Hi Jamie, thanks for the info, from what I remember he had an eclectic mix of trucks and trailers sitting about in his yard. The only reason I went round to that area of Aylesbury was to get Pizza from Dominoes, but after eating real Italian pizzas most of the week the Aylesbury ones were a bit of a let down so I didn’t go there that often. One of the other drivers I was on with who was from that area said Hoss had a son, or couple of sons that were also in the business, which is probably why there were a few other trucks there.
We used to back load a few trucks out of north east Italy that were on for IFOR and KFOR.
Some good photo modifications there Harry, you seem to have the hang of that Picasa thing, the colour saturation seems to be a lot sharper as well.
Mr Whispering I do apologise I just read your post,
As far as I know there is still traffic going that way. TUNA and HELEN who are both Turkish companies are still running as is Rynart. There are also a load of other Dutch companies that are often seen in that part of the world, but I wouldn’t like to speculate about the nationalities of the drivers… The way we used to go ( Italy Ukraine Russia, into Kaz through Astrakhan, then up to Aqtobe and down the M32 then east along the bottom to Almaty ) has now been replaced by going straight through Moscow and along the A4 as far as Ofa then down through Astana to Almaty. The Russians put a lot of money into it and that route is now sealed all the way. They did the up grade when they were sorting out the Trans Siberian express form Moscow to Vladivostok.
If you haven’t seen Dave Mackies site have a look at it there are some fantastic photos of the M32 circa mid 90’s when he was running to the gold mines in that area … Dave Mackie Long haul Trucking …
You can still go out and have adventures in interesting place, if your not that interested in making loads of money…
I would also like to see some more of you photos and hear some tales.
harry:
(Some good photo modifications there Harry, you seem to have the hang of that Picasa thing, the colour saturation seems to be a lot sharper as well.)
From pizza to picasa there’s nothing like the real thing.
[£2 btw]
Put it on my tab mate, feel free to come and collect it any time.
whisperingsmith:
I sometimes get tempted to get back in the saddle while I’ve still got a few year’s health & fitness left
Mr Smith, after your last post with excellent pics about your run to Afghanistan, we are still waiting for any more tales and photos you may have to post!!
More to come, when I have the time, just got the old Super 8 movie films digitised, so next project is editing and cleaning
them up.
Some random pics of Khyber about 100 click north of Madina, just discvered that:
Khaybar is deeply rooted in history. Many historical sources maintained that the first inhabitants of Khyber are the “Giants” of the perishing Arabs. It is one of the areas annexed by the Babylonian King with “Taima” and “Deedan” and others, about 539 BC.
As indicated in the same historical sources that some Jews lived in Khaybar after the Roman invasion of Al-Sham and the dispersal of the Jews who had fled to many places including the Arabian Peninsula where they settled in Khaybar and Yathrib (Madinah Monawarah).
Jelliot:
If you haven’t seen Dave Mackies site have a look at it there are some fantastic photos of the M32 circa mid 90’s when he was running to the gold mines in that area … Dave Mackie Long haul Trucking …
You can still go out and have adventures in interesting place, if your not that interested in making loads of money…
Jeff…
Thanks Jeff, found the videos on another thread, Good Stuff - if only we had digital kit in the 70’s to record our trips
harry:
(Some good photo modifications there Harry, you seem to have the hang of that Picasa thing, the colour saturation seems to be a lot sharper as well.)
From pizza to picasa there’s nothing like the real thing.
[£2 btw]
Put it on my tab mate, feel free to come and collect it any time.
BtwJell, I tapped into your PB snaps to get that Louiville & there was a virus hiding in there. Wanted me to update Java. I’ve seen it before & if you open it its pain to get rid of. Will takeover your browser,search engine ect.Almost kills your computer.
Looks like you’ve been back on the happy pills Harry with those photo adjustments, but thanks for the intel, I get my wife to tell the IT guys about it at work on Monday. Is the virus in PB ■■?
Mr Whispering I love looking at old super 8 stuff and some of the new docos they make about trucks are fantastic, but the American ones all seem to be over produced, and there’s no happy ground between that and the ones that you find on enthusiast fan forums. The best doco I’ve seen in recent years is Out Back truckers, I know it was done by the same crew as IRT but they just got on and let the thing tell it’s own story.
The thing that really gets me in are some of the old photos that the 70’s M/E guys took. Ferdy sent me a couple of cd’s full of them a few years back. There’s a guy called Danniel Freemond that drove Kenworth #100 wagon and drag for Firderici. I think he must have been in to armature photography as his images are outstanding, and also the photos by Claud Ray Mermet also a Firderici driver were fantastic.
I thing they are both buried deep in the Top Run volts but they are well worth looking out… Probably 2009 and back even farther…
The other thing that Ferdy has done is to digitise some of the old super 8 stuff. Some of it isn’t to hot, with a lot of camera shake, but some of is as good as anything a semi pro could put out. It might be worth having a word with Ferdy about your stuff, see if you can do a deal…
Looks like you’ve been back on the happy pills Harry with those photo adjustments, but thanks for the intel, I get my wife to tell the IT guys about it at work on Monday. Is the virus in PB ■■?
Yes. I was scrolling thru your PB snaps,found the one I wanted to copy,clicked on it & a whole new page opened up with a warning that Java was outa date & a button to download an update—Fatal! The last time ,coupla weeks ago,I did that it took two days to untangle,I was thinkng of getting a new laptop it was so bad.
I finally found a free gizmo online that did the job
If you take this version you can drag the logo onto your desktop & use over & over again. Here is the page & on the left you can see the prog.to install.
Jelliot:
I hate to think of what you were doing on my PB or what you found, but thanks again for the heads up I’ll IT to fix it on Monday.
Jeff…
This is the thing with PB; go back to any snaps on TN sent from PB ,tap on them & it will open up the whole album. Your stuff is a goldmine ,plenty more quality to come.( But I won’t give the ending away)
Hi all, a question for the “old M/E hands”. If you had broken down beyond realistic repair whilst down the M/E, either as a company driver or as an O/D, and had to be piggybacked home, or at least most of the way home, did any one charge for that? Or was there a gentleman’s agreement as in, share the fuel cost and share the driving?
This may have been asked and answered before but im curious as to how the agreement went,
It was usually a gentleman’s agreement, it could easily be you the next time, however there were a few companies that did it professionally and charged for it.
One of ours got towed from Novosibirsk to Samara (1800k’s) by a Russian in a Kamaz, free of charge. We towed an Uzbek Volvo from Tashkent to the Uzbek border (800 k’s) Didn’t know the bloke and had never seen him before. When we got the border this whole family turned up with a feast., that was one of the reasons I did that sort of work.
The price of fuel in the gulf wasn’t that much and if both trucks had belly tanks, there would be enough to get a piggy back or towed truck back to at least Austria or Germany so fuel cost wouldn’t be that high. That is of course if the border guards don’t take the fuel of you when you try and leave the country, but there were ways to get round that as well.
There are some epic tow home stories buried deep in this thread as well…
bullitt:
Hi all, a question for the “old M/E hands”. If you had broken down beyond realistic repair whilst down the M/E, either as a company driver or as an O/D, and had to be piggybacked home, or at least most of the way home, did any one charge for that? Or was there a gentleman’s agreement as in, share the fuel cost and share the driving?
This may have been asked and answered before but im curious as to how the agreement went,
If you trawl back through this thread, I related the time when I was on for Expo Freight and was returning from Buraydah in Saudi, along with big Cliff on Funstons in his Globetrotter, he had tipped in Riyahd, when my Scania 111 dropped a valve halfway up the Tapline.
I had a straight bar and a towing eye on my trailer, Cliff had neither, so I got him to shunt trailers and finished up with him pulling my trailer with me on the bar pulling his trailer.
He dragged me all the way to the Oryx garage at Incerlic, best part of 1,000 miles.
I spoke to my boss and Cliff spoke to his and as neither of us had a backload planned before Belgrade, both bosses agreed we should top my rig onto Cliff’s, and he would carry me back to Belgrade, meanwhile another of our motors would be timed to meet me in Belgrade with enough spares to repair the truck.
So Cliff carried me to Belgrade, must be another 1,000 miles and we unloaded my rig at the railway station and towed me round to the “National” where I met up with one of our drivers who had brought out a new cylinder head and all the bits required to get her running again.
Two days later, I loaded tractor tyres in Belgrade to get home.
As far as I know, there was no financial arrangement, it was the sort of thing you did on the middle east because you never knew when it may be your turn to ask for a favour.
When I related this tale before, I posted some pics of the event.
bullitt:
Hi all, a question for the “old M/E hands”. If you had broken down beyond realistic repair whilst down the M/E, either as a company driver or as an O/D, and had to be piggybacked home, or at least most of the way home, did any one charge for that? Or was there a gentleman’s agreement as in, share the fuel cost and share the driving?
This may have been asked and answered before but im curious as to how the agreement went,
An owner Driver on Astrans really helped me out when the propshaft failed on my Scania 141, he towed me on the bar from Arrar (half way down the tapline) to Oryx’s. Even though I had power steering and everthing except drive, it was one of the worst experiences ever, 1000ks on the bar, never again. We did have a few laughs on the way. The fee, I couldn’t say…
All the very best
bullitt:
Hi all, a question for the “old M/E hands”. If you had broken down beyond realistic repair whilst down the M/E, either as a company driver or as an O/D, and had to be piggybacked home, or at least most of the way home, did any one charge for that? Or was there a gentleman’s agreement as in, share the fuel cost and share the driving?
This may have been asked and answered before but im curious as to how the agreement went,
An owner Driver on Astrans really helped me out when the propshaft failed on my Scania 141, he towed me on the bar from Arrar (half way down the tapline) to Oryx’s. Even though I had power steering and everthing except drive, it was one of the worst experiences ever, 1000ks on the bar, never again. We did have a few laughs on the way. The fee, I couldn’t say…
All the very best
Mick B
That’s about the same distance that Cliff towed me, and on an 8 foot bar with NO power steering, that’s no joke.
The highlight of the tow was when we were pulled up by the old bill on the dual carriageway north of Damascus for overtaking their police car at 60 mph, one truck was bad enough, but with another 8 foot behind on a bar, that was just too much, as Cliff was driving I couldn’t see what he was up to , just had to follow him…
Cost us 100 DM!
