Scottish Traders’ Wagons Volume One: History and Traders A to D

Over 50,000 traders’ wagons were registered by the Scottish railway companies post-1889, and many more built prior to registration remained in traffic into the 20th Century. In this series an attempt has been made to identify every Scottish user of traders’ wagons in the period c1845 to 1948. Volume 1 opens with general information about the Scottish traders, their often-fraught relationship with the railway companies and the legal and regulatory context under which they operated, which differed from elsewhere in the UK. Subsequent chapters provide information about the builders who supplied the wagons, sources of finance, the geographical distribution of the wagons and their use; technical information on the wagons themselves from the earliest days. Later chapters begin an alphabetical directory of traders, which will continue over the other two volumes. Finally, a comprehensive list of primary source material is provided, in the hope that others may wish to research this fascinating and complex subject.