The history of the museum’s Aveling steam roller begins on 22nd September 1926 when she left their Rochester works and was loaded onto a railway well-waggon for delivery to Lowestoft Corporation. Here she joined their other 1914 built Aveling roller with the joint task of maintaining Lowestoft’s ever-expanding road network.
RT 2474 seems to have led a somewhat uneventful life in Lowestoft until 1938 when an old tram shelter was moved some 100 yards from outside the Harbour Hotel to the Royal Plain. This was accomplished by the use of skates and block and tackle with RT 2474 acting as an anchor. By co-incidence this shelter can now be found in Herting Street at our museum following its rescue in 2005.
By 1963 after a working life of some 37 years, she was replaced by a modern diesel roller and was left abandoned at the rear of the Corporation’s yard in Rotterdam Road, known locally as ‘Smith’s Marsh’.
Luckily the EATM’s founder chairman ‘Dick Bird’ purchased her and after refurbishment RT 2474 was steamed to Carlton Colville where she was soon busy rolling once again. After failing her boiler inspection c1974 she was sold on and following an extensive re-build in Kent returned to our museum in 1988 having been purchased by local businessman Roger Gouldby.
In 1997 she was purchased jointly by the Colin Newberry, Paul Hemnell and Peter Wells who became EATM members and called themselves the ‘Lowestoft Roller Group’. By 2016 her firebox was in need of replacement and she was sold to our museum largely because of her historic importance. She is now housed in the ‘Tar, Sweat & Steam’ building where she is in the care of the museum’s Steam Section.
Information Credit to Bernie Ward
