLD by cms206, on Flickr

 

 

Their more modern equivalent is the Charlatte T137/T140 like this example:

 

Servisair 29-3774 by cms206, on Flickr

 

 

Keeping things shite, the diesel-electric powered Charlatte T225D...

 

Servisair 29-3759 by cms206, on Flickr

 

... had a 1.5 PSA diesel engine.

[freebird]

This has actually given me a semi....

Stumbled upon, in a roundabout way, while flea baying Milk floats for sale ( there wernt any apart from matchbox/Dinky and pikey Transits ) so it would appear all reports of the Electric milk floats demise is seriously premature.

Friends, Romans and other persons, I give you http://www.milkfloats.org.uk/index.html.

This proves that Autoshite is not the only refuge for those who feel disenfranchised from mainstream society or summat.

Enjoy.

[brickwall]

CAn I ask why the airport shunters are diesel genny with electric motor? Is it for torque? Is there a separate motor for each driven wheel like quarry vehicles?

[Justin Case]

A five-wheel Wales and Edwards, ex Unigate at the Museum. I think that it worked in South Birmingham. It doesn't need much more than a new set of batteries to put it back on the road, but a new set of batteries is £8k

 

Five Wheels on my Wagon by geoffp5, on Flickr

[jonathan_dyane]

 

I nearly made one of these tip over once. I was a stupid student and was walking somewhere very worse for the wear after an awful foray into magic mushrooms. I didn't hear it coming and stepped in front of it, which resulted in a rather spectacular manouvere and getting sworn at by the milkman.

[Wilko220]

I was going to put this "barn find" in eBay Bargains, but I thought I'd give this old thread a bump instead...

 

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/early-1900s-Pickering-milk-cart-BARN-FIND-great-condition-/360679471155?pt=Automobiles_UK&hash=item53fa2bf833

[brickwall]

I think you need Mt Grimsdale's horse for that one as opposed to Consolidated Dairies electric wagons.

[scruff]

We had this at work for a few months. It's a Brush "Electric Pony" and came from the Atomic Weapons place at Aldermaston.

 

[brickwall]

It should have stayed there.

[CortinaDave]

I always think the demise of the milk float is a great example of how progress doesn't always equal better. In the 80s your milk was delivered at 3am by a silent milk float as you slept. In 2013 your milk is delivered by a bunch of fat blokes in a diesel transit van at 3am, ensuring you are rudely awoken.

[CortinaDave]

.

[Junkman]

I always think the demise of the milk float is a great example of how progress doesn't always equal better.

 

Progress is always better. However, progress stopped in the early 70s for some odd reason. Since then, we don't have progress, we merely have change. For the worse.

 

Progress, in the sense of this thread, would mean an electric milk float, that needs half the electricity of a 1973 one for the same performance, while at the same time being even quieter and providing a more ambient work environment for the milkman.

[jonny69]

Re. the fleet of milkfloats at Pinewood used as prop haulers:

Yes, I can confirm they did. I was quite surprised by how many they had on site when I did some filming there in about February 2003. I have to say, there were quite a few dotted around the site, but I don't think I can spot any in the aerial photo.

 

Funny this thread should pop up, I was actually at Pinewood a few weeks ago as an audience member. I haven't been there since 2003 but I couldn't see any signs of the hoards of old milkfloats despite having a decent walk through the site to get to the studio we were in.

[scruff]

I went in last year just after they had finished Skyfall and were pulling apart the set for the last Dark Knight - there were a couple of milkfloats dotted around.

[Wilko220]

In tribute to the closure of the Transit factory...

 

[trigger]

I've just spotted the name, awesome!

[maxpower]

redbull anyone?

 

 

i liked driving these but the makers (modec) went tits up.

 

[Junkman]

[Mrs6C]

On 12/20/2012 at 8:55 PM, eddyramrod said:

Someone on here really should buy an old milk float...

Guilty!

It's a 1974 Wales & Edwards Rangemaster.

[eddyramrod]

Excellent!  Isn't that the same model they used in The Living Daylights?

[Mrs6C]

Yes, although the James Bond one was a slightly later body with twin headlights. Mine is a Cyclops headlight version.

[LightBulbFun]

3 hours ago, Mrs6C said:

Guilty!

It's a 1974 Wales & Edwards Rangemaster.

I never really thought someone going about buying a milk float or what they worth exactly!

I don't see coffee being sold out of them, so thankfully I don't think the hipsters have gotten to them, (yet! I really shouldn't say anything for fear of jinxing it!)

 

I remember back in my primary school days, there was a milk float that delivered milk (and bread most curiously) to the school, or at least I always saw it parked next to the school/driving around the roads around the school, so I assume thats what it was doing

it was the only milk float I saw with any regularity I think, sadly I dont recall many details about it

 

heres one I papped last year  

https://autoshite.com/topic/30877-what-makes-you-grin-antidote-to-grumpy-thread/?do=findComment&comment=1598054

 

 

much like Invacars and what have you, milk floats are one of those things, that you sort of remember being "everywhere" then suddenly you realise "oh when was the last time i saw one!"

 

(would sticking a Tesla drivetrain into a milk float be the electric equivalent of sticking a Rover V8 into a Hyundai stellar?)

[Matty]

Don't remember leccy milkfloats round here 1980s. Remember the daisy dairy a-series floats that were noisy as fuck and woke you up idling in the street

[ETCHY]

I do like electric milkfloats they're just such pleasant machines. Imagine a vehicle purpose built to cause less noise so it doesn't wake people up. It really is from another more considerate time.

It always amuses me that in our modern eco friendly world we individually go to supermarkets or petrol stations to get milk (often driving there  in a petrol/diesel car) whereas once upon a time in those (allegedly) less eco friendly times a milkman delivered milk to multiple peoples doors in one electric vehicle whilst recycling their empty bottles...

[Slowsilver]

I was born and lived until the age of 19 in a house opposite the Co-op dairy in Ransome Road, Northampton.
My earliest memories are of being woken up at around 5am by the clip-clop of hooves from the horse-drawn floats.
This would have been in the mid-fifties.
In IIRC the early sixties they were replaced by early electric versions. These were very quiet at constant speed but because the speed control was by mechanical uniselectors every time they speeded up or slowed down the step changes in speed would shake the entire vehicle and every one of the hundreds of glass bottles on board would rattle against its metal crate.
Because our house was directly opposite the entrance they were all either accelerating out of or decelerating into the yard so we were subjected to this cacophony every morning from about 5am until about 8am.
Oddly enough the ones returning with the empty bottles made far more noise than those leaving with full ones. I guess they had less damping when empty so moved about more.
We got used to the noise and actually missed it for a while when the quieter electronically-controlled models were introduced.

 

[UltraWomble]

10 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

I don't see coffee being sold out of them, so thankfully I don't think the hipsters have gotten to them, (yet! I really shouldn't say anything for fear of jinxing it!)

 

Fecking jinx

[STUNO]

7 hours ago, ETCHY said:

I do like electric milkfloats they're just such pleasant machines. Imagine a vehicle purpose built to cause less noise so it doesn't wake people up. It really is from another more considerate time.

It always amuses me that in our modern eco friendly world we individually go to supermarkets or petrol stations to get milk (often driving there  in a petrol/diesel car) whereas once upon a time in those (allegedly) less eco friendly times a milkman delivered milk to multiple peoples doors in one electric vehicle whilst recycling their empty bottles...

I go back ti a slightly different time. In this part of the world there were no electric floats. Our milk was delivered in the back of an Austin A40 Devon utility truck . On the back was a 20 or so gallon milk can and milk was decanted using  a 1 and or 2 pint dipper into the householders billycan, no bottles required !

 Improvements to the system mean we now have to drive to the supermarket and buy a plastic bottle of milk.

But the real problem is this-----  Is an A40 utility a Devon or a Dorset ? Answers by e-mail to someone else please.

[beko1987]

My dad was a milkman in the early 90's apparently... He crashed the float and had to walk home to ring the dairy as the payphone in our estate wasn't working... 

[dollywobbler]

The three wheeler collection grows!

[Tadhg Tiogar]

20 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

.....(would sticking a Tesla drivetrain into a milk float be the electric equivalent of sticking a Rover V8 into a Hyundai stellar?)

You're not the only one to have thought of a Tesla-powered milk float. The result would probably go beyond a V8 Stellar, and would be capable of considerably more than 4 miles an hour.