Design Features
The steam wagon came in two basic forms. The overtype designs looked like a cross between a traction engine and a lorry. The front resembled a traction engine by having a cab built around a horizontal fire-tube boiler with a round smokebox and chimney (e.g. Foden). The back resembled a lorry in having a load-carrying body and being built around a chassis. (A traction engine is constructed around the boiler and has no separate chassis.)
The undertype designs have the engine under the chassis (although the boiler - usually a vertical type - remains in the cab), and generally resemble motor lorries rather than traction engines. Undertype designs often had the benefit of a more enclosed cab, and a much shorter length for the same carrying capacity.
The earliest examples of either type had steel or wooden wheels, later followed by solid rubber tyres. Various developments, such as fully enclosed cabs and pneumatic tyres, were later tried by companies in a bid to compete with internal combustion engine-powered lorries. Some wagons built to run on solid tyres were later converted to pneumatic tyres.
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