It meant something back in the day.
Police traps everywhere, adverse weather, hours and hours to Glasgow.
I miss the challenge of being a driver way back.
So easy now
That makes crossing the Darien Gap look childs play…
I dont think we used to go anywhere near Kentucky, Tennesee, or Virginia when travelling to Scotland.
I may have been close to a ■■■■■■■■■■ sausage, but never the ■■■■■■■■■■ Gap.
The ■■■■■■■■■■ Gap was actually the stretch of the old A74 remaining between the end of the M6 at j44, and the new improved M74 north of Gretna, about 5miles or so. It was joined up and completed to Motorway standard about 5 years or so ago, but you were right about the old A74, it was a bit of a ballache in parts. A couple of good cafes though, Kirtlebridge, Coategate quarry, and Elvanfoot to name a few, the biggest problem for truckers was the enforced early 80s 40mph limit all the way up 
, when your 111 Scania or 2800 DAF or whatever was unlimited and capable of 70+MPH 
, but then CBs came out and sorted that out 
Found on a thread in the old-timers section. This was the A^ and the main route from Manchester to Glasgow. From London we used the A! to Edinburgh and the A8
e: ■■■■■■■ COMPANIES
by NZ JAMIE » Sat Jun 13, 2009 11:46 am
G’day fellas.
I’ve found the article on the A1 over Shap Fell,it talks about the road twenty years ago,but this article is now 23 years young. I remember reading it as a young fella and thinking jease these blokes did it tough.I don’t know for sure,but you probably would’nt even drop a full cog going over on the six now with six hundred horse.
Cheers Jamie
NZ JAMIE
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Thats a brilliant read santa
robroy:
The ■■■■■■■■■■ Gap was actually the stretch of the old A74 remaining between the end of the M6 at j44, and the new improved M74 north of Gretna, about 5miles or so. It was joined up and completed to Motorway standard about 5 years or so ago, but you were right about the old A74, it was a bit of a ballache in parts. A couple of good cafes though, Kirtlebridge, Coategate quarry, and Elvanfoot to name a few, the biggest problem for truckers was the enforced early 80s 40mph limit all the way up
was talking to a jock at curries Appleton last week, never heard of coatgate! 
turned round and told me I must be ancient ! 
he had grey hair!
santa that article is brilliant. really interested in old roads, any more posts on the subject?
My dad drove for Jack Wilson, and I used to load Tuers and Hayhursts motors when I was on the forklifts in Gypsum. (actually called Skid Stack Trucks, which had a metal plate instead of forks, because the bags of plaster were stacked on thick plastic sheets (skids) which were re-used. when loading a vehicle the skid was clamped by one part of the truck while another part pushed the stack of bags onto the bed of the lorry for the driver to handball at his delivery point…
Probably why drivers were a lot fitter than nowadays… even when I started my truck driving career in '77 we were regularly handballing 9x9x18 solid concrete blocks, or loads of bricks…
Sounds like some challenging times back in the day, didn’t realise how hard of a job it was back then, anyone who moans about driving of today needs to read that article and realise your no so hard done by, sounds abit more adventurous back then though, not just down a motorway to an RDC and etc.
that bit of road in the picture, i couldn’t get up that hill 3 years ago in the icey conditions coming out of kendal and that was with 440 horses so god knows how the old skool did it.
respect
jonboy
Trukkertone:
Probably why drivers were a lot fitter than nowadays… even when I started my truck driving career in '77 we were regularly handballing 9x9x18 solid concrete blocks, or loads of bricks…
I spent a while after leaving school working at a small brick yard in the Cotswolds. We used to load the bricks onto flatbed trucks by hand. The truck would stop a few feet from a stack of bricks (often still warm from the kiln) and we worked as a four man team. We wore leather pads to protect the palms of our hands and the first man picked up four bricks off the stack squeezed together between his hands (not on top of each other in a pile) and throw them to the second man and down the line to where the last man stacked them on the truck - the ones along the edge would be tilted up by the side rave. The conscientious drivers would throw a net over the load, but a lot didn’t, and you would often see the odd brick in the ditch along the roads nearby.
When we were making bricks our wages were piece rates at half-a-crown (12½p) a thousand.
The Leyland Clock from Shap was restored and can now be seen at the Kendal Brewery Museum. Apparently there were seven of them around the country but this is the only one I remember.
robroy:
the biggest problem for truckers was the enforced early 80s 40mph limit all the way up
i was thinking about that when i started reading the topic, i seem to remember seeing signs all the way up the 74 with some weird 7.5T /50mph limit on them, is that right or have i imagined it? i remember seeing something just cant recall exactly what it was about
The late sixties still had a lot of loads handballed I regularly handloaded 1000 40lb blocks of cheese at Express Dairies at Sanquhar also from Kilmaurs creamery down to Krafts at Kirkby and it would be the early 70s before it was palletisedyou will note fridges had’nt come into the picture another job we did was the waste butter from places that had had deliveries from the dairies and this was the unsold butter which was in most cases going off ie.soggy mishappen cartons, in the winter this was’nt to bad but in summer it was soft to say the least I remember one load in particular a warm summer monday tipped Glasgow and loaded various places around the city and back home to Sanquhar tues run down to Northampton wed to Purfleet well it was dripping off the back o the trailer the ropes were all fairly loose so they decides they would’nt accept it but when I said well there is no way it will make it back and that I was refusing to take it anywhere they relented and took it luckily they had a good steam hose and an hour got the trailer and the sheets squeaky clean again. Eddie.
chaversdad:
robroy:
the biggest problem for truckers was the enforced early 80s 40mph limit all the way upi was thinking about that when i started reading the topic, i seem to remember seeing signs all the way up the 74 with some weird 7.5T /50mph limit on them, is that right or have i imagined it? i remember seeing something just cant recall exactly what it was about
Very keen 40mph limit and if you went over it the other drivers looked at you like you are a lunatic 
sabre-roads.org.uk/wiki/inde … erland_Gap
