{"id":113,"date":"2020-07-16T01:48:07","date_gmt":"2020-07-16T00:48:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.teignrail.co.uk\/scouting\/?p=113"},"modified":"2025-07-09T00:40:01","modified_gmt":"2025-07-08T23:40:01","slug":"40-sightings-of-the-utilicon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.teignrail.co.uk\/scouting\/40-sightings-of-the-utilicon\/","title":{"rendered":"40 Sightings of the Utilicon\/Autotruck"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Variously referred to as the Utilicon <\/em>or Autotruck<\/em>, or other choice names, depending upon their running condition, the two “three-by-twos” owned by the railway have between them given nearly 40 years’ service.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Utilicon<\/em> may be derived from “utility conveyance” and was a proprietary name given to a type of vehicle body that could be both a van and a passenger carrier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stanley A.F. West Ltd., the horticultural machinery supplier from which the railway bought its first one in 1982, advertized it as a “Piaggio Autotruck,” although there was little similarity with the Lister Autotruck<\/em> other than that it was a three-wheeled goods vehicle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The original requirement was for a truck that would be useful on sites and able to get into confined spaces. The first one did much of this “local work,” and with its four-speeds in both directions and an odometer that deducted in reverse, a day’s arduous work often showed little or no mileage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As well as normal East Dartmoor<\/em> district work, the vehicles had to be capable of covering the occasional long distance diagram. These have seen the little Tuscan workhorses reach such far-flung places as Kingswear, Plymouth, Bodmin, Bude, Barnstaple, Minehead, Taunton and Axminster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n