Northern Territory pics

[Jon Skagfeld]

Originally Posted by motto

Charles 'Bud' Tingwell flew Mosquito aircraft out of Coomalie Creek with No 87 Squadron RAAF on photo recconaisance missions up into the East Indies in 1945
Bud's post service career in the entertainment industry later made his a household name but he never mentioned his war service most of which was spent on Spitfires in North Africa.

David

He also portrayed the prosecutor in "Breaker Morant."

[Lang]

Robin

It was a term for a low wagon or carriage for heavy loads (could even have referred to a sled for logs or rocks)

Carried over from the horse days but replaced with the modern expression "trailer"

Lang

[motto]

The application of the word drug to this type of transport would have to derive from the word drag and it may not have had widespread usage at any time and may spring from an individuals dialect.
I have a book on the early days of heavy haulage in Scotland and the north of England in which there is text and photographs relating to loads of up to 130 tons. The trailers on which these loads were carried usually had no steering as that would have increased the height of the load to an unacceptable level. These trailers had to be 'dragged' or skidded around corners.
Another comment made in the book is that the trailers didn't have any form of braking and that the wheel bearings had that much rolling resistance that motion would cease when you stopped pulling.
If that doesn't constitute a 'drag' I don't know what would.

David

[Lang]

Dave

Interesting word - no doubt from "drag"

I had never heard it until this thread but within a few days I saw reference to a "drug" on the battlefield in France in WW1 hauling a huge siege gun.

I found the reference I put up above on Google but I think it is one of the more simple mysteries of word origin.

The park drag carriage was a lighter, more elegant version of the Road Coach. A park drag (or simply drag) is also known as a "private coach" as it was owned by private individuals for their own personal driving. A park drag has seats on its top and is usually driven to a team of four well-matched carriage horses.

Maybe it comes from Mr Gurney who invented a use for his steam engine - "The Gurney Drag"



Lang