Yes its great pic of a great company in there day put the pic on the mat transport forum robert
Would the trailer have been shipped unaccompanied ?
As for train ferries, Seachance were running them on there freight only sailings in the 90s.
Yes Suedehead - It is a " Kangaroo " trailer.
They were shipped unaccompanied and carried on special French Rail system carriages. In spite of my name, I was in the UK originally and I had a couple in early '70’s, as did Jamesons of Southampton and Merzario had quite a few.
At that time permits to transverse France and Italy were in very short supply and pricey, especially for new operators and many " ingenious " ways round this flourished !
With the Kangaroo system you didn’t need permits - you shipped unaccompanied to loading points in Dunkirk or Le Havre, where the trailer was run up a ramp onto the rail carriage by a special tug and it was a special bogie construction with very high oscillation to allow this, the rear under run bumper folded up and there was a special ball type connection at the front, in addition to the normal fifth wheel / kingpin, and at certain stations ( and rarely available ) was a crane lift facililty, so the trailer had lifting points at the sides as well. The trailer was then delivered to about 35 points in France or onward to Italy and at one time Yugoslavia. It has sloping sides to the roof to allow passage through some tunnels.
The big problem was damage to trailers , pilferage and lengthy problems locating where your tailer was, as like other rail systems it didn’t always get to the correct destination and no one seemed to be able to trace the trailer.
A similar system operated to Spain which was intended to deliver fresh fruit to Transfesa at Paddock Wood - I don’t quite know what happened there but it didn’t really get up and operational. There was also another called the Hook- a - pack which did take trailer and truck but this was short lived.
A very expensive lesson, as the trailers were some 40% more cost to buy than a normal 12m tilt at the time and had less capacity - just a way around permits really. As I was told at the time " You can tell the pioneers, by the arrows in their back ! "
Suedehead
This is a Jameson’s (Southampton) Kangaroo Trailer, around 1972 - unfortunately haven’t any photo’s of my own
Thanks for the reply.
Would the Seachance boats with the rails on, have been ex Sealink ?
OzzyHugh:
Yes Suedehead - It is a " Kangaroo " trailer.They were shipped unaccompanied and carried on special French Rail system carriages. In spite of my name, I was in the UK originally and I had a couple in early '70’s, as did Jamesons of Southampton and Merzario had quite a few.
At that time permits to transverse France and Italy were in very short supply and pricey, especially for new operators and many " ingenious " ways round this flourished !
With the Kangaroo system you didn’t need permits - you shipped unaccompanied to loading points in Dunkirk or Le Havre, where the trailer was run up a ramp onto the rail carriage by a special tug and it was a special bogie construction with very high oscillation to allow this, the rear under run bumper folded up and there was a special ball type connection at the front, in addition to the normal fifth wheel / kingpin, and at certain stations ( and rarely available ) was a crane lift facililty, so the trailer had lifting points at the sides as well. The trailer was then delivered to about 35 points in France or onward to Italy and at one time Yugoslavia. It has sloping sides to the roof to allow passage through some tunnels.
The big problem was damage to trailers , pilferage and lengthy problems locating where your tailer was, as like other rail systems it didn’t always get to the correct destination and no one seemed to be able to trace the trailer.
A similar system operated to Spain which was intended to deliver fresh fruit to Transfesa at Paddock Wood - I don’t quite know what happened there but it didn’t really get up and operational. There was also another called the Hook- a - pack which did take trailer and truck but this was short lived.
A very expensive lesson, as the trailers were some 40% more cost to buy than a normal 12m tilt at the time and had less capacity - just a way around permits really. As I was told at the time " You can tell the pioneers, by the arrows in their back ! "
That’s a good explanation, Ozzy - most informative. Here are a couple of useful references to the Jamesons Kangaroos you mentioned. robert
OzzyHugh:
Yes Suedehead - It is a " Kangaroo " trailer.
"
Very good description there Ozzy, here are a few pics of the road / rail systems to back it up…
Fergie47:
Video of kangourou operations
Super!! C’est parfait. Merci bien!
Robert. 
Fergie47:
Video of kangourou operations
Can’t post links for some reason… but have a look on lorry-rail.com
It’s the modern version of the kangaroo idea, and actually runs very well. 6 trains per day between le boulou and bettembourg, and also now a link to Calais.
We use the service to bettembourg and then connection onto Antwerp, not with trailers in our case, but with container tanks.
A couple of photos at Novatrans Turin and Novara
They put them on the train in Le Havre and they came through to Italy,remember one summer a kangaroo with animal skins was taken off the train in Paris as the load had slipped and it wouldn’t go through the guage measuring device for the tunnels,it took them a week in Paris to restack it by the time it got to Italy, 90 degrees plus heat, the maggots walked off the trailer with suitcases,can still smell the trailer 35 years later,couldn’t face steak that night !!
Regards
Richard
whiplash:
IMG_0004 by Niall Daniels, on Flickr
Date on back of photo is 89ish I think?
Must be at least 1995 to have that reg
MaggieD:
A couple of photos at Novatrans Turin and NovaraThey put them on the train in Le Havre and they came through to Italy,remember one summer a kangaroo with animal skins was taken off the train in Paris as the load had slipped and it wouldn’t go through the guage measuring device for the tunnels,it took them a week in Paris to restack it by the time it got to Italy, 90 degrees plus heat, the maggots walked off the trailer with suitcases,can still smell the trailer 35 years later,couldn’t face steak that night !!
Regards
Richard
The 2nd photo looks like Vercheli ? Worked out of that place for 2 years. Nice guys who ran the operation and they would have competitions as to how many trailers they could lift of the train and guide the trailer pin straight into the 5th wheel and trigger the lock 
Good old days.
Trucky Mc truckface:
MaggieD:
A couple of photos at Novatrans Turin and NovaraThe 2nd photo looks like Vercheli ? Worked out of that place for 2 years. Nice guys who ran the operation and they would have competitions as to how many trailers they could lift of the train and guide the trailer pin straight into the 5th wheel and trigger the lock
Hi Trucky Mc truckface,
It’s the Novatrans depot in Novara spent many a happy hour there !!
Regards
Richard
DEANB:
Fridge freight.0
The man is Aubrey Taylor, RIP, who was head mechanic at Fridged Freight and supervised the building - in house - of the whole outfit out of cut down Mammoth Majors with a Norwich coachworks body. She went to work on a “C” plate 1965. Jim.
P.S. I believe the sign writing was a mistake missing the “D” and remember one of the MkVs coming home with the Title FRIGDED in foot high letters on the side. Mr Wyatt was not one to suffer fools gladly so I suspect somebody got it in the ear!
jmc jnr:
DEANB:
Fridge freight.0
The man is Aubrey Taylor, RIP, who was head mechanic at Fridged Freight and supervised the building - in house - of the whole outfit out of cut down Mammoth Majors with a Norwich coachworks body. She went to work on a “C” plate 1965. Jim.
P.S. I believe the sign writing was a mistake missing the “D” and remember one of the MkVs coming home with the Title FRIGDED in foot high letters on the side. Mr Wyatt was not one to suffer fools gladly so I suspect somebody got it in the ear!
I will never forget meeting Mr Wyatt on a Sunday morning when I arrived at the yard to start work.He pulled up in an Alfa Romeo.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Hello Marcus, Hope you are OK. A couple of photos for the “Scrapbook” thread.
A 32 Ton GVW Volvo, and a Commer “Puddlejumper”. The Volvo photo is from
1975 approx.,and the Commer photo is from 1962, taken on the old A55 near
Penmaenmawr in North Wales. The Commer van 3408 KB belonged to W.H.Smith,(Newsagents).
It was part of a fleet of about 50 vans,none of them bigger than todays 7 & half tonners,
that were on contract to the “Liverpool Daily Post & Echo”. It is me on the left of the
photo,aged 18, I had just started as a " Saturday Only Part Timer", learning the route
and all the drops between Liverpool and Bangor, carrying the “Football Pink” edition
of the “Liverpool Echo”. The shift started at 4pm,and ended around midnight.
Sorry about the small photos,I still don’t know how to enlarge them after scanning
and then posting them. The chap on the right in front of the Commer is George Smart,
a long time friend of mine,who was also a “Saturday Only Part Timer”. His full time job
was a Rent Collector for Liverpool Corporation Housing Department. Regards, Ray Smyth.
Pardon me for butting in Ray, but are these any better ? I make no claims at being an expert when it comes to working these things. Where was the picture of the Volvo taken mate ? I’m guessing at Wigan road in Ashton, but it’s only a guess, I’m probably miles out, but I seem to recall that RGB pipelines had a place just out of Ashton on Lockett road sometime in the 70’s, somewhere up in the corner of the estate where Great Bear now are, or were, as I haven’t been up there for a while. I could be wrong about that as well though.
Regards. Eddie.
