Drewry Car Co.

Drewry Car Co, strictly speaking, was a railway locomotive and railcar sales organisation for most of its life. Only at the start and the end of its life did it build its own products, relying on sub-contractors for the rest of its time. It was quite separate from the lorry-builder, Shelvoke and Drewry, but it is believed that James Sidney Drewry was involved with both companies.

Drewry & Sons ran a motor and cycle repair business in Herne Hill, London, and started building BSA engined inspection railcars. A ready market was found in South America, Africa, and India. Drewry Car Co Ltd was registered on 27 November 1906. In 1908 BSA (of motor-cycle fame) took over building the railcars at Small Heath, Birmingham. In 1911 building was taken over by Baguley Cars Ltd, Burton-on-Trent. From 1930 a lot of Drewry locomotives were built by English Electric companies.

In 1962 Drewry acquired a controlling interest in what had become E E Baguley Ltd, and formed Baguley-Drewry Ltd in 1987, thus once again building its own locomotives, in Burton-on-Trent. The company closed in 1984.

From 1936 a number of shunting locomotives NZR TR class were supplied to the New Zealand Railways; the 1936-41 locos were originally powered by Parsons or Leyland petrol engines.

In later years Drewry offered a fairly standard range of industrial shunting locos, and from 1952 supplied 142 0-6-0 diesel shunters to British Railways, with Gardner 8L3 204 hp engines and Wilson epicyclic gearboxes. These were BR D2200 - D2341, British Rail Class 04.

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