Hi Jeff, that’s a cracking model mate well done. 
I have not heard from Dave since I gave up Skype about four years ago, I hope that he is well.
Philippe:
Thanks Willie !
Yesterday I found this
That brought back a few memories! And the Turkish soundtrack is infinitely nicer that the Yank crap background music to the otherwise excellent video further up this page! Robert
Philippe:
Thanks Willie !
Yesterday I found this
That’s another great find.
All those Guest Arbiters from West Germany trying to get home to Turkey…in one hit. 
Along with all the crosses and flowers at the side of the road remembering the ones who didn’t quite make it.
The building on the left in Belgrade at 6 mins 22 secs and how it looked when it was joined up and finished.
The sheep dip coming out of Turkey into Bulgaria right at the end, why did I always breath a very heavy sigh of relief whenever I drove through that.
Belgrade.
Belgrade.
Had a response to one of my YouTube videos; Coming home down Tahir in spring 75/6: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxNiHy2gqlo&t=52s
A.K.Y- Amazing video.This village is where I born.Thx for sharing. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9PMyrYP0lZEY3vmp5h4P1Q
Had a look at his YouTube & saw Tahir from a local’s view - very different to the way we saw it - quite amazing: & great to get some feedback from the people there
Nice old clip… I assume it was super 8 or something like that, a big financial investment back then … Imagine the footage there would have been if we had the tec available then that we have now…I never got to do it until the mid 90’s…all good roads by that time, all it seemed to be was a longer trip, not much of an adventure and we even had sat tracking on the trucks…
Jeff…
There were at least 2 GUL registered Scania’s running in Astrans livery.GUL 599N a 140 & This 110,GUL 588N seen with a trombone LL taking a set of horse racing starting stalls to Qatar
Hi all does anybody know of any foden 4000’s or seddon atkis 411 that ran to the mid east?
Didn’t Whittle run some to the ME.Must be a Whittle site here somewhere.
bluenosebulls:
Hi all does anybody know of any foden 4000’s or seddon atkis 411 that ran to the mid east?
Globetrucker (CH) was an O/D who ran Mongolia, Kazakhstan and many places east with a LHD draw-bar Foden 4K (see LHD Foden 4000 thread). Fridercici (CH) had LHD 4Ks and did M/E but whether any of their Fodens went down there I don’t know. Haven’t heard of any Sed-Atki 411s going east (though PJ Eddington, OHS and Whittles deffo sent 400s down to the Middle-East - the first two ran LHD ones). Robert
bluenosebulls:
Hi all does anybody know of any foden 4000’s or seddon atkis 411 that ran to the mid east?
As mentioned, somebody ran a Foden 4000 from Switzerland to Mongolia. I once found the entire set of pictures on the net somewhere (Toprun possibly) and they were fantastic.
Here’s one pic I found.
Thanks chaps for that gret pic, didnt they also run a frieghtliner with that foden?
I ran through Jordan with a guy that was in a Sed Atki. Northern bloke mid 50’s at the time ( late 90’s ) Green with brown stripes 6 X 2 tag ( Sed Atki… not the driver ) I think it was a bit of a home brew job.
Globetrucker was a charity job. They did 4 runs over 4 years. fair bit of involvement from Ferdirici. The guy driving it also bought a load of Yert’s from the local Mongolians then sold them on in America, he went over to the states and hired a Freightliner to deliver them. Spoke to Ferdy about it a few years ago…
Jeff…
Jelliot:
I ran through Jordan with a guy that was in a Sed Atki. Northern bloke mid 50’s at the time ( late 90’s ) Green with brown stripes 6 X 2 tag ( Sed Atki… not the driver ) I think it was a bit of a home brew job.Globetrucker was a charity job. They did 4 runs over 4 years. fair bit of involvement from Ferdirici. The guy driving it also bought a load of Yert’s from the local Mongolians then sold them on in America, he went over to the states and hired a Freightliner to deliver them. Spoke to Ferdy about it a few years ago…
Jeff…
i saw a few videos on you tube of globetruckers. what was the atki? what were you running?
Hi Bluenose…I used to run for an Italian Company called TransMondo. We did mainly Italy China, although we did a few Middle East runs as well. At the time they ran Volvo Globetrotters with fridges or Tilts, that was mid to late 90’s…
If you look at the Globetrucker Video about 2 3rds to 3/4 of the way through it there’s a bit of footage near the Astana police check point and you see 1 then another 2 white series 3 trotters with stripped down tilts I’m pretty sure that was us as we did some big machines out to a mine near Chitta…I’m not sure what they came back with as I didn’t do that job, but I heard it was a fun run to do…
Jeff…
David H:
How bizarre!
I don’t they mean it’s the first ever trip of its kind. Rather, they mean it’s the first conducted under the TIR convention. Remember that not all countries signed up to TIR and therefore many long-haul trips were made under alternative systems or no systems at all. Also, the trip is from China to Europe - rather than the other way round - so it may well be the first proper road transport trip of its kind regardless of TIR 
. Robert
We weren’t full TIR all the way, most of the ex Russian states didn’t fully accept it, and often went out of their way to throw a spanner in the works. We were helped out by the IRU and often sent faxes to them when we “encountered situations” at checkpoints. All the trucks had satellite fax phones…
Official border crossings were usually not to bad… 40 mins to 4 hours. but the internal Police Kontrol … they could get busy in your face, and were usually very selective about who they pulled…
The IRU suggested we keep logs about the internal Kontrol. how ever we never wrote anything down just kept mental notes then passed them on at the end of the trips…
We did get some back loads from Corgos but not many…there was a large Iron foundry near Omsk that made cast iron man hole units… so we used to load back from there quit a lot… Funny when we got stopped by internal control with a load of hand ball loaded man hole covers they really weren’t that interested in digging into the load for a better look…
Maersk now run some very large container ships I believe the ulage is around 16,000 20 foot containers. the price ex harbour fees China to Europort is $359.00 US per unit… Makes you wonder why they would run it over land…
Jeff…
Dunno if this has been posted before (this thread is 260+ pages…) but I came across this on the youtubes recently:
Davies Turner To Istanbul Pt 1: youtube.com/watch?v=fViWVLiSSwQ
Part 2: youtube.com/watch?v=Ew1pmr8DuBc
Looks like early 90s to me.
Hi All
It is with great sadness I see Nigel Evans is striking Astran Cargo Services from the register at Companies House.
Does this mean he is doing away with Astran as a name altogether?
Cheers
Rich