Bewick:
Nothing changes it would seem in the “Logistics” industry “CG”,during my time as an M.D. in the WRM Group I was the only the director with an HGV licence,but it was priceless listening to the “BS” around the Boardroom table,to hear some of them spout about “vehicle performance” etc,especially those Scots [zb] from A.M.Transport,if you didn’t know it was all B.S. you would think they all had amassed many hours “behind the wheel”.Anyhow if I recall,I could be wrong,but Tink was a joiner or summat in the building industry wasn’t he ,you’ll know Marra knowing everything there is to know about the "fast eddie"gang,you Saddo Cheers Bewick.
Quiet right Bewick, Andrew Tinkler started off as a joiner and his first big job was a care home in Appleby
But, lets get things straight, I’m certainly not a saddo!
Kindest regards
CG
Now look 'ere Marra anybody that can stand outside one of “fast eddies” depots “spotting” their motors in all weathers,or better still,stand on the side of the road in Waverton in the ■■■■■■■ rain for hours just to spot the odd Silloth based bulker or maybe a Skip motor or if you are lucky Milkman Tom’s tanker ,must really be a “dyed in the wool” Super saddo,so if the “ESL baseball cap” fits you just have to wear it my Son !! Cheers Bewick.
Believe me Bewick, I don’t stand out in all weathers at Stobart depots or by the roadside at Waverton.
It’s getting hard to find older pictures but this is over ten years old. it was offloading bags of
peat at Myerscough on my way home from work one night so I jumped out and took a photo
Hi Lawrence , have you ever wondered whats it was like on the other side of the wall when heading up or down Shap in the good old days of 5 pot Gardners, vacuum brakes and arm-strong steering, I certainly have until one day about 5 years ago when my good lady and myself had a leisurely ride down to Kendal and decided to explore some of those side roads to the west of the A6. First expedition was down “The Millers Road” the old pack horse road from Kendal to Penrith which travelled up the bottom of the valley. Adopted by Carrs’ Milling Industries as this was the route taken on foot by Jonathon Dodgson Carr a Kendal baker who walked to Carlisle in the mid 19th century to try and establish a bakery business there. This eventually developed into Carr’s Biscuit Works and their flour mill at Silloth. Perhaps if Jonathon had waited a 100 years he may have got as lift to Carlisle in one of his own wagons. One of my following photos shows the scree section where a Daimler coach en route to Morecambe ran away and went through the wall down the bank to the beck in the bottom with numerous injuries and at least on fatality. The coach belonged to well known Penrith bus operator Ernie Hartness and being a Daimler would have had a fluid flywheel and preselective gears plus a not to efficient braking system.
Cheers Leyland 600
Thank you L600, I have put some rough shifts in going over Shap in the bad winters we seemed to have in those days like hundreds more drivers from that era There wasn’t many loaded wagons that didn’t have to hit crawler gear in those days This Atki I drove from new had a 4 LW in it & with 10 ton on its back it was defo crawler, Regards Larry.
truckfing:
It’s getting hard to find older pictures but this is over ten years old. it was offloading bags of
peat at Myerscough on my way home from work one night so I jumped out and took a photo
Leyland600:
01Hi Lawrence , have you ever wondered whats it was like on the other side of the wall when heading up or down Shap in the good old days of 5 pot Gardners, vacuum brakes and arm-strong steering, I certainly have until one day about 5 years ago when my good lady and myself had a leisurely ride down to Kendal and decided to explore some of those side roads to the west of the A6. First expedition was down “The Millers Road” the old pack horse road from Kendal to Penrith which travelled up the bottom of the valley. Adopted by Carrs’ Milling Industries as this was the route taken on foot by Jonathon Dodgson Carr a Kendal baker who walked to Carlisle in the mid 19th century to try and establish a bakery business there. This eventually developed into Carr’s Biscuit Works and their flour mill at Silloth. Perhaps if Jonathon had waited a 100 years he may have got as lift to Carlisle in one of his own wagons. One of my following photos shows the scree section where a Daimler coach en route to Morecambe ran away and went through the wall down the bank to the beck in the bottom with numerous injuries and at least on fatality. The coach belonged to well known Penrith bus operator Ernie Hartness and being a Daimler would have had a fluid flywheel and preselective gears plus a not to efficient braking system.
Cheers Leyland 600
Super pics Leyland 600. I have a couple of prints of Alan Spilletts featuring that stretch of road. One has one of Robson’s Foden eight wheelers, and the other is of a Moffat’s ERF artic reefer.
Cheers Dave.
That shot of the screes from the valley bottom looking up to the A6 on Shap Fell reminds me of the time in 66/67 when one of Davis Bros.Scammell Highwaymen of Widnes/Warrington ? had gone over the edge and was jack knifed half way down,I believe the driver got out OK but he needed a change of “shreddies” as he had filled the ones he had on on the way down apparently However,at regular intervals over the following months Davis Bros Scammell (ex Army) wrecker would turn up and they would try to figure out how they were going to recover the Highwayman.I think they eventually got it down to the valley floor then brought back out over the old packhorse road to join the A6 just below the Leyland clock above the Jungle Cafe,hairy days for sure on the old A6.Cheers Bewick.
Hi Dave , Thanks for the compliment, here are a couple more I did not get time to post earlier.
To Lawrence, I bet you felt like King of the Road with that L744 Atkinson, (was it painted blue by the way) or was it a punishment for something you had done as you certainly would not be going anywhere fast with a 4LW. My mate has a L745 (5LW version) which he takes to rallys, it is a bit faster just now having had a 6LXB governor spring fitted lifting the speed from 29mph to about 33.5mph. However looking back to those days there were lots of 4 wheelers with just 4 LWs and at best 5LWs all doing about the same speed. I had a S21 Mickey Mouse Foden 8 wheeler with 12 speed box and 6LW which would do 42mph. One night I left Wigton at 8pm arriving in Lenham, Kent at 7-15am next morning non stop, I ate my bait at Grantham about half way, on the bonnet with a cup in one hand and steering wheel in the other. Remember the little Albion Chieftains with 4 cylinder engines, 5 speed boxes giving 38 mph and carrying 10 tons the standard load for a four wheeler non of the silly axle weight laws in those good old days.
Cheers Leyland 600
Hi CWM, Here is a photo from Boballoa’s website of Scottish fairground lorries, I am fairly sure that this is one of the ERFs depicted in the artwork of Ben Sayers wagon.
Cheers , Leyland 600.
Lawrence Dunbar:
I came over Shap on Monday on my way back from the Lake District, It brought back a lot of mems might I say, Cruising effortlessly in the Jag, Quite different from the old days when I had to get into crawler gear with the old 5 Potter Gardner with a drag on its tail, & Seeing the old gaol birds from Preston Prison Knapping stones which are still there on the right heading north to stop batter slide I was told in those long good old days, Its like a motorway know compared to the era Im refering to, Perhaps some of you oldies like myself can remember those days, Regards Larry.
I think those prisoners you mention Larry came from the Open Prison at Bela River camp between Milnthorpe and Holme village( not far south of our depot).Before that nick closed in the early '70’s the inmates used to be sent out to work on local farms and for the Council ( Westmorland) which would account for them working on Shap.A gang of them also worked regularly in the Libby factory next door to our depot,oh! and a great many of them origionated from the N.East and apparently it was a regular occurance over the years that after some of them were released they would come back over and do a few “jobs” after they had cased some properties while a guest of Her Maj in Bela Camp I have another funny tale about something that happened with some of the Lags that worked in Libbys but I’ll relate that another time. Cheers Dennis
Aye Bewick you are right about the prisoners from Bela Prison, I remember hauling railway lines from Cockermouth goods station about 1964 when they lifted the line. These were taken to Glasson Dock where they went to Italy by coaster I think, anyway I had a BMC FHK 140 horizontal engine model I cannot remember the calculated weight of a rail now but the BMC was usually fully freighted and struggled up some of those steep hills between Windermere and Staveley where these lads were to be seen with scythes and sickles tidying the road side for the Lakeland tourists to admire. As I crawled up the hills they used to watch me and I often wondered if they were contemplating jumping on to the platform which they could have done quite easily and absconding to god knows where !!! PS talking about the Ernie Hartness coach disaster Bim T tells me the driver came frae Cordbeck. . Here is a nostalgic reminder of Ernie Hartness attached to Sandgate Court flats in Penrith built on the site of his old garage.
Cheers Leyland 600.
Leyland600:
Aye Bewick you are right about the prisoners from Bela Prison, I remember hauling railway lines from Cockermouth goods station about 1964 when they lifted the line. These were taken to Glasson Dock where they went to Italy by coaster I think, anyway I had a BMC FHK 140 horizontal engine model I cannot remember the calculated weight of a rail now but the BMC was usually fully freighted and struggled up some of those steep hills between Windermere and Staveley where these lads were to be seen with scythes and sickles tidying the road side for the Lakeland tourists to admire. As I crawled up the hills they used to watch me and I often wondered if they were contemplating jumping on to the platform which they could have done quite easily and absconding to god knows where !!! PS talking about the Ernie Hartness coach disaster Bim T tells me the driver came frae Cordbeck. .
Cheers Leyland 600.
Thats interesting L600,a regular job we did for a good number of years was loads of scrap rail off the main line which was loaded onto our trailers in the old Furness railway yard at Carnforth,we took the loads to Rotherham and Gateshead or Sunderland where they were put through the rolling mill as 33 ft lenghts of scrap and came out as 60ft bridge rail for the collieries.Oh! and your mention of Ernie Hartness,didn’t Aurther Hewitson work for Ernie as a conductor on the double decker they ran out of Penrith,thats why his “nickname” was the “Conductor” I believe.Cheers Bewick.
Bewick , I thought it was “King Arthur” this will be one of Ernie’s two Daimler double deckers leaving Blair and Palmer’s Drovers Lane bus station in Carlisle pulling up the hill past the “dole office” now demolished and a new Debenhams store on the site.
Leyland 600
Leyland600:
Hi CWM, Here is a photo from Boballoa’s website of Scottish fairground lorries, I am fairly sure that this is one of the ERFs depicted in the artwork of Ben Sayers wagon.
Cheers , Leyland 600.
Hi CWM, No Ken gave it to me, but I can only use it with the button down just now, but when I get my new knee fitted and I get that button up I will be overriding the speed limiter.
Cheers Leyland 600.
Leyland600:
0Hi CWM, No Ken gave it to me, but I can only use it with the button down just now, but when I get my new knee fitted and I get that button up I will be overriding the speed limiter.
Cheers Leyland 600.
Hi “Leyland 600” ,
Good luck with the forthcoming operation.
For a while after the operation , youll be needing the Two Stick" , method,…
…and thats got the crawler` gear.
cattle wagon man:
Dennis ;- it IS L A .
That`s the postcode for Kendal.
O.K.,…I`ll get me coat…
Cheers , Anon 1.
Ba Dum Tish
Interesting about Shap Pink, so that’s the left hand side if coming from Kendal? Didn’t realise it used to be two seperate quarries.
Edit as I’ve just turned my brain on Pink was the one further towards the summit?
Hi,Pink quarry first on left heading from Kendal,Blue Quarry on left bit further on,secondary/processing plant and stock piles on right,tunnel runs under road with conveyor bringing stone into plant.
Hi, A Robsons fitter I knew tells the tale of being called out to the lay by near the Pink quarry where one of their Albions had gearbox problems, he took out a replacement box and proceeded to drop the faulty one out. When he got it out assisted by the driver and preparing to fit the new one he asked the driver to jump into the cab and make sure it was out of gear before attempting to fit the replacement which he duly did, on discovering his error with the gear stick moving all over the place his language almost turned the pink quarry blue. Always good for a laugh those fitters.!!!
,you’ll know Marra knowing everything there is to know about the "fast eddie"gang,you Saddo
Cheers Bewick.
,must really be a “dyed in the wool” Super saddo,so if the “ESL baseball cap” fits you just have to wear it my Son !!
However,at regular intervals over the following months Davis Bros Scammell (ex Army) wrecker would turn up and they would try to figure out how they were going to recover the Highwayman.I think they eventually got it down to the valley floor then brought back out over the old packhorse road to join the A6 just below the Leyland clock above the Jungle Cafe,hairy days for sure on the old A6.Cheers Bewick.
Hi CWM, No Ken gave it to me, but I can only use it with the button down just now, but when I get my new knee fitted and I get that button up I will be overriding the speed limiter.
