A fair load of cement, approx 10 rows from headboard to tail each row 10 x 4 bags high = 40 (2 ton x 10 =20 ton.) Back in 1969 as a regular haulier out of Cement Marketing Co (Blue Circle) Whitehaven I and numerous other regular contractors were hauling cement up to a builders merchants in Stranraer. Each morning about 10-00 am when the ferry docked from Larne a cluster of 5 & 7.5 ton Bedfords, Fords etc raced up to the yard. The drivers would say, “O’il just put 4 or 5 tons on out of the store, here’s a £1 and O’il meet you at the ferry lorry park and tranship the 15 tons off your wagon” I remember one Saturday morning when we were transhipping when a pensioner in a raincoat wandered down the ferry park, the driver of the wagon I was transhipping onto became anxious asking who I thought this man was " Do you tink he is a Ministry Man" ■■ when I enquired why he replied " well I got caught for overloading the other day" I asked by how much "Oh just 14 tons " He indicated a four wheel Commer 14 ton gross wagon parked over by the fence sheeted level with the cab roof which could have passed for 10 tons of cattle cake but was indeed cement. This went on for two or three weeks until the ferry linkspan was damaged and the shipping company clamped down on the would be millionaires. We ended up putting about 60 tons in fishing boats at Portpatrick Harbour, they were sailing out with about 1 foot of freeboard above the water.
Happy days, Leyland 600.