Sydney Tramway Museum's MLZ tower wagon

Andrew Blacklock - contributor to my other old truck site Australasian Classic Commercials - sent in this photo of a wonderful Bedford M-type tower wagon. The truck was part of the annual NRMA Motorfest held on Australia Day in Sydney's CBD. Looking immaculate, you can see she has an Australian-built cab by the curved section below the door. The fixed windscreen and wind-up windows are other, less obvious indicators of this type of cab (the English cab has a push-out driver's windscreen and slide-up windows). Good to see she's got a decent set of mirrors too.

Here's the details copied verbatim from the Bedford's placard:

Throughout the era of electric tramway operation in Sydney, road tower wagons were used to service the overhead trolley wire. Initially the towers were mounted on horse-drawn drays, from the 1920s motor trucks replaced the horse vehicles. This tower wagon is representative of the type used in Sydney in the 1950s. On the closure of the Sydney tramways in 1961 several tower wagons were sold to Melbourne. In 1980 the Melbourne tramways disposed of these vehicles, one was offered to the Museum, and it returned to Sydney in 1981.

A pump, driven from the power take-off, operates a ram to raise the work platform, this platform can then be rotated through 360 degrees enabling the workers to reach well to the side of the truck. The platform has a safety handrail that can be raised and locked in position.

Make: Bedford

Model: MLZ

Year: 1950

Owner: The Sydney Tramway Museum - Loftus (South Pacific Electric Railway)

Now, as part of trying to explain the various models of Bedfords (in an attempt to make this site useful!) that I actually understand, here's a break down of what MLZ means. Firstly, of course, she's an M-type of the KMO (read K-type, M-type, O-type ... lighter payload to heavy). The M-type has a nominal rating of 2-3 ton (2032-3048 kg). The L refers to her chassis. In this case she's 'Long' (as opposed to S for 'Short') with a wheelbase of 11 ft 11in (3.63 m). Finally, the Z is the code for her factory fitout. Z = Chassis only. In other words she would have been delivered as a rolling chassis with engine, controls and, I believe, bonnet and mudguards. Makes sense given she's got an Australian-built cab. The other ML designations are MLC (chassis with cab) and MLD (dropside). It makes a lot of sense when you discover all of the designations in the Bedford Shop Manual Models K, M & O and can then apply the details to an actual truck. I've used the manual to make sure the above is correct. There's a few more designations in the KMO range but we'll cover those when there's photos to illustrate them.