These two old yard shunters where hand crank started. In fact, the starting handle was made long enough to allow two people to swing on it.
The Thornycroft had a decompression handle.

When temperatures where low, the yard boy would wheel out the welding bottles and heat the intake manifold .....after this, two of the heaftiest guys around would swing the handle....until one day someone came up with ether .

Apparently they squirted ether into the warmed manifold, set the de-comp' lever and swung.........the lever clicked off...the flywheel brought the engine to
nearly tdc and the ether fired.......just one problem.......it fired off in reverse rotation..........the old Thornycroft ran the engine up higher and higher until the starting handle flew off taking one headlamp with it and then a few seconds later the engine disintergrated..........I was hiding around the shop with the guys who'd run for cover when this happened at 4.30 am .....I had just arrived to do a run to London.

Later on...around 1969/70 the new trucks came equipped with Ky-Gas bottle start fluid systems.

__________________
[http://languageandgrammar.com/2008/01/14/youve-got-problems-not-issues/ ]

"A liberal is someone who feels they owe a great debt to their fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money."