I liked the York SL (diamond frame chassis) they always seemed to run a lot smoother than the CF and had better brakes.Their big draw back was the low gearing of the legs—took a lot longer than than the CF,I even had York build one with Davies Magnet landing gear but they were as bad,so I switched to CF as York wouldn’t budge,I would have quite happily stayed with them if they had matched the CF winding speed on the legs!! The difference between the respective speeds was a driver getting P****d through in the rain and saying sod it and leaving the legs half down and then damaging them.Bewick
Know what you mean about the landing gear Some of them not only took an age to wind up but you done an upperbody workout they were that stiff to operate - in the days when we carried an handle
andrew brick:
and in front … a Volvo.
regards Andrew.
Or a Guy Big J4T with a Gardner 240
Nice one newmercman!
David
And the next flock of pink elephants will be overhead shortly!!! Dennis.
Hell, & there was me thinking about sizzling bacon .
Yea Andrew they are pigs but have been told that if your smoking the “funny stuff” they turn into Elephants!! Dennis.
Hi Dennis, have to take your word on that as ive never seen a flying Elephant , but a fair few flying pigs, (esp. when I was late with a deleivery !!!) regards Andrew.
Hiya …come on Brewick did,nt you run PEAK trailers they made a good lightweight tandam axel with cracking brakes.that would be in the
60/70s. they was made in the Stockport/ Reddish area. not to mention Dyson/overlander/boden/btc/AHP(never any brakes)York(now kroy)
Scammell/ERF/Dennison(some good reports on them)montracon they,er before british manufactures went bang.I hear Hingley,s have opened
up AHP and are making trailers and the Kroy is Malc Harrison having a go.
John
3300John:
Hiya …come on Brewick did,nt you run PEAK trailers they made a good lightweight tandam axel with cracking brakes.that would be in the
60/70s. they was made in the Stockport/ Reddish area. not to mention Dyson/overlander/boden/btc/AHP(never any brakes)York(now kroy)
Scammell/ERF/Dennison(some good reports on them)montracon they,er before british manufactures went bang.I hear Hingley,s have opened
up AHP and are making trailers and the Kroy is Malc Harrison having a go.
John
Youv’e rhymed a few off there mate!! We only ever had one Peak chassis and that was a tipper with a Millmoor bulk ali body.I’ve got to be honest I never reckoned the Peak as a flat trailer I more or less stuck with York in the early years followed by C/F and finally TASK and a few M & G(Bo-Alloy).I did however aquire a few odd balls over the years as( our first trailer was a 32ft Primrose T4) I re-call an Overlander flat,a Tinsley/Bo-alloy,6 Lawrence David 4 mtr.Curtainsiders and here’s a funny----5 Keltrail(Keltruck)coilers very well built on air which I bought for very handy money off Chris Kelly.I sent them to Bo-Alloy and they joined the fleet in the East Lancs Mill livery!I much preferred the ROR running gear although the L/Davids were on SAF from memory.Rambled enough! Cheers Dennis.
I think the bloke who bolted the winding handle on a trailer should have a medal…the times I’ve had to use molegrips etc to wind up the legs because another driver has “borrowed” my handle…thats a decent trailer
Cheers Bubbs,
Would i be right to suggest that Montracon built a good trailer but following there buy out/merger with Task the trailers became more like a Task not to everyones approval. Others i remember were Motorway, Dennison and Schmitz the latter seems to have become really popular in the last 10 or so years.
NB12:
Would i be right to suggest that Montracon built a good trailer but following there buy out/merger with Task the trailers became more like a Task not to everyones approval. Others i remember were Motorway, Dennison and Schmitz the latter seems to have become really popular in the last 10 or so years.
I totally disagree about your suggestion that Task affected Montracon, in my opinion it was the other way round(I was taking delivery of Task chassis at the time) I remember getting a visit from a chap called Des O’Conner(no! not the singer,but it might as well have been) the Sales Director of Montracon who informed me that from now on I would be buying Montracon trailers!!! I told him bluntly that if the batch of chassis they were currently building for me at ■■■■■■■■■■■ deviated one iota from our established spec they could stick them were"the Sun don’t shine".I got my trailers but Task plunged into industrial relation problems which eventually closed the plant.So I went back to C/F and also M & G for our Bo-Alloy chassis.I wouldn’t have a Montracon,Dennison or SDC in the fleet at that time as they are, in my opinion,all a load of crap!!!Don’t take my slagging off of these trailers personal NB12 but I am only speaking as a customer and operator at the time!!Bewick.
Always thought the York ‘opposed castellations’ chassis looked dodgy, but that was purely on aesthetics.
Definite ‘rammel’ were Tidd (urgh) & Tasker - trying to remember one or two more of the obscure makes…
Ross & Bonnyman tailifts were much better than Ratcliffs in the 80’s
The York SL chassis was a strong chassis even if it didn’t look like it was.The top and bottom sections of the “I” beam were wider than the conventional "I "beam chassis used by the other manufactures which gave it more longditudial(spelling!) strength.I can’t recall the exact difference but it was a few inches!Bewick.
There was a firm at Runcorn whose name escapes me, that had a go for a while, maybe early 80’s onwards but I only ever saw one, operated by Wharfe Bros from Mossley/Appleton with a double-deck cattle body. We seem to be getting two and three axle Montracons (fridges) at the moment through Grays. Some have the Mercedes star on the Hubs.
There was a firm at Runcorn whose name escapes me, that had a go for a while, maybe early 80’s onwards but I only ever saw one, operated by Wharfe Bros from Mossley/Appleton with a double-deck cattle body. We seem to be getting two and three axle Montracons (fridges) at the moment through Grays. Some have the Mercedes star on the Hubs.
With a name like yours you have no need to scrape the barrel with this load of R****** surely!!! Boden were aquired by C/F who redesigned their trailers using Bill Bodens running gear design.Although I dealt with C/F via the former Boden factory in Royton the Boden name had been discontinued by then.I did aquire 5 Boden trailers from one of my customers in '77 and if I remember there was a Boden or two in a batch of 2nd hand 40fts I bought in '76.Bewick.
Cheers Bewick, I was actually surmising about old makes rather than whether they were any good or not, about which I have no idea, but a couple more are Brockhouse and Fromco and I think Highway has already been mentioned.We have had some turn up this week from obscurity with fleet numbers that I thought had long been sent to Trailer Valhalla,to be ready for the Xmas rush, though that’s several times a year anyway. In the late 80’s we had some from hired in from Buckstone whose bodywork at least, was to the highest standard and so was the maintenance though I could’nt say whether they built the chassis.A couple of years back we had a Utility lurking around, a US outfit I believe, that took over the CF Fridge plant. It had the rivets on the outside US style, and did look like it had been worked hard but got the job done ok. Around 1998-2000 we had some from Trans America that had come up from Spain still with the that reg.plate on the back door.They had the old type winder for the park brake at the back of the chassis,I thought it was for lowering the spare wheel carrier till I saw where the cables were connected after Ihad run out of ideas where the button could be. I did take my user name from the trailer oufit,I’d have give it a miss if i’d known it was the German word for soil !!
Sounds like you’ve got an interesting job with a lot of poxy trailers Boden!!! But don’t worry Boden were one of the finest trailer builders in the UK hence their purchase by the then American owned Crane Fruehauf who adapted the Boden designed running gear!! Its a funny language German so don’t worry no body will take the p*** honest!!! Bewick
This was an odd-ball 40ft we had in the Bewick fleet for a while when trailers were in short supply in the mid 70s.It was an Overlander on ROR gear so it wasn’t a complete dog!!! but it wasn’t in the C/F leauge! I think it was loaded with Workington Steel for the the south.
Some of them not only took an age to wind up but you done an upperbody workout they were that stiff to operate - in the days when we carried an handle 
, but a fair few flying pigs, (esp. when I was late with a deleivery !!!) regards Andrew.
