For those interested in old Lorries

[37114]

I thought as we have threads on here for old buses and old cars, we should probably have one for old lorries. I have a few pictures below of what would now be considered old but were new at the time (1997) lorries from the first company I worked for. Unfortunately they closed up shop in 2010 but the happy memories live on and they still rate as one of the best companies I worked for (apologies for the poor quality):

 

 

I also found one of the lorries in a scrapyard earlier this year, sadly worse for wear:

 

 

 

Over to you...

[BernardTPM]

Nice ERFs. Actually, I've got a picture of a slightly older ERF my Dad took in July 1955 at Ullapool:

 

OK, it's actually just part of a larger picture, but this is a lorry thread.

[37114]

Nice shot Bernard, all handball loading as well.

[admiles]

Strange how some hauliers just disappear from the scene. I remember George Taylor vehicles running out of the Port of Felixstowe

for years, then suddenly they're gone. Always a nicely turned out fleet in a distinctive livery.  Sad to hear they're gone.

Edited July 4, 2017 by admiles

[NorthBrit]

Nice shot Bernard, all handball loading as well.

Handball loading!   That takes me back.

[NorthBrit]

A picture (of a photograph) of the late John Thompson's wagon NTY 50 of W.A. Glendinning's, Shotley Bridge, Consett.   Many a driver's tales he would recall.  Great times.

Here is a model of W.A. Glendinning's wagon 

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

Nice ERFs. Actually, I've got a picture of a slightly older ERF my Dad took in July 1955 at Ullapool...

Which revealingly has an 'ole in the front to take an engine starting handle. A coal merchant operating in WGC got it badly wrong with this implement outside my childhood home, and my mother (SRN) had his hand and wrist nicely strapped up before the ambulance arrived to take him to Welwyn QVM hospital.

 

The joys of old trucks...

[PhilJ W]

Nice ERFs. Actually, I've got a picture of a slightly older ERF my Dad took in July 1955 at Ullapool:

Mac Fisheries ERF 1955.jpg

 

OK, it's actually just part of a larger picture, but this is a lorry thread.

And no decompression lever, wouldn't like to hand crank that.

[Rugd1022]

Not a great shot admittedly but it's the only one I ever took of one of the once ubiquitous Rugby Cement road tank fleet we used to see round here, day in day out, still, at least it captures the remains of Parkfield Road level crossing and the sidings before they were all swept away for a new flat road junction...

 

 

 

[37114]

Strange how some hauliers just disappear from the scene. I remember George Taylor vehicles running out of the Port of Felixstowe

for years, then suddenly they're gone. Always a nicely turned out fleet in a distinctive livery.  Sad to hear they're gone.

Indeed, they just parked the fleet up rather than gradually shrinking away but it didn't surprise me they stopped in that way. The owners were very savvy, owned everything outright and rather than cut corners, reduce service etc, they called time. Fuel costs had gone up a third, rates stayed stagnant or gone down and with no likelihood of the economics changing they made the right choice.

 

Which revealingly has an 'ole in the front to take an engine starting handle. A coal merchant operating in WGC got it badly wrong with this implement outside my childhood home, and my mother (SRN) had his hand and wrist nicely strapped up before the ambulance arrived to take him to Welwyn QVM hospital.

 

The joys of old trucks...

 

Ouch, I have hand started my Land Rover and a few old cars with handles over the years and always am wary of the handle kicking back, especially as I have already had a wrist operation which has never been 100% since.

Edited July 4, 2017 by 37114

[Arthur]

Taylor's fleet always looked very smart and professional, sad that they could no longer continue.

 

In the 70's we used to hand start large a diesel compressor at the steelworks where I worked. A big old lump mounted on a four wheeled trailer. That did have a decompression lever and once you had the knack it wasn't too bad. One swinging the handle, the other dropping the compression lever at the right time. The main thing to remember was to keep your thumbs out of the way because if it kicked back, broken thumbs were the likely result.

 

The old timers used to hand crank lorries by swinging the starting handle on a bit of rope. You could get two men on the rope and you were not in direct contact with the handle. It was basically a case of repeatedly swinging the handle just through the bottom third of its revolution and eventually it would kick over.

 

Fortunately for me, such delights had disappeared when I took my HGV in 1980....

 

.....in one of these, not a classic, just a workaday wagon of the 70s, a Dodge 500.

 

 

Cummins Chrysler V6 with a 5 or 6 speed box and two speed rear axle. The biggest fleet user was the Post Office. I note that the one in the photo has Perkins engine badge which surprises me. I had thought that the Perkins engine had only been used in some rigid models not in the tractor units.

 

I did my course with the Road Transport Industry Training Board, RTITB, for those who remember it, at their Little Hulton site just outside Manchester, doing my test from the Heywood testing centre.

 

The RTITB was one of a number of bodies set up under a govt. initiative to provide training in industries which had large numbers of small operators who were too small to provide training themselves. The construction industry was another. Companies paid a levy and members had a discount for employees taking the courses.

.

Edited July 4, 2017 by Arthur

[w124bob]

I remember Rugby Cement lorries being a common sight in my home town because the chassis/cabs, mostly Foden, were kitted out a local firm. Bostock and Barsby, Hazel Way Barwell.

[Arthur]

And segueing neatly from the steelworks mentioned above here we have some classic eight wheelers belonging to the fleet of said works. In the livery of the Lancashire Steel Manufacturing Company, four Foden S21s, the 'Mickey Mouse' cab, line up just inside the works main gate sometime around 1960, a few years before my time there.

 

 

and a side view of two of them. These were large wagons back then but the cabs are tiny and low mounted by today's standards. There were also some S21 four wheelers in the fleet.

 

 

This was the Irlam works of the Lancashire Steel Corporation situated on the A57 a few miles west of Manchester. We lived right by the A57, a couple of miles back towards Manchester, and these wagons were a very common sight grinding their way eastwards laden with coils of steel rod and steel wire.

 

.

[Fat Controller]

Bassetts of Tittensor (near Stone) still had some of these, beautifully maintained, into the late 1970s.

[Giles]

 

I had not come across of these little beauties till this weekend - a little '45 Bedford O artic

Edited July 5, 2017 by Giles

[Dava]

Anyone else remember S. Harrison & Sons [sheffield] fleet of gold lined red Scammell Highwayman artics? Still on steel haulage, seen on the M1 & A57 in the 1990's and much of the fleet, including 8-wheelers, truck-mounted crane and trailers still stored at the depot visible from the Tinsley viaduct. My photos are tucked away on film in the loft but there were 2 Barclay 0-4-0STs which looked beyond repair but were extracted and overhauled at the Ecclesbourne Valley Railway.

 

Dava

[Arthur]

Oh yeah, including this third axle Highwayman.

 

 

 

Real dinosaurs of the road.

Edited July 5, 2017 by Arthur

[w124bob]

More Harrison stuff here https://www.flickr.com/groups/1105081@N22/pool/ Scroll down the first page there's a rusty tank engine lurking behind a wall!

Edited July 5, 2017 by w124bob

[37114]

Oh yeah, including this third axle Highwayman.

 

 

Real dinosaurs of the road.

IIRC correctly Harrisons had a couple of Fodens from the 70's which they bought new but then never put on the road which always struck me as strange when they many of the rest of the fleet was so old. A fantastic fleet though.

[Enterprisingwestern]

Whilst in Sheffield, has anyone got pics of the A E Evans AEC tanker fleet?

 

Mike.

[Rugd1022]

At Brooklands this morning...

 

 

 

 

 

 

[RANGERS]

Bassetts of Tittensor (near Stone) still had some of these, beautifully maintained, into the late 1970s.

 

Bassetts had some of the last registered, F or G registered. There were a number of S21s still active, mostly with owner drivers, on stone haulage from the peak quarries around Buxton in the eighties, they were a regular sight on the A6 into Manchester. The last time I saw one was almost into the nineties, it was quite a shock to see it heading out of Hazel Grove towards Buxton at a rate of knots, albeit empty.

 

There were still a number in showland service in the nineties and probably beyond, Mannings of Cheshunt ran a very well known one and several showman in the Nottingham area ran ex Blue Circle examples.

[Fat Controller]

Bassetts had some of the last registered, F or G registered. There were a number of S21s still active, mostly with owner drivers, on stone haulage from the peak quarries around Buxton in the eighties, they were a regular sight on the A6 into Manchester. The last time I saw one was almost into the nineties, it was quite a shock to see it heading out of Hazel Grove towards Buxton at a rate of knots, albeit empty.

 

There were still a number in showland service in the nineties and probably beyond, Mannings of Cheshunt ran a very well known one and several showman in the Nottingham area ran ex Blue Circle examples.

I renewed quite a few of the clutch and brake linings for these, when I worked for a motor factors in Stoke in the late 1970s. We acquired several sets of shoes and plates from scrapped vehicles, so we could offer like-for-like replacements off the shelf. Time was money for these owner-drivers, so they would willingly pay a premium for quick turn-round.

Bassett's Fodens were relative youngsters; someone near Tean was running a 'Chinese-six' 1940s Morris Commercial on clay from Stoke yard into the 1980s.

[37114]

I renewed quite a few of the clutch and brake linings for these, when I worked for a motor factors in Stoke in the late 1970s. We acquired several sets of shoes and plates from scrapped vehicles, so we could offer like-for-like replacements off the shelf. Time was money for these owner-drivers, so they would willingly pay a premium for quick turn-round.

Bassett's Fodens were relative youngsters; someone near Tean was running a 'Chinese-six' 1940s Morris Commercial on clay from Stoke yard into the 1980s.

 

Like Bassett's who are still running, another fleet still with us that had some interesting old lorries a few years ago was Tyson H Burridge; 

 

They had a few Dennisons which were rare, one is preserved:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/48950471@N02/9518181835/in/photolist-6yib2V-8gRZJy-fv6aRn-6ynkJG

 

They also ran some of the Spanish Dodges, one lasting into the 90's but recabbed with a Dennison cab as the Spanish cabs rusted badly:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/steveburrow/3820248843/in/photolist-6PzLTn-rMhUm7-ectVvh-oxgBJN-fwDJZn-8oCQkQ-o68Nb4-mhdbHi-pzXKdd-dkmhwN-c9odH5-i8vCrK-fz5eEV-kN1s1V-r2pxiY-i8u6yX-qgLveT-i9i4fe-WqgG7J-i8vZGF-neXkYT-SLJvdC-dPBKyN-nwBc4m-6Nt9vz-ojpmXj-hY7Zce-ciAUgQ-oVT2xF-o3vT3Y-7RAM8d-i8vN3u-jGkXLn-q56oNC-o1MamL-i2Msxa-ndNntL-7yK4rG-oVcFpc-oGivvQ-pnpUbJ-o1AasE-7hpPez-i8tZfL-gncQTM-dkmdvm-9cRqpM-eveyqu-nhfxRT-hY1ubD

[Rugd1022]

Fairford Station in the '50s...