The Early Days of Roadless Traction.

[FOWLER MAN]

Hi,
Following some interest in Roadless running gear in my recent post where I mentioned the Ransomes and Rapier crawler tractor I have done some research and this is what I was able to find out.

Roadless Traction Ltd. was started by Phillip Henry Johnson in 1919. He had at some stage worked for Fowlers so it's no surprise that the first example of Roadless tracks I could find was the steam powered Fowler Snaketrack from1920.

There were several examples of IC engined crawlers from established manufacturers of steam engines. Below is one from "Garret." The one pictured has a Barford and Perkins engine but later models were fitted with Gardner units.

And a single cylinder Marshall.

The Ransomes RT 50.

A Case.

And a couple of Fordsons.


Roadless running gear was fitted to the Ranomes MG and Bristol tractors too.

[essexpete]

Thanks Fred!

[Jeremy Rowland]

Great stuff Fred

Jeremy

[Stormin]

Some great pictures Fred.
I'm wondering if the large diameter drive wheels are a result of the lack of track flexibility. Certainly the tracks seem to be hogging rather than sagging over the top of the return rollers. It could also to be to try and match the road speeds to the original tractors wheels and not necessitate a change in gearing.

[hair bear]

Only just found this thread, so I'll add my pic (not that much of the running gear is visible!). I have the brass plate off the back somewhere that gives the track patent numbers on it. 1938.

[prairie]

To add to this post, Col Johnson was involved in the designing of the first tanks in WW1. During the early 1990's, I had the privilege of owning original drawing's of Roadless going back to 1919, there being over 20,000 drawings. Col Johnson is also mentioned at the Tank museum at Bovington, and was designing flexible tacks in the early years, also rubber tracks in the 1920's. The drawings were certainly there, an english company way ahead of its time