TNT history

Hi everyone, new here but some of you may know me elsewhere as Werkhorse, so here goes …

I’m an Aussie with a passion for transport history and for the last 5 or so years have been co-writing the history of TNT and all of it’s subsidiary divisions, Kwikasair, Inter County Express, Sayers etc. I started out just doing this for the original Australian side of it but soon realised that it was a true worldwide company and therefore I needed to study it in a worldwide context. I am limited in my knowledge of both the British and European side of things and was hoping, after reading that a few on here have/do work for the TNT group, that some of you fine people could enlighten me some more.

I will add some of my limited knowledge as I can, but it is mainly just an overview at this point in time

Thanks for your time

Welcome Darren, here A-J from Holland/Europe! Good idea to focus on Europe via this thread.
I hope to give you some background on what TNT meant in Holland.

In 1979 the company IPEC (have no clue on the meaning of this abbrevation) took over the
company of Gelders Overslag en Expeditiebedrijf in Duiven. TNT (Thomas National Transport)
took over IPEC in 1983. Many years still named TNT Ipec. Situation TNT Europe in 1991:

18.256 employees, 6.000 vehicles, 16 planes, 412 depots, 470.000 shipments/week, 4.000.000
kilometres/week to/from 21 European countries.

Attached some pictures

Nice day, A-J

Me again … some of the comanies/divisions I am interested in are as follows

In Britain

TNT Tristar
TNT Newsfast
Inter County Express
Kwikasair UK
TNT Overnite
TNT Garment Express
TNT Truck Care
TNT Contract Services
TNT Mailfast
TNT Express

In Europe but operated in Britain

Gelders-Spetra (became IPEC Europe and then TNT-IPEC)
Sayers off Shore
TNT Europfast
Skypak
TNT IPEC

Thanks again

Overview of European-locations, per 10-1985

Hi A-J, Thank you for that. IPEC stands for Interstate Parcel Express Company and was originally formed in Australia, in the 1950’s I believe.

I noticed that I had posted my list of companies at the same time you posted and that you have confirmed my information on Gelders.

Thank you

Gelders still exists, however for sea and air, www.geldersforwarding.com

Thank you for the meaning of IPEC, I did not know.

A-J

Gelders Spetra and GOB (Gelders Overslag- en Expeditiebedrijf) are different companies,
but I don’t have documents/knowledge on what their activities in Britain were.

Hi

You need to get hold of TRUCK magazine from the period - they often featured a number of these companies. I suspect as TRUCK’s publishers had Aussie origins they were in a way kindred spirits!

I do have some and can put some scans up if you wish.

That would be great Mr Scruff. Most of my info so far has come from the in house magazine Freight Notes and is more of a TNT pat on the back than the real day to day stuff. Thats the sort of stuff that really interests me the most … The personal stories … Although these days if anyone mentions TNT I seem to get excited :smiley:

FEB 1984

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April 1986

Hi Darren. I worked for a family run carrier,Ripponden and District Motors Ltd. for over 30 years. We had one large depot on the Lancs/Yorks border,operating 90 13 ton hgvs.
I think its fair to say if you were moving " smalls " in our area we were the best both on price and service. we had over 1000 customers in our area and many big manufactures outside our area,plus some of the big national carriers,would trunk goods into us.
In the early 70s, Kwikasair approached our boss to see if we we would deliver goods to our area if they trunked them in to us,and he agreed.Very surprisingly he allowed a Kwikasair manager to use a small office and telephone on our loading dock, and they duely started to bring goods in to us.
Anyone in the “smalls” game ( I never say " parcels ", to avoid confusion with the jiffy bag carriers of today ),will be familiar with the term “ugly traffic”. We would carry most things,but its fair to say the stuff we got from Kwikasair was mostly poorly rated stuff. The Kwikasair chap thought he owned the place and would make himself very unpopular throwing his weight about with OUR drivers and trying to overide the instructions of OUR formen etc. This was never going to work with our gaffer,a real old school gentleman,and it is my understanding that after a very short time Kwikasair were "asked to leave ".
I and many others I have spoken to, formed the opinion that Kwikasair came over to the UK expecting to " take over the world ",got it all wrong and left with their tale between their legs.
I do not offer this opinion as fact,it is interesting however that on the TNT website,in the company history section, the first menion of a UK operation is for 1978 when they took over Inter County Express. I cannot help wondering if the Kwiwasair UK operation was an embarrasment to them ?
P.S. TNT have certainly got it right now though eh ? !! :slight_smile:
Regards. John.

Hi Darren, I used to work for a subbie and pull doubles triples for Thompsons Northern Transport between Adelaide and Alice 85 and 86. Also for NTFS. A bit of Perth ( Northman ) as well…

Now on this which is a lot closer to you…

Jeff…

ERF-Continental:
Welcome Darren, here A-J from Holland/Europe! Good idea to focus on Europe via this thread.
I hope to give you some background on what TNT meant in Holland.

In 1979 the company IPEC (have no clue on the meaning of this abbrevation) took over the
company of Gelders Overslag en Expeditiebedrijf in Duiven. TNT (Thomas National Transport)
took over IPEC in 1983. Many years still named TNT Ipec. Situation TNT Europe in 1991:

18.256 employees, 6.000 vehicles, 16 planes, 412 depots, 470.000 shipments/week, 4.000.000
kilometres/week to/from 21 European countries.

Attached some pictures

Nice day, A-J

I’m guessing that their phones at Northampton never stopped ringing with all the cold calling hopeful drivers trying to get onto their Euro trunking operation.I was one of them.The Truck magazine article could only have added to those oversubcribed numbers of unlucky hopefuls. :frowning:

download/file.php?id=131197&t=1

This link may be of interest motortransport.co.uk/thehub/tag/bill-hanley/

I remember Knowles Van Lines of Ramsbottom and Dickinsons Transport of Waterfoot, pale blue livery who operated out of the old railway warehouse at Waterfoot. These two amalgamated to form Inter County Express which were taken over by TNT and AFAIK the Ramsbottom depot was the UK HQ of TNT for a while.

Dickinsons specialised in smalls traffic to the South West.

No hard feelings at all, but during my role as shipper I really preferred the TOP-3
of US-integrators, UPS, DHL and FedEx…TNT had too many changes, moves
and identity-trouble with too many peers and screwed many a business.

TNT lacked to abandon their QUANTUM-ICT, resulting the genuine shippers to go.

I think they still operate out of the old GEC works in Clayton le Moors, Accrington. :slight_smile:

Possibly shirtbox, the fact is that ‘we’ kicked them out some 5 years ago…promissing miracles
and meanwhile you had about the whole bunch of development managers, inside-sales in your
system, board-room and in-box.

UPS was 1, then DHL 2 and FedEx 3, speaking of the major US-integrators

Few people know that DHL (now German Post, with mergers as Danzas and Van Gend & Loos) stands
for Dalsey, Hillblom and Lynn, package-post from USA!

ERF-Continental:
Few people know that DHL (now German Post, with mergers as Danzas and Van Gend & Loos) stands
for Dalsey, Hillblom and Lynn, package-post from USA!

Known in the UK as Damaged, Hidden or Lost