hiya,
That’s them Chris, long gone now but a fantastic sound, the “leccy’s” do nothing for me can hardly hear the things.
thanks harry long retired.
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Not quite all gone, 6 are still operational, Martin Walker (Beever sports) Huddersfield has two, both based at East Lancs railway at Bury and 1 is used on mainline railtours.
2 x triangular formation 2 stroke engines in each of em, horizontally opposed pistons =32 piston per engine = 72 pistons per locomotive =3300hp.
Fine machines.
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Oh i dunno …these sounded pretty awsome with their ORIGINAL paxman engines , the difference now when you here them!!
Lawrence Dunbar:
70 mph plus , you must have been naughtey & had the rack bar fastened back, or did the old motor have very very high speed diffs ? , Regards Larry.
Lawrence - I was about 12 and glancing over at the speedo so can’t answer you properly I’m afraid - I know she had a David Brown gearbox, Eaton two speed axle, Kirkstall front steer axle with a trailing non driven Eaton rearmost axle.
I took these pictures of her laid up in 1986, waiting to be towed off to the Vet’s for the big needle. The speedo went up to 85 as I recall and I’m sure the needle was over 70 on the M6 one day but we might have been empty.
6 Legs was a man’s wagon
What a sad sight & what a shame it wasnt restored to its former glory, but never mind you have got the loveley old memmories of it. Regards Larry
Sorry to bring this thread back up, but i loved the sounds vehicles of all sorts made years ago, totally individual.
My favorite sound had to be Concorde on full power take, used to load cars out of the rental companies alongside Heathrow runway when the bird was flying, devastating and beautiful sound, and as your ears returned to working cpacity all you could hear as the ringing subsided was car alarms.
Deltic trains, oh yes, as a boy i lived close to Welwyn North station and spent many happy years watching those Deltics come out of the tunnel and speed through the station, i loved that sound, still do.
So in order Concorde, Tornado, Deltic, Merlin, well set up ■■■■■■■ 14L, any two stroke, Gardner 8cyl, Rolls (in Scammell with stack), my Mach 1 Mustang, and finally oddly enough Leyland Buffalo with stack in full song.
Provided by David Machin (sadly passed away March 2010 far too young) who was a driver at J Haydons - Dave was an all round good egg and nice bloke. He wrote this about Gardner cold start and called it, Pyro-technical Start Up;
“I used to lift off the interior bonnet, a pain if you had a lot of kit with you, and then take off the air intake hose. Get a piece of rag or rolled up paper, light it, press starter with one hand, let fire be drawn into engine and make sure window was down to discard fire once started. It (Gardner 120) usually always started up straight away. One could use ether, but it wasn’t recommended with a Gardner. That’s probably why they were near always wound up in a morning.The trick was to have a good battery and not let go of the key until she fired! I’m sure this brings back memories for a lot of truckers, also a sigh of relief once your Gardner was running and sounding like a sewing machine (once the smoke had cleared). Gardner, the bosses motor.”
I myself remember sitting in the cab on frosty mornings while the ERF would shake and rattle, engine turn getting higher and higher pitched until finally spluttering into life blotting the yard out with smoke. The whole thing took about 5 minutes and this was without any pyrotechnics!
Gardner 120:
I myself remember sitting in the cab on frosty mornings while the ERF would shake and rattle, engine turn getting higher and higher pitched until finally spluttering into life blotting the yard out with smoke. The whole thing took about 5 minutes and this was without any pyrotechnics!
You’ve just jogged my worsening by the day memory to one winters night spent at Crawford, and in the cold morning a row of Gardner engined motors, my Mickey Mouse one of them ticking over.
You couldn’t see a thing, the whole yard truck park was a thick fog of white smoke that took ages to clear.
Not one of us in the cabs, we simply started them and ran back to the Crawford Arms for safety, the trucks were quite safe you’d need Supermans X ray eyes to find the damned things, and no average truck thief could have worked out a Foden box anyway.
Foden gearbox, the worlds most effective anti theft device.
Love it! Happy days huh? As a 13 year old sitting on the bonnet (well safe) trying to get warm in the winter or in the scorcher of 1976, trying to avoid said bonnet with windows tied open
ah happy days , grinding up the cat and fiddle in the foden , the rugs on the bonnet almost smouldering , head out of the window trying to get some fresh air . then in the winter folding the rugs back to let a little warmth into the cab , mmmm lovely ,cheers , dave
Let’s not forget some of the vital eqipment needed in a 1968 ERF 6 legged cattle wagon; assortment of large sticks, coiled rope, cans of oil, boots and wellies (caked in cow muck) electric prodders (for loading pigs) lots of fun being poked with it (owwww!!!) log book (remember completing them by hand with a biro and ruler?) assorted ■■■ packets and matches.
Ahhh the glorious aroma of diesel & manure whilst listening to the throaty rumble of that Gardner 180 climbing slowly through the gears as brown water sluiced out the back
The old mans Saviem turbo springs to mind , u could hear him from a mile away coming home. A full warning if u had been naughty that day…
And it had its benifits cause the butty van used to have his sanrnys ready before he got there.
Which truck engine do you think sounds the best? My all time favourite has got to be the Scania V8 closely followed by the 14lt ■■■■■■■ . For some reason Volvo’s Daf’s Renaults Iveco’s just don’t make the right noise .
Agree with the thought about the 14l ■■■■■■■■ I loved the growl of the 10l Cat engines of the late 80s-complete with smoke effect when working hard! A properly working Jake Brake makes a nice noise aswell.
