Wallis Advance Road Roller

Alan Barnes weighs the merits of modelling one of these road rollers.

- Alan Barnes

For the scale modeller who likes a challenge the construction of a miniature steam road roller will certainly present the builder with some interesting issues. There are few kits for road rollers available on the market so building a particular model from scratch is probably the only solution.

A challenging prototype would be the Wallis and Steevens Advance Road Roller, a revolutionary design which was developed in the early 1920s. Fortunately for anyone considering such a project a good many of the original drawings can be found among the archives of the Museum of English Rural Life in Reading.

For those contemplating such a build a look at the design and development of the Advance Roller may well be useful. By the 1920s Wallis & Steevens Ltd. in Basingstoke had over forty years’ experience in the building of steam road rollers but the traditional heavy road rollers had their drawbacks when it came to the preparation of tarmac road surfaces. These heavy machines were fine for the compaction of the base of the road but they were not suitable for the creation of a smooth surface on the top layer of asphalt, especially if the road had a camber.

One solution was the use of the tandem roller which had been developed by some companies but contractor Henry Woodham of Catford was not a great fan of this type of machine. With Woodhams being one of Wallis & Steevens’ most important customers it was not surprising that Frank Wallis applied himself to the design of a new road roller which would be more suitable for modern road construction.