The Elzener Berge downhill section on the A3 Southbound was foremost famous for its accident rates. Beginning of the Seventies on avarage 350 serious incidents per year. This was due to the downhill gradient steepening over the whole lentght of the section. The downhill righthand curve kept this out of sight fro the unaware. This gave it it’s nickname “The Katzenbuckel”, (Cats back). From 1972 it was equaly famous for its multiple camera speedtraps hidden in the second and third overhead portals which earned the German state of Hessen in the year 2006 alone 19.000 speedtickets with a revenue of EURO 1,8 million. The 20th September 2019 the whole set-up was finally removed. Remember in the early days the Southbound A61 on the other Rhine bank was still under construction. So for almost all southbound traffic from Köln onwards this would be the first serious downhill. Novice truckdrivers, including myself, learned here to restrain themselves downhill, against a cost.
Well done Dan! Nice flash of Astran there. Benn Trans too, from Germany doing North Africa - used to see those in Morocco so perhaps this one was going to Tunisia via Genoa docks. Plenty of G&S from UK. I’d date the scene as early noughties. Robert
Well done Dan! Nice flash of Astran there. Benn Trans too, from Germany doing North Africa - used to see those in Morocco so perhaps this one was going to Tunisia via Genoa docks. Plenty of G&S from UK. I’d date the scene as early noughties. Robert
Yeah i saw the Benn to. Alot of oldies there. The guy who posted it has got alot of good videos on YouTube for someone who got the time.
Q: I can see the point in the Germans asking foreign trucks to ride the train from Eiffel Tor onwards, but why stop at Ludwigsburg (Stuttgart) ? It is only half way there. Why not run the train all the way to Munich or even Salzburg ? I have seen railway cars carrying trucks coming north through Werfen (this was in the 2000s) and I assume they came through the Balkans.
Website: Still piggyback on a webhost but constructing own website on another host. Uphill all the way.
At the moment cannot host the large versions of the maps on the website. Email me if you require one of the large versions and I will email/send it to you.
David Miller:
I’m a bit late on this 'cos I haven’t visited lately (you know, busy busy etc etc) but from my memory I don’t believe that anyone actually did India because the border transit was impossible. (India and Pakistan hated each other even then) The hippy busses certainly did though. We should get Spardo to write some of his recllections of that time of his life!
But Pakistan was done by lots of firms and possibly the earliest was the Bosphorus Express or Simons. However without doubt the man who did the most Pakistan was a man called Ray Tor (or it might have been Tour - I only knew him but never saw his name written down) who had worked for John Ellingham at the Bosphorus and when they went ■■■■■■■ upward Ray took on the Pakistan work and did it himself. He finished before most firms even started (early 70’s) but some may remember him as [zb] Ray (he wasn’t, he just got the name from the work) and he did all that with a dark blue Atkinson Borderer fitted with a 8 cylinder Gardner and a roof mounted sleeping box that he made himself of Plywood. He was a big mate of Bob Paul though he never worked for Astran (there were some!). He was a very solitary man who did not join in to the great chauffer gaggles though he did sometimes stop at the Mocamp. He was always kind to me because I worked for his old boss John Ellingham and therefore was ‘part of the family’ but he strictly ran on his own and stopped seldom.
It would be nice to know if he was still with us but I think it unlikely because he was 50 ish in the 70’s.
Mickey Chinock certainly sounded like a Red Indian and there were days I recall when he behaved like one as well! But he was a very good lad who always had time to help a driver in trouble.
David
I think the only land border PakistanIndia was at Lahore Where I was held up. It seemed to close regularly depending which country was miffed about something.
GS OVERLAND:
Where, along the stretch where military camps were ■■ Iraq was a scruffy place wasnt it, imagine what it is like nowadays !!
Do you remember the " left turn marker " for Razazza Lake, near Kerbala ■■ it was a pile of dead dogs, always “fresh” !! and then the sign " Welcome to Babylon" I never did get to see the hanging gardens, did you ? Tikrit Control used to give me the eeby jeebies to, you never knew what would happen when they stopped you.
GS
Do you remember any landmarks for Tikrit kontrolle or the approach and I will put it on the map.
Q: 6x4 and snow-chains. On some 6x4 and 8x4 tippers, you can raise the rear drive axle to reduce wear when you are empty. Are there any 6x4 tractor units where you can do this ? If you could raise the rear drive axle, wouldn’t it be good for use with snow-chains, where you can fit the rear drive axle with chains and lower it or raise it depending on whether you were on asphalt or snow ?
Q: TAHIR: Can any driver list the way-points on the military road, which appears to have been opened to traffic in 1977 ? The road over Tahir can be seen on the NATO TPC air chart, but the route to the north is not obvious. Ivor Whittall in ‘Silk Road’ mentions Eleskirt but that is close to the Tahir pass itself.
Q: YOUNG TURK: Is Young Turk still alive ? What was last contact with Young Turk ? He must be retired by now. What was his real name ? Does anyone recognise Young Turk’s office from my drawing ? There was a large photograph of Gurbulak/Bazargan on the wall above the TELEX machine.
Q: While I have seen one or two Jake Brakes in Europe, it’s all exhaust brakes usually, while in the US, it’s the other way around. Why don’t/can’t European manufacturers fit Jake Brakes ?
Why would European manufacturers want to fit Jake brakes, when - nowadays - their own engine brakes / gearbox retarders are better. More braking power, and no noise.
I would guess that Jakes were never fitted (to my knowledge anyway) to Euro trucks as the modified valve assemblies that Jakes use were never made for European engines. There was also the European made ‘Telma Retarder’ available back in the day - fairly common in parts of Europe, and an easier retro fit than a Jake.
Many British and European trucks were fitted with Jake Brakes, certainly those with ■■■■■■■ engines. The ERF NGC ‘Europeans’ were fitted with them as standard equipment. I believe Jakes were heavier and more expensive than ‘exhausters’, hence the popularity of the latter. Thelma retarders were a lot heavier, which is why they were mostly fitted to coaches. Robert
KurtMeyer:
Q: 6x4 and snow-chains. On some 6x4 and 8x4 tippers, you can raise the rear drive axle to reduce wear when you are empty. Are there any 6x4 tractor units where you can do this ? If you could raise the rear drive axle, wouldn’t it be good for use with snow-chains, where you can fit the rear drive axle with chains and lower it or raise it depending on whether you were on asphalt or snow ?
My take on it was if you were mainly doing Tehran then a 4x2 was better, but if you were turning south at Ankara and going on to do desert work then a 6X4 was better for traction in the sand
After the mid-'70s when the Jordan / Saudi connecting roads were sealed (and that was before Destination Doha was filmed, remember!), there would have been less of a need except perhaps for the odd off-road delivery. An old hand on the M/E run once told me he thought that 6x4s were only of any real value for roughly four days in the year when encountering foul weather in Turkey; apart from which the extra cost didn’t make it worth the while. Robert
> ERF-NGC-European: > An old hand on the M/E run once told me he thought that 6x4s were only of any real value for roughly four days in the year when encountering foul weather in Turkey
My understanding was the opposite- in ice & snow conditions a 6x4 would struggle going down Imranlie (and similar declines) as the double drive would go straight on rather than skew round an icy hairpin
Best is to have 6x2 lift tag axl. Cant beat it on snow and ice. Never done the middle east but lots of years doing Sweden-Norway and lift tag is the best.
GS OVERLAND:
Where, along the stretch where military camps were ■■ Iraq was a scruffy place wasnt it, imagine what it is like nowadays !!
Do you remember the " left turn marker " for Razazza Lake, near Kerbala ■■ it was a pile of dead dogs, always “fresh” !! and then the sign " Welcome to Babylon" I never did get to see the hanging gardens, did you ? Tikrit Control used to give me the eeby jeebies to, you never knew what would happen when they stopped you.
GS
Do you remember any landmarks for Tikrit kontrolle or the approach and I will put it on the map.
Thx
Hi Kurt
If you enter the following co-ordinates on Google Maps you will land at the Tikrit Police Control. 34°40’55.6"N 43°37’36.9"E
Then if you click on Satellite view you can see it for real.
Regards
GS
