Hiya "smidaredevil"I have asked many UK drivers about the said company and nobody seemed to know of them
but now thanks to you I am satisfied that they did exist.those pics are great.The lads I met was in between
Adana and Izmit.They had 2 ■■■■■■ pickups at the front and 2 at the rear The low loader had a large Transfomer
on the back.After repairing my Battery terminals,With the plumbs( Seals).That they had in there tool box.It was
obvious that they had done it before.Thanks to experience again you can’t buy it.
GUESTY44
On my first trip, got a hold up going over the Taurus mountains, when it was a dirt road long before it was tarmaced, and this Tonka had obviously dropped
a gear and gunned it causing the dead Merc on the back to move back causing the Tonka to rear up. When the driver got out he didn’t realise how far off the ground he was.
As can be seen, the Egeman fridge couldn’t get past so everyone had to queue for an hour or two in both directions.
coca cola kid:
1964 That would be about ten years before Archbold then, I have a mate i worked with that did middle east, pioneer for Archbold, he knew a lot of Astran & many more also had his own truck pulling for Whittle, well i have just persuaded him to let me have some of his pictures to put on TNUK about 60, your thoughts guys should i post them here Astran / Middle East Drivers or start a new thread Archbold Middle East, as they don’t get much of a mention anywhere on TNUK & i can see a few asking for pictures of Archbold I’m going to post a couple for you of Alan to see if any of you old timers can recall him Cheers Mel CCK
Alan Wright
Alan was the first m/e driver at Archbolds . They took a lot of building materials over there . I worked in the garage at the time. The Fiats were run in on genral then put to work on m/e . One came back and was put in the Leeds show, half of the truck/trailer was steam cleaned the other half as was.It had a sign on the back just returned from the middle east .The trailers were well fitted out with belly tanks down both sides full of red diesel electric pumps and two good sized storage lockers.
If you go on page 10 Yorkshire companies there’s a few pics of Archbold motors , the 619 would have been on m/e at some time.
robert1952:
This RHD ERF B-series with its spare wheel mounted afrontships intrigues me!
It was clearing customs in Ankara. Any knowledge out there? Robert
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Perhaps he always wanted to drive a VW camper… I used to see guys getting about with spare wheels on roof racks. I always thought that was nuts.
Can someone make the page a bit smaller, it seems to be sprawling a bit…
Fantastic photos smldaredevil keep them coming if you have more…
Guesty 44 feel free to elaborate on your story we could do with some more…
It probably doubled as nudge-bar. Middle-Easters had camel bars and the Yanks/Ozzies had bull bars, but we in Britain had nudge bars. You’d
be surprised how many nudges there were roaming the moorland roads on foggy nights! This ERF (below) that I drove actually had a yorkie bar.
Robert
robert1952:
It probably doubled as nudge-bar. Middle-Easters had camel bars and the Yanks/Ozzies had bull bars, but we in Britain had nudge bars. You’d
be surprised how many nudges there were roaming the moorland roads on foggy nights! This ERF (below) that I drove actually had a yorkie bar.
Robert
Thanks for all your recent postings on here, not to mention your translations and some great photos. I never had the pleasure of experiencing the food in Gazientepe, as I was always trying to get to some destination (usually Baghdad) and back home as quickly a I could. We used an agent in Istanbul, Ersen Transport, their office was near to Sultanahmet, just passed the old city walls, on the right hand side going into the old quarter, I will try to post some photos of Istanbul in 1980 around the stadium near Besiktas and some that I took last year at the same place when on holiday. I always felt at home in Istanbul and will definitely go again.
dear all
thank you so much for your encouraging comments. they all made me happy.
dear mick b
ı wish you could drop by antep and had an experience to eat that peoples incredible foods. kebaps .baklavas etc in the very original city
there is a saying in antep all the people eat to living but anthepians live to eating…
in that south eastern areas of turkiye people really know how to cook well. in istanbul ı only go one kebap house which belongs to a fellow who came from siirt city.(near mardin.)
although its not a famous touristick place. it offers you from daily cutted meat .fresh. delicious. mouth watering real kebap not a trash. adress? no problem
Unfortunately todays istanbul is a massive megapol. domestic migration made this city a mayhem which hard to live…
today if you want go from besiktas to sultanahmet with a taxi in rush hours it may take a 2 hours.
and many transport companies moved their offices from historical peninsula to more remote areas.
Ersen has a big freight depot in halkalı area very close to halkalı customs.
around 2008. ı and one of my driver friends made a truck voyage from izmir to gebze. the truck was a daf xf 105 (brand new. shiny fluorescent yellow. 480hp.) loaded sponge only 3 tonnes.
he was eager go to his home as quickly as possible like you. anyway. we never stopped on the road. it took only 6 hours. ı was almost blowing to try to keep my urinate
and you sould have heard his telephone talkings to his lady on the road…
thank to all mr. Ian taylor guesty 44 mr jelliot and others.
I am adding some photos ı blieve you like them.
one translation TCDD Ambarları (in the ankara customs I only visited once around 2005?)
T turkish C republic D state D railways A Warehouses
Thanks for all your recent postings on here, not to mention your translations and some great photos. I never had the pleasure of experiencing the food in Gazientepe, as I was always trying to get to some destination (usually Baghdad) and back home as quickly a I could. We used an agent in Istanbul, Ersen Transport, their office was near to Sultanahmet, just passed the old city walls, on the right hand side going into the old quarter, I will try to post some photos of Istanbul in 1980 around the stadium near Besiktas and some that I took last year at the same place when on holiday. I always felt at home in Istanbul and will definitely go again.
All the very best.
Mick B
Hiya Izmail We stopped in the Harem hotel Istanbul many times on our way down to doha-Daman,etc,
The harem was very popular for the U/K drivers and many others of cause.What I think they will remember
most was the small shop in the hotel.Dorothy I remember was married to the owner who was another grand chap
Drivers ordered silver bracelets with there names of there girl friends,Wifes etc, names on them.Picked up on there
way back.
I also remember after the fitter from Tuz repaired my battery terminal.They had a very large rug laid on the
grass and the biggest salad in a large silver bowl that I have ever seen.It wa like a 5* banquet alsorts of meats
one of the best rolling meals I have ever had. Better than the Heinz 57 varietes we lived on.
Thanks again for the memory’s
GUESTY44.
The Erf in Ankara customs looks to have a Whittle tilt on the back, I’d hazard a guess that it,s in 89/90 and on the Ankara gas contract for Whittle.A lot of weird and wonderful machinery (and people)made an appearance on that job.
superswede10:
The Erf in Ankara customs looks to have a Whittle tilt on the back, I’d hazard a guess that it,s in 89/90 and on the Ankara gas contract for Whittle.A lot of weird and wonderful machinery (and people)made an appearance on that job.
Hi Guesty44, I would say it looks very much like him, the young lady in the picture is his daughter I was told by Alan, at that time Alan named the guy on the left but couldn’t remember the name of the chap & his daughter but i’m sure it will come to him, funny how the brain works when you’re getting old. Looks like he might have been on the phone Haha! Just looked at the pictures that picture may have been taken on the same weekend after he had put the unit back under his trailer, look to the right of group photo looks like same trailer.Cheers Mel CCK
robert1952:
It probably doubled as nudge-bar. Middle-Easters had camel bars and the Yanks/Ozzies had bull bars, but we in Britain had nudge bars. You’d
be surprised how many nudges there were roaming the moorland roads on foggy nights! This ERF (below) that I drove actually had a yorkie bar.
Robert
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We used to call them rhubarb… most of the ones that were on the show trucks were as about as much good as they red leafy veg/ fruit/ spice ( what ever it is )
