Basically an 8ft long wooden wedge, which usually had a hole drilled in either end and a short rope set in to secure it tightly in place to the rope hooks, it was put behind the last roll of paper (newsprint typically) which might be two or three high depending on size.
Then you double sheeted them, roped between the rolls and fly sheeted over the top.
There font of bugger all thats me…
Ta!
It may no longer be relevant, but that doesn’t mean the suffering of those poor souls that really had to work for a living should be forgotten. What tune would you like me to play on my violin?
alix776:
The rush to autos hasn’t helped I still think the auto shouldn’t be an option for the HGV test it should be manual. I’ve seen first hand a driver refuse to take a manual out so they hired him a auto then he asked them to reverse it out of there yard as he thought it was too tight it wasn’t and they still sent him out id have sent him home and refused to pay
My agency didn’t tell me it was a manual (they should do given that a lot of new passers have never touched a four over four, let alone a splitter). As I said I’m OK with manuals even though this was the first manual artic I’ve driven since I was a learner. And as for not being able to reverse, all they teach you is that contrived parallel-park manoeuvre. They should teach you about reversing round a corner and into a parking bay at a service station.
Why should the agency tell you it’s a manual, you have a licence for the truck so drive it, if it’s not a gearbox you’re familiar with ask what gearbox it is and how to use it. It’s what most of us did when we started. And I don’t think Auto’s have much to do with it, I learned in a truck with a 6 speed box, the first truck I drove after passing my test was a 16 speed with a 4 over 4 and splitter on each gear, I used to do a bit of part time work for a haulier with a mixed fleet of trucks, if it wasn’t something I’d seen before I’d ask one of the drivers.
Maybe the reversing could be updated, but I doubt whatever they did, most drivers wouldn’t feel ready for real World reverses, but refusing to it is not the way to get better, I’d have far more respect for the newbie who asked for help and gave it a go, even if it took them a while to get there.
I’ve never asked an agency what I’d be driving, other than rigid or artic. In fact I’d be embarrassed to ask and wouldn’t expect them to know anyway…
Seriously though, when i took my test the training was a ten day course which was pretty standard of the time, now thats been reduced to a matter of a few days so no way on this earth have they got time to teach you about lorry driving, they are there to get you through the test and that they do well.
The rest is up to you, you either learn on the job or pay the training company to teach you how to drive a lorry after the test has been passed, but its going to cost you.
I did a 10 day course as well, but in those days many of us went from car licence straight to artics. I assume now you send a week getting a licence for a rigid and then about the same time getting a licence for an artic, so I reckon the training time will be the same, just not in the same type of vehicle.
In the timeline we start our lorry lives we have to quickly back learn what the previous generation have been doing all their lives, it’s always been a baptism of fire the first few years in the game.
They didn’t teach roping and sheeting or about back-scotches on the training course either, you picked it up as you went along, just as the new drivers now are doing when they come across the odd manual box.
I know it’s not always possible for a new driver to avoid the agency route, but I think in an ideal World, being able to work directly for a company when newly qualified would be better for learning on the job and agencies should be for experienced drivers who aren’t having to learn the basics of driving a truck, while getting to grips with different truck, jobs and companies everyday.
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I agree, its funny olde worlde, the agency driver should in an ideal word be a time served experienced bod, when in practice its often the work new drivers cab get unless they are prepared to go in bent over all lubed up and take minimum or less wage from some knuckle dragging cheapskate boss whose out to take full advantage of them.
Not only do you have to guess where the oil/fuel/bogs/office/paperwork/bulbs/etc are in every yard you go to, you have to be able to get into any motor of any make and any size with any one of a hundred different trailer types (if artic/drag), often in the pitch dark at silly o’clock in the morning, and within 20 mins to be all cheked over hitched up load secured and at your first delivery which was timed for 15 minutes after your start time.
alix776:
The rush to autos hasn’t helped I still think the auto shouldn’t be an option for the HGV test it should be manual. I’ve seen first hand a driver refuse to take a manual out so they hired him a auto then he asked them to reverse it out of there yard as he thought it was too tight it wasn’t and they still sent him out id have sent him home and refused to pay
My agency didn’t tell me it was a manual (they should do given that a lot of new passers have never touched a four over four, let alone a splitter). As I said I’m OK with manuals even though this was the first manual artic I’ve driven since I was a learner. And as for not being able to reverse, all they teach you is that contrived parallel-park manoeuvre. They should teach you about reversing round a corner and into a parking bay at a service station.
Why should the agency tell you it’s a manual, you have a licence for the truck so drive it, if it’s not a gearbox you’re familiar with ask what gearbox it is and how to use it. It’s what most of us did when we started. And I don’t think Auto’s have much to do with it, I learned in a truck with a 6 speed box, the first truck I drove after passing my test was a 16 speed with a 4 over 4 and splitter on each gear, I used to do a bit of part time work for a haulier with a mixed fleet of trucks, if it wasn’t something I’d seen before I’d ask one of the drivers.
Maybe the reversing could be updated, but I doubt whatever they did, most drivers wouldn’t feel ready for real World reverses, but refusing to it is not the way to get better, I’d have far more respect for the newbie who asked for help and gave it a go, even if it took them a while to get there.
I’ve never asked an agency what I’d be driving, other than rigid or artic. In fact I’d be embarrassed to ask and wouldn’t expect them to know anyway…
Basically an 8ft long wooden wedge, which usually had a hole drilled in either end and a short rope set in to secure it tightly in place to the rope hooks, it was put behind the last roll of paper (newsprint typically) which might be two or three high depending on size.
Then you double sheeted them, roped between the rolls and fly sheeted over the top.
There font of bugger all thats me…
Ta!
It may no longer be relevant, but that doesn’t mean the suffering of those poor souls that really had to work for a living should be forgotten. What tune would you like me to play on my violin?
Can you play the violin with the thin end protruding from your fundament…
IndigoJo:
I think most people are referring to constant-mesh gearboxes nowadays when they say “crash box”. And yes, I’m sure the Queen has used them, as she drives Land Rovers round her vast estates (and has even driven the king of Saudi Arabia, who was not used to female drivers) and Land Rovers until recently (although less recently than ERF I think) had crash boxes.
Series 2 LR had ‘crash’ on first and second then all synchro on the series 3 so at least since the 1970’s.As for the Queen more like I think she drove up to the Bedford QL at least in WW2.As for the end of Fullers here it seems to be around the 1990’s having been taken out by EU legislation.Probably to protect the European manufacturing interests against competition from the unarguably superior Fuller.As for modern day drivers what’s so difficult about matching road and engine speeds properly at which point a Fuller almost drives itself it’s that easy,light and quick. On that note hopefully if we get Brexit we’ll at least be able to spec them again here.Like the rest of the English speaking world.
my view is that agencies should support new drivers they take with as much info as possible tbh. and that’s what happened to me. they informed me its a manual, analogue tacho, so i researched the topic and it was not like “oh, ffs what am i supposed to do with that analogue crap?”
IndigoJo:
I think most people are referring to constant-mesh gearboxes nowadays when they say “crash box”. And yes, I’m sure the Queen has used them, as she drives Land Rovers round her vast estates (and has even driven the king of Saudi Arabia, who was not used to female drivers) and Land Rovers until recently (although less recently than ERF I think) had crash boxes.
the unarguably superior Fuller. On that note hopefully if we get Brexit we’ll at least be able to spec them again here.Like the rest of the English speaking world.
Whose going to spec 'em CF , there’s no bloody fleet transport managers left who know which end of a bloody lorry steers, let alone start speccing the bloody things with engines gearboxes and suitable final drives.
It would only be the likes of Punchards and a few like them that would have a clue.
I stand to be corrected but I think true crash boxes went out of favour in the early fifties. I own a couple of 1940,s Bristol buses with crash boxes and five pot Gardners and the old saying was that you could light a ■■■ while waiting for an upward change. By the early 50,s Bristol were using constant mesh boxes where the main cogs are always engaged. You still had to match the revs but they would not try to break your wrist like a crash box.
The 1961 AEC Mammouth Majors I drove had constant mesh boxes and it was easy to change gear with out using the clutch at all once moving.
If anyone on here has had experience with an old Bristol bus 5 speed crash gearbox they will have had some fun with it.
Juddian:
Whose going to spec 'em CF , there’s no bloody fleet transport managers left who know which end of a bloody lorry steers, let alone start speccing the bloody things with engines gearboxes and suitable final drives.
It would only be the likes of Punchards and a few like them that would have a clue.
I could maybe see it happening at the specialist end of the market like owner drivers or small operators suddenly realising the different world in terms of durability and residual values of what’s available in the colonies.Where they seem to talk in terms of millions of kilometres and 10’s of years old when selling on.Not almost ready for the scrap yard at 5 years old and a few hundred thousand k’s on the clock.
Numbum:
I stand to be corrected but I think true crash boxes went out of favour in the early fifties. I own a couple of 1940,s Bristol buses with crash boxes and five pot Gardners and the old saying was that you could light a ■■■ while waiting for an upward change. By the early 50,s Bristol were using constant mesh boxes where the main cogs are always engaged. You still had to match the revs but they would not try to break your wrist like a crash box.
The 1961 AEC Mammouth Majors I drove had constant mesh boxes and it was easy to change gear with out using the clutch at all once moving.
If anyone on here has had experience with an old Bristol bus 5 speed crash gearbox they will have had some fun with it.
That’s what I was referring to regards sliding mesh v constant.Where even the best of them seem to view downshifts with trepidation going by the first video I posted.
But it’s really unfair when drivers,who seem to be frightened of even synchro boxes now, seem to try to confirm their unfounded fears of constant mesh by erroneously trying to compare it with sliding.
Numbum:
I stand to be corrected but I think true crash boxes went out of favour in the early fifties. I own a couple of 1940,s Bristol buses with crash boxes and five pot Gardners and the old saying was that you could light a ■■■ while waiting for an upward change. By the early 50,s Bristol were using constant mesh boxes where the main cogs are always engaged. You still had to match the revs but they would not try to break your wrist like a crash box.
The Eaton Fuller was a crash box and they were still being fitted to ERFs and Seddon Atkinsons in the 1980s.
Seriously though, when i took my test the training was a ten day course which was pretty standard of the time, now thats been reduced to a matter of a few days so no way on this earth have they got time to teach you about lorry driving, they are there to get you through the test and that they do well.
The rest is up to you, you either learn on the job or pay the training company to teach you how to drive a lorry after the test has been passed, but its going to cost you.
In the timeline we start our lorry lives we have to quickly back learn what the previous generation have been doing all their lives, it’s always been a baptism of fire the first few years in the game.
They didn’t teach roping and sheeting or about back-scotches on the training course either, you picked it up as you went along, just as the new drivers now are doing when they come across the odd manual box.
My lad took his test about 10 years ago, one of his first agency motors was a Scammell Constructor with of all things a good old Eaton Twin Splitter box, got a phone call from him peppered with ffff’s how do you drive this thing? told him the rudiments and suggested he played a tune on it and enjoy it, now all those years later he knows he was lucky to have had it because no gearbox he ever finds gives him the slightest issue after that baptism.
By the way its the same just slightly different for us older drivers and these new crap semi self driving lorries you young blokes come over all unecessary about, i hate the bloody things, every time you get a new one its learning more electronic interfering ■■■■■■■■ we don’t need and never asked for…you young blokes will be old sods one day and the cycle of unprogress will ■■■■ you lot off too then, next big thing daresay the lorry will ■■■■■■ the steering from you when the all seeing eye reckons something is imminent, just like the bloody brakes take over when they feel like on the latest rubbish…mind you check the drivers handbook for the small print where it says you are still responsible
My first experience in a manual was a 26t loaded with eggs going into London. Standard manuals now are no problem, I’d be up a certain creek without said paddle if I had to drive a crash box.
No, you take a pride in your work Radar so you’d manage just fine, yes you’d play a tune on it, we all did and if those of us who had them before had one again we’d be rusty and play one just as loud, but you’d do the same as we all did back then, find a gear that can get you out the gate and 200 yards down the road out of earshot then start…
Juddian:
No, you take a pride in your work Radar so you’d manage just fine, yes you’d play a tune on it, we all did and if those of us who had them before had one again we’d be rusty and play one just as loud, but you’d do the same as we all did back then, find a gear that can get you out the gate and 200 yards down the road out of earshot then start…