Muir-Hill
It was established in the early 1920s and specialised in products to expand the use of the Fordson tractor, which in the pre-war days included sprung road wheels, bucket loaders, simple rail locomotives, and in particular in the 1930s they developed the dumper truck.
The latter being announced in 1921 as appointed as sole distributors for Great Britain and Ireland for Dearborn and Hinckley-Myers service equipment, Whitehead and Kale rubber-tread wheels for Fordson tractors, and Mechan steel tipping bodies and gears.
The business may have started as resellers of service equipment, and then formed the engineering company to manufacture their own Fordson accessories.
In 1962 the factory was moved from Manchester to Gloucester, and in 1968 Winget Ltd was acquired by Babcock and Wilcox Ltd, and the E.Boydell company was renamed Muir Hill Limited.
This company Lloyd Loaders MH Limited were started in the 1980s specializing into rebuilding reconditioning and repairing all types of heavy duty construction machinery specializing in many British brands as well as other makes on a large site at Hipperholme run by a team of former original employees from the famous David Brown Tractors Limited who will also restore, sell, trade and handle any construction machinery maintenance for their new owners.
This loco worked the jetty for many years and a photo exists of it in 1929 with a wooden glazed cab built by the railway.
It came to the FR on loan from the Aluminium Corporation's Cowlyd Reservoir Railway near Dolgarrog, arriving at Blaenau Ffestiniog on 9 April 1924.
The loan was arranged by Henry Joseph Jack, who at the time controlled the WHR and FR and believed that a fleet of these units could provide cost-effective haulage for most purposes.
It performed poorly on the steeply graded railway, being barely able to pull 'an ordinary guards van' from Beddgelert to South Snowdon (Rhyd Ddu).
In a further trial it ran very well from Blaenau Ffestiniog to South Snowdon with a small van but could only return to Beddgelert at 2¼ mph because of its inadequate reverse gearing.
The example shown was fitted with shunting buffers designed for standard gauge wagons, attached by strong girders to the rear axle.
[7] Tractor mounted loaders were a standard part of the Muir-Hill offering up to and after the war, with several evolutions in the associated framework to ensure stability on uneven ground.
[10] In 1962 the BD4 tractor shovel was introduced, with a 3.6 litre Fordson Super Major engine, four wheel drive, and rear steering.
The early versions of this 'dumping tractor' for sale in 1931[7] had to change wheels for use off-road or on road, but in 1933 new Dunlop low-pressure pneumatic tyres came available which removed this limitation,[13] and the trucks by now known as Muir-Hill dumpers were rapidly adopted for construction work.
This had the dumper bucket replaced by a flat bed tipper body, and had the seat rotated (so the back was towards the load), which allowed them to be registered for use on the road.
After the war Muir-Hill adopted a system whereby the drivers seat and controls could be rotated to face forward or backward.
However the traction gains were considerable (as with County and Roadless tractors) and Muir-Hills have been and are used for heavy draught applications, the manufacturer claiming the 101 could more than double your productivity.
The third surviving locomotive was new in 1925 to the Meeth (North Devon) China Clay Company, and has been completely restored and is in private ownership.
