Bewick:
Well EC11 I stand corrected ! But when I was running my first motor, Ford D1000, 68/69 I used to sub lots of bits off J & W back to my area S. Westmorland and Furness , Lancaster areas. I was often in Watts depot once and twice a week and often there would be a Hodgsons motor there as well ! Obviously I didn’t know anything else about them I just assumed they were working with Watts certainly not any of the info you have but can I ask you when did Hodgsons finish or sell out ? If they had 5 shunters in the south they were a much larger outfit than I thought they were. Cheers Bewick.
i think they finished around about 1980. the fellow that owned the firm[bill croswaite] lost his son and lost heart in the job - he sold a lot of the motors to Ireland and some of the oil contracts went to Robson with some of the motors- myself and another ex employee were having a reminise the other week and we started counting the old drivers and vehicles and jobs they did- we got to 52 motors and 60+ drivers