Walker Trucks - Rongotea and Electric Vehicles

WALKER TRUCKS - RONGOTEA, & ELECTRIC VEHICLES

With members invited to display their cars at the April Rongotea Car Show Day, the following article, a bit of Rongotea History, may be of interest to some:

In August 1917 two electric lorries drove silently into The Square, ”creating a great deal of interest - especially from men interested in up-to-date traction”. Rongotea was the first dairy factory in New Zealand to invest in electric vehicles. Electricity was all the rage in the early 20th century. Like IT 100 years later, it was seen as a force that would transform the future. All the streets could be lit at night, industry revolutionised and housework would become a breeze. A Christchurch star columnist suggested “the electric iron has made ironing a pleasure”

Rongotea Co-operative Dairy Company’s Walker trucks, 1918. The pressed steel wheels ran on solid rubber tyres. and buying his wife an electric oven, a husband could conserve his wife's “youth and energy”. Christchurch City led the adoption of this new technology on account of the newly opened Lake Coleridge hydroelectric station. By 1920 council buses, service vehicles and even the dog catcher’s ‘paddy wagon’ were electrically powered using rechargeable Edison nickel/iron batteries. The city council promoted electric vehicles, promising “power at prices which would make petrol look positively silly”. The Walker trucks bought by Rongotea’s Co-op Dairy Company were built in Chicago. While they had only a top speed of 22kph and a range of about 65km, the Walker’s simplicity and reliability made it a practical solution for delivering and collecting goods within a limited area. This made it ideal for a co-operative dairy factory based in a small town serving farms within a 20 to 30km radius.

Hodder and Tolley used a Walker for local cartage. It is shown above on the Feilding Borough Council weighbridge.

They were the most popular electric truck in New Zealand and were used by dairy factories, local government and private firms such as coal merchants, bakers and home milk suppliers. Palmerston North ran an electric truck refuse collection until the mid1930s. By the early 20th century dairying had become the main source of income for Rongotea farmers. By 1911 the farmer-owned co-operative dairy company built the substantial brick building, which still stands in the centre of the township. Initially farmers brought their milk in metal churns to the factory by horse and cart. The cream was then separated to make butter. By 1914 many farmers were using home separators and feeding the skim milk to their pigs. This in turn led to the dairy factory collecting the cream by truck. The Rongotea Dairy company’s first motor vehicles were two petrol-driven trucks, a Dion and an Argyll. These were replaced in 1917 by 3 Walkers, which reduced the cost of cream collection from £868 pounds per annum to £478. The impulse to change to electric power may have come from the Company Secretary Alexander Sinclair. He left Rongotea to take up the position of General Manager of the Edison battery agency in Christchurch. From here he would preach the gospel of electric vehicles and Edison batteries to local bodies throughout the country. “Sixty miles for 2d!”, he told a group of businessmen and Borough Councillors in Whangarei, quoting Rongotea’s annual savings by way of example Like today’s electric vehicles, the Walker had no gearbox or clutch because it could develop peak power at 0rpm. The electric motor was contained in the differential housing on the back axle and transmitted its power directly via a simple reduction gearing inside each back wheel. The controls were basic - a steering wheel, two brake pedals on other side of the steering column, a speed control lever and a foot pedal to reverse the motor. Power came from a bank of Edison batteries held in a container beneath the tray. These would be charged overnight. The company even sold its surplus power to the local council to power the town’s street lights. Like most trucks today, Walkers were supplied to the buyer as a chassis to which a suitable body and cab could be fitted, usually by a local coachbuilder. Rongotea’s trucks had a reasonably comprehensive cab with rolled canvas ‘blinds’ above each doorway. These were built by Glover’s blacksmiths and coach builders whose premises stood opposite the dairy factory on Douglas Square. When the Awahuri Dairy Company bought a pair of Walkers they opted for the more