Chris Webb:
gingerfold:
Chris Webb:
Hi Dean.
The ERF is one of Hipwood and Grundy’s from Farnworth Lancs.They had two with the Jennings sleeper,both with 240 Gardner.Taken not long before they folded. Hipwood & Grundy was a sizable company in its day, famous for its elderly Leyland Octopus tankers that were going on for 20 years old when they closed down.
I remember those old Leylands running about Graham,usually out of BTP and LTD Cadishead early 70s.They went well with those old wagons of Horrocks as well.
Hi Chris, yes Horrocks got his money’s worth out of his old Foden tar tankers. I was talking to one of Hipwoods Octopus drivers about 6 years ago and he was adamant that in 1979 with an Octopus that was 19 years old he was still regularly going to Milford Haven, Fawley, Grangemouth and Thameshaven refineries. Goodness knows what one of today’s generation of drivers would have made of one of those Octopuses. I had to send one of my night drivers to Newmarket on Monday night with a 12 plate DAF CF which is usually my yard shunter; he had a sulk and a face like a smacked arse when I told him what he was taking because his usual much newer unit was in for service. However the 12 plate didn’t do so bad; he grudgingly admitted it was 10 minutes quicker coming back to Manchester than his usual unit. The CF had 26 pallets of frozen NZ lamb behind it, so fully freighted. 