The Wickham trolley was a railway engineering personnel carrier, the type commonly used on British Railways was the type No.27 Gang and Inspection trolley. It was introduced in 1948 and over 600 were built between then and 1990, of which 25 went to the Ministry of Supply / MoD between 1954 and 1960. One was featured in 1966 film The Great St Trinian's Train Robbery, filmed in part on the Longmoor Military Railway.
Several other types were also produced, some versions did away with the rear passenger carrying area and used this section for tools and even a diesel generator or air compressor. Most were capable of pulling a trailer wagon with tools but were then restricted to a two-man crew.
Early models of the permanent way maintenance ganger's trolley used a vee-twin JAP engine. This drove through a large flat flywheel and a friction drive. On later models a standard four-cylinder motor car engine, e.g., the Ford Anglia car 100E engine, provided power through a standard three-speed gearbox to a final chain drive transfer gearbox which included the forward and reverse selection.
