Midland Counties Dairy Milk Float ROM 65

The large Midland Counties Dairy fleet standardised on Morrison-Electricar trucks from the mid-1950s. 100 were delivered in 1955 for the Birmingham depots.

They came as complete vehicles, the chassis manufacturer also supplying the bodies with its standard cab design. Midland Counties bought around 500 more over the next decade. These, however, had cabs and bodies produced by the dairy's own workshop to its own distinctive design. The first 100, including this truck ROM 65, were refurbished in the 1960s with new Midland Counties bodies, giving the Birmingham fleet a very uniform appearance.

ROM 65 is thus typical of Midland Counties trucks in the years before becoming part of Unigate. Very many houses around Birmingham would have received milk every day delivered by a truck like this. Midland Counties introduced cool boxes in their design. Dairy related products such as cream and butter went in the cool boxes. On hot days milk could start to go off by the end of the round so keeping some full crates in the cool boxes was a good idea.

Preservation

Unigate management kindly allowed us to choose the vehicle we wanted and we selected ROM 65 from Woodgate depot. Delivered to us in January 1989, so far it has been displayed in its final Unigate colour scheme.