Bewick if you ever visit this thread look on 157 and in the background you will see the power plant for the East Lancashire Paper Mill the haulage of who s products your Co. was responsible for it finally went to BTS. until the mills closure ,our yard was across the river Irwell from there and believe it or not our Tony was a machine man there until he started his driving career.regards Crow.
geoffthecrowtaylor:
Bewick if you ever visit this thread look on 157 and in the background you will see the power plant for the East Lancashire Paper Mill the haulage of who s products your Co. was responsible for it finally went to BTS. until the mills closure ,our yard was across the river Irwell from there and believe it or not our Tony was a machine man there until he started his driving career.regards Crow.
Would that mill have been the creems mill at holcombe,its just that i was in and out of all the mills in that area in the 70s/80s just cant get it geogaphically.
regards dave.
No Dave it was in Radcliffe and the pub opposite the maingate was of course the Paper Makers Arms we used to meet some of Bewicks drivers in there ,its been closed about 6 years now and the mill totally demolished.Crow.
Hello Crow, the next time that you talk to Ken can you ask him if he remembers double manning with Jimmy Walker and an abnormal load. It was some thirty odd years ago so the details are now a bit sketchey but the jist of it was that a very urgent oversize load had to be delivered, I am not sure where to but at the back of my mind it could of been to Budapest and I think that it might of been a rather large front end loader, hopefully Ken might remember it.
The only low loader that was available for hire at that moment was an old four in line trailer and I remember Jimmy telling me that they had at least one puncture on one of the inside tyres. The job was that urgent that they didnāt even have time to get an abnormal load permit for West Germany or any where else for that matter 
.
They crossed the border at night and as the sun was coming up they pulled onto Weiskirchen Services near Frankfurt and decided to park up. During the morning a couple of police cars slowly drove past them, one stopped and stared at them for a while but according to Jimmy they tried not to make eye contact back at them.
At about ten oā clock I think Jimmy said that he was just coming back from the toilet when Ken shouted across the car park ācome on Jimmy, we are going right now, runā. Ken shot out of the services and said I think that I have seen something that might help us. Up ahead was a long American Army convoy, Ken overtook about a dozen army vehicles and then squeezed in between two tank transporters. They kept their position from Frankfurt to Regensburg about three hundred kilometres before the convoy turned off.
If what Jimmy The Dormouse told me back then was true then thatās what I would call a real driver 
.
Give Ken my regards Geoff, I am off to bed now.
B.T.W. we used to load the Rothmans cigarettes from Spennymoor and clear and tip in the customs in Pireaus between 1981-87.
Regards Steve.
geoffthecrowtaylor:
No Dave it was in Radcliffe and the pub opposite the maingate was of course the Paper Makers Arms we used to meet some of Bewicks drivers in there ,its been closed about 6 years now and the mill totally demolished.Crow.
No geoff i know [elpm]with the papermakers pub,i worked for sheldons of bury at the time and we did the work out of elpm before dennis.The mill i was asking about was the one over the other side of the irwell,as you know in the area at the time there was radcliffe paper mill,olives at tottington,creems at little lever,just wondered which one tony worked at.
regards dave.
Sorry Dave Tony worked at ELPM until about 1973 or 4 amongst the firms he worked for as a driver were Springfield Trans ,JB Carriers and Bridgewater Transport ,we set up on our own in 1974, i remember Sheldons and that other famous Bury firm with the 2 stroke Commers David Hall the least said aboyt Stringfellows the better. Crow.Sorry Dave the mill the other side of the river which was where we were finally based was Pioneer mill.
geoffthecrowtaylor:
Dave Tony worked at ELPM until about 1973 or 4 amongst the firms he worked for as a driver were Springfield Trans ,JB Carriers and Bridgewater Transport ,we set up on our own in 1974, i remember Sheldons and that other famous Bury firm with the 2 stroke Commers David Hall the least said aboyt Stringfellows the better. Crow.
Thanks for that geoff i remember all those firms including the infamous stringfellows lol,i used to work for w nuttalls at clifton close to the time when david halls became became part of the renwick group.Its sad that all these coms and mills are no more,the only one still going[under a new owner]forgot the name is the tissue mill at stubbins,ramsbottom,
regards dave.
Speaking of abnormal loads steve,Me and the crow used to sub for SKI international when they were in Springfields old depot in Trafford Park.They had the job of taking railway engines (in pieces)for British Rail to Romania.The main diesel engines went on low loaders,I think they were around 58 tons gross, and all the rest in tilts.The engines went to Craiova and the axles and other parts to Resita.In those days the Romanian roads were pretty rough,this was 1974/75.Ski mustnāt have had abnormal load permits for Germany because they always went France, Italy,into Yugo at Sezana,then Belgrade,Pancevo,and into Romania at Vrsach.Come to think of it they didnāt have special permits for Italy either,I remember running with their driver Geoff Heald.He had a problem at one of the Italian peages and did a runner.The cops caught up with us near Verona,and after much arm waving and coffee money changing hands they let him go.Anyway on one trip heās on the road following the river Danube near Turnu Severin when the edge of the road gave way and the whole lot,truck,trailer and engine slipped slowly into the Danube.As far as I know it wasnāt recovered and is still there today.No doubt the crow remembers this better than me and will make any corrections that are necessary.
Not quite correct Tony the power unit for these freight trains was built at Vulcan works Newton le Willows it was actually a v16 diesel built under licence from Sulzer a Swiss company they weighed 26 tons the traction motors were made by Brush Electric at Loughborough the occaision you are talking about is also not true no motors in the Danube the driver concerned not Geoff Heald got lost somewhere in Romania up a steep mountain road and finished not beingableto go backwards or forwards, how it was recovered i dont know, this was 1976 we did about half a dozen trips each you and me, this was in the era when the Government socialists to a man wanted to share things with their communist brothers, the whole shooting match in jigsaw form was exported by we intrepid band of brothers to Resita and Craiova when completed they made their way to the promised land via the European rail network ,from what i can remember the build quality was so bad that they only lasted something like 2 years. Regards Crow
geoffthecrowtaylor:
Not quite correct Tony the power unit for these freight trains was built at Vulcan works Newton le Willows it was actually a v16 diesel built under licence from Sulzer a Swiss company they weighed 26 tons the traction motors were made by Brush Electric at Loughborough the occaision you are talking about is also not true no motors in the Danube the driver concerned not Geoff Heald got lost somewhere in Romania up a steep mountain road and finished not beingableto go backwards or forwards, how it was recovered i dont know, this was 1976 we did about half a dozen trips each you and me, this was in the era when the Government socialists to a man wanted to share things with their communist brothers, the whole shooting match in jigsaw form was exported by we intrepid band of brothers to Resita and Craiova when completed they made their way to the promised land via the European rail network ,from what i can remember the build quality was so bad that they only lasted something like 2 years. Regards Crow
Tony Taylor:
geoffthecrowtaylor:
Not quite correct Tony the power unit for these freight trains was built at Vulcan works Newton le Willows it was actually a v16 diesel built under licence from Sulzer a Swiss company they weighed 26 tons the traction motors were made by Brush Electric at Loughborough the occaision you are talking about is also not true no motors in the Danube the driver concerned not Geoff Heald got lost somewhere in Romania up a steep mountain road and finished not beingableto go backwards or forwards, how it was recovered i dont know, this was 1976 we did about half a dozen trips each you and me, this was in the era when the Government socialists to a man wanted to share things with their communist brothers, the whole shooting match in jigsaw form was exported by we intrepid band of brothers to Resita and Craiova when completed they made their way to the promised land via the European rail network ,from what i can remember the build quality was so bad that they only lasted something like 2 years. Regards Crow
Well,I bow to your superior elephantine memory Geoff,even so, the whole outfit must still have weighed around 45tons, a considerable weight for those days on those roads.I must have misheard Steve Keller when he said 58 tons.The story about the rig falling into the river must have come from somewhere,I havnāt just made it up.Did you not hear about it?
Tony neither SKI nor Dawnyard ever had German permits of any sort hence the France Italy Jugo route. None of the loads really attracted convoy exceptional. status not being wide or super long.In the case of the diesel engines because they were on lowloaders they attracted the attention of the peage toll takers but no one paid. Even in those days the Italian weight limit for 4 axle artic was in excess of 40 tonnes.I do remember one time being amazed when at the weighbridge in a factory somewhere in Italy the eytie in front of me was 80 tonnes, this a nomal road outfit not a lowloader this explains how we could overtake these big engined motors when pulling up away from Bologna over the Appenines to Prato.Crow.
any one remember steve mayo doin greece in a old 401 sed atki
I know there are a lot of people from the East up north, but seeing as how this is a middle east thread I thought Iād post something relevant 
Or maybe not 
Can anyone tell me if this is an ex Peterlea lorry, it comes from the right area and the colours look almost right to me 
As an aside and to get back off topic, it was the first lorry Gold Star put on the road, humble beginningsā¦
As you were
newmercman:
I know there are a lot of people from the East up north, but seeing as how this is a middle east thread I thought Iād post something relevantOr maybe not
Can anyone tell me if this is an ex Peterlea lorry, it comes from the right area and the colours look almost right to me
As an aside and to get back off topic, it was the first lorry Gold Star put on the road, humble beginningsā¦
As you were
I dont think that Peterlea trucking had any Right hand drive F16ās. It does look very like peters colours. Iām sure that Steve Grey will put us right as he looked after peters fleet. Regards Jamie.
I was hoping that one of you would know Jamie, one downā¦
On the Crack on to Macon thread thereās a 142 ex Peterlea and it is exactly the same colours, got the cogs grinding
newmercman:
I was hoping that one of you would know Jamie, one downā¦On the Crack on to Macon thread thereās a 142 ex Peterlea and it is exactly the same colours, got the cogs grinding
That 142 on the crack on to macon thread was I think the only scania that peter King had it was on Cobel freight work in the UK most of the time that Peter had it. This can also be confirmed by M&C Steve. Regards Jamie.
hi ash coghill i just been talking to ā ā ā ā rivers grandson sadly ā ā ā ā passed away late last year from a stroke i told him you was in search for your book i will be speaking to him later and get sum more info
WELL LADS IM BACK firstly if your offended by missing full stops and capital letters dont read my driving is better than my writing to them lads who want to know how the trip went hear goes as you know the trailer was held for 10 days by customs but released in the end nothing wrong they said still had to pay Ā£680 to dover harbour board proper liberty any way gets rolling thru france and italy and arrives in ancona to meet the lads gary lyons young phil daz nick bull wayne skinner john boy carrot and hamma our bahrain friend he was taking a stack of trailers down they had all loaded valves in italy for dammam we shipped on various boats and made our own ways to turkey i was told by astrans that because of the value i must not go via syria the others planned to. well about aksoray i heard on the world service that the turk syrian border had been over run by terrorists we now know because of u tube it was al quida 31 border guards dead and all the turk trucks burned and destroyed so it was straight to mersin phil had phoned and booked us in advance but all this did was get us in the gate of the port by this time every truck in turkey was trying the same route so very bizzy in the morning we tried to book 2 weeks they told us lol of to the gondol hotel for a sleep it was saturday then we got the ferry not the next thursday but the one after we have an arangement now where we can book and pay in advance saving the 2 weeks but we had to go there to sort this the first time to skip on we loaded about 5am it was very hot the boat was a night mare cabin temps of 34 all night unsleepeable after 60 hours of bobing along at 10 to 12 knots we hit port sied we had to wait half a day for 6 big container ships to exit the suez canal so we could use the shipping lane to enter port getting of by 6 pm it was then we learned that terorists had killed 20 egyptian border guards in th siannai desert very close to were we were so no convoy the next day to unstabled they said the day after we crossed egypt in convoy plenty of police cars and army trucks with us all armed 350 km later we hit port suez now lads if you want me to go on let me know but im knackered now and all this writing is stressing me so il finnish tommorow if you want
Of course We wanna hear it Keith, bollox to the spelling & grammar just spew it out our brains will put the dots in 
Glad Your back safely too Driverā¦