Home made carts!

kestrelx

kestrelx

Nori Brick
Tackler
Anyone remember making carts back in the 70's - though perhaps older folk did it in the 60's. Some used cheap pram wheels and axis and others went to this place in Oswaldtwistle where there were loads of wheels from disabled wheel chairs - I think it was, and nick them and then make these carts out of them - using wood for the structure - then race down Avenue Parade on them. Ring any bells?
 
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kestrelx said:
Anyone remember making carts back in the 70's - though perhaps older folk did it in the 60's.
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Surprisingly we had wheels in the 40's and 50's- yes, they'd been invented by then.
Making carts from old pram wheels was very popular although rolling down a cobbled street was a bit of a rough ride- tested you and the cart to destruction!

Not many disabled could afford wheelchairs then so we didn't have as good a choice as you did.
 
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We all used to make Trolleys in the 50s as we called em, Louis Hamilton had sod all on the Dowry St Racers.:D
 
kestrelx said:
Anyone remember making carts back in the 70's - though perhaps older folk did it in the 60's. Some used cheap pram wheels and axis and others went to this place in Oswaldtwistle where there were loads of wheels from disabled wheel chairs - I think it was, and nick them and then make these carts out of them - using wood for the structure - then race down Avenue Parade on them. Ring any bells?
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I bet you knicked them from next door to the Vine Mill up Ossie. My dear dad used to work their and they dealt with equipment for the disabled!!
 
Those were the days, my dad would use a hot poker to make a hole in the centre, and a few inches from the back end, of a trolley's platform and we lads would bolt in a second trolley (minus the second trolley's front wheels bogie assembly, of course) so we'd have a double length trolley. We used to race our single trolleys down the concrete path which led from Moorhouse Avenue (I think) to Fife Street. It wasn't a long course but started off quite steeply and had three bends which didn't do large pram wheels much good!
 
I had the LX luxury model...nailed an offcut piece of carpet on mine....string washing line as steering as opposed to the crappy plastic stuff my mates had and it was coloured red and white due to the wood being nicked from a disused signal box near Highams playing fields. Memory sucks now but think I got the wheels trading for some beauty marbles and a gun that fired pigeon peas (secagun??)

Remember my dad dragging me up in the middle of the night (6am), so that he could put his toolbox on it for me to drag to the bus stop when he started his new job
 
Trolley in Summer and sled in winter down the back street of Oswald/Bold St - straight across Washington St - no brakes of course so a few near misses. Happy days.
 
You aint really trollied till you been down warwick street, many a worn out pair of shoes trying to stop before Buckingham Grove.
 
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I reckon NASA used the EVAC techniques used by us guys on out of control trolleys for moon landings and for designing the mars rover :D
 
I remember going down Peel Park Ave across Burnley Rd with a lookout and down Carlisle Ave !!!!
 
sm_counsell said:
I bet you knicked them from next door to the Vine Mill up Ossie. My dear dad used to work their and they dealt with equipment for the disabled!!
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Yeh probably I don't recall the exact name of the place - I just remember it was quite a climb to get in and out, over some fences. They were off old wheel chairs and had been taken off and I think even had breaks with a lever and also metal frame/axil (some even had suspension springs but they were hard to come by) - the pram wheels didn't last as long as these - they were much stronger. I think we only did if for a year or 2 at most - bit of a fad...
 
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kestrelx said:
Yeh probably I don't recall the exact name of the place - I just remember it was quite a climb to get in and out, over some fences. They were off old wheel chairs and had been taken off and I think even had breaks with a lever and also metal frame/axil (some even had suspension springs but they were hard to come by) - the pram wheels didn't last as long as these - they were much stronger. I think we only did if for a year or 2 at most - bit of a fad...
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That would defo be Fred Millers Kes. can remember it clearly, as was next door virtually to Sterling Dog Foods, a place we had a fad fer snaffling Dog Biscuits fer a year or 2.:D
 
The chassis of the fred Miller invalid cars made great go carts. A relative of mine worked at Fred Millers as a mechanic and when the motability scheme came in the old invalid cars were phased out. He had the job of braking them.
 
what about Rose Street for trolley riders then?
Another thing we used to do was get proven sacks from Farmer Nelson and these were just great for sliding down Riley's Hill on the grass.......we used to have races......the going down the hill was great....but the run back to the top was a bit of a pain.
 
davidf said:
Those were the days, my dad would use a hot poker to make a hole in the centre, and a few inches from the back end, of a trolley's platform and we lads would bolt in a second trolley (minus the second trolley's front wheels bogie assembly, of course) so we'd have a double length trolley. We used to race our single trolleys down the concrete path which led from Moorhouse Avenue (I think) to Fife Street. It wasn't a long course but started off quite steeply and had three bends which didn't do large pram wheels much good!
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Yeh I remember using a hot poker to make holes in the wood but don't know why we didn't use a drill!?
 
I don't know if Black & Decker-type electric drills were around (or if they were, if they were affordable) in the early 1950s, whereas most people had coal fires so a hot poker was available and didn't need a long electric cable. Plus a poker would burn a decent sized hole quite quickly in one go to fit a half inch or similar size bolt. Incidentally we tried linking together more than two trolleys, but issues such as snaking led to instability problems and low speeds, perhaps because the front trolley wasn't actually pulling the trailing ones and for some of the time it was being pushed.
 
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