yep, but we aint talking about a measley 400 mile night trunk are we. were on about 900 mile plus aint we… 
m.a.n rules:
yep, but we aint talking about a measley 400 mile night trunk are we. were on about 900 mile plus aint we…
Using two drivers having 20hrs of driving available and the vast majority of the journey being done where there’s little to no roadworks or traffic holdups.
Depending on what time of day you left once you hit the M1 at Leicester other than turning off the M18 onto the A1 you could be sat on cruise control on the limiter all the way up to Scotch Corner. Then once you’d gone over the A66, the vast majority being 50MPH or the limiter, you’re again on cruise control and the limiter pretty much all the way up to Stirling. Above Stirling you’ll be on the limiter pretty much all the way to Inverness.
Way different to trying to manage to fit in a few hundred miles during the day.
20 hours driving at an average of 46mph or less if averaging 50mph (CBA to do the maths). Certainly doable providing that vast swathes of the network aren’t closed at night as per usual. Would I want to do it? Not a cat in hells chance would I.
I’d imagine that the same team could only do that twice a week too.
Carryfast:
Harry Monk:
Conor:
Wow you can spot those who don’t do night trunks…I do a Howden to Portbury run on nights which is 410 mile round trip in 8hrs driving including the time taken driving round the yard at both ends. Similar story for Howden to London Gateway which is 405 mile round trip. Even if you have to go the M1 route back which adds another 20 miles you can do the return 220 mile run in under 4.5hrs.
How can you do a 930 mile round trip without much of it being during the day?
Not sure about Inverness but we did have a double manned ■■■■■■■■■■■ - Nuneaton- ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ by all accounts of the drivers was tight on time and often arrived late holding up the sort.Which is one of the reasons why our depot at least maintained the Feltham - Scottish changeover which I could compensate for their late leaving times by running up to Charnock or Killington.
Speed limiters were a game changer regarding what’s possible to get done in a shift and doubt 410 miles in 8 hours including shunting at each end.
CF what are you on that’s a piece of cake
Conor:
biggriffin:
A true Legend speaks… Because the computer says it can be done, the Legends and Heros, Make it So.Nowt to do with the computer saying it can be done, everything to do with actually doing it for years. Been doing 400+ mile night trunks with plenty of time to spare since the early 1990s including when they were doing all the A1 upgrades to motorway, removing every single roundabout on the A1 between Newcastle and Peterborough, doing all the smart motorway upgrades from Leeds downwards. Also the further north you go the fewer the roadworks, the fewer the closures and much less traffic to hold anything up should you come across any of them and any traffic you come across on a night is going to be Scots wagons who won’t be hanging around and holding you up.
To do 410 miles in less than 8 hours driving is more than 50 mph average from leaving the gate to arriving each way.At 56 mph maximum.That’s a tall order.Early 90’s was generally before limiters had an effect.Ironically in our case on Scottish changeover one of the trucks was fitted with one before the other and I defected it the first time I drove it thinking it had an injection pump problem because I didn’t even see them coming. 
While Feltham-Luton-Dewsbury round trip was a nightmare on time at 56 mph max combined the gutless V6 Merc engine’s non existent hill climbing ability.I doubt much better than a Gardner engined Atki.From memory that was 615 kms.
m.a.n rules:
yep, but we aint talking about a measley 400 mile night trunk are we. were on about 900 mile plus aint we…
To be fair shared between 2 drivers and probably not 5 runs per week consecutively.
robthedog:
Carryfast:
Speed limiters were a game changer regarding what’s possible to get done in a shift and doubt 410 miles in 8 hours including shunting at each end.CF what are you on that’s a piece of cake
More than 51 mph average from gate to gate at 56 mph max + shunting in the yard.Yeah right.
Carryfast:
m.a.n rules:
yep, but we aint talking about a measley 400 mile night trunk are we. were on about 900 mile plus aint we…To be fair shared between 2 drivers and probably not 5 runs per week consecutively.
I know, its conor you should be replying too not me … hth…
Carryfast:
robthedog:
Carryfast:
Speed limiters were a game changer regarding what’s possible to get done in a shift and doubt 410 miles in 8 hours including shunting at each end.CF what are you on that’s a piece of cake
More than 51 mph average from gate to gate at 56 mph max + shunting in the yard.Yeah right.
CF Nuneaton to ■■■■■■■■■■■ and back or vice versa 600 mile round trip double manned 6 hrs appx each man a doddle, rhymes with twoddle which is what your speaking
robthedog:
Carryfast:
robthedog:
Carryfast:
Speed limiters were a game changer regarding what’s possible to get done in a shift and doubt 410 miles in 8 hours including shunting at each end.CF what are you on that’s a piece of cake
More than 51 mph average from gate to gate at 56 mph max + shunting in the yard.Yeah right.
CF Nuneaton to ■■■■■■■■■■■ and back or vice versa 600 mile round trip double manned 6 hrs appx each man a doddle, rhymes with twoddle which is what your speaking
Check the dates for M80 and M74 plus the date when dual carriageway running was increased from 40 MPH and IIRC 30MPH for wagon and drag. CF isn’t talking about doing it in 2020. Even his DAF 2800 would have been down to 30 MPH or less on some banks. Since his lot were running some Gardners at the time make that 20MPH.
cav551:
robthedog:
Carryfast:
More than 51 mph average from gate to gate at 56 mph max + shunting in the yard.Yeah right.CF Nuneaton to ■■■■■■■■■■■ and back or vice versa 600 mile round trip double manned 6 hrs appx each man a doddle, rhymes with twoddle which is what your speaking
Check the dates for M80 and M74 plus the date when dual carriageway running was increased from 40 MPH and IIRC 30MPH for wagon and drag. CF isn’t talking about doing it in 2020. Even his DAF 2800 would have been down to 30 MPH or less on some banks. Since his lot were running some Gardners at the time make that 20MPH.
Firstly we’d got rid of the Gardners well before that point cav.They were taken out just as I’d started in the mid 1980’s.
I think from memory the ■■■■■■■■■■■ - Nuneaton trunk was using a DAF 95 but might be wrong and don’t think it was fitted with a limiter although I think I can remember them moaning about them being introduced on it.Their issue wasn’t so much distance as time.Because ■■■■■■■■■■■ were usually late loading and they had to then get to Nuneaton in time to get the load transhipped across to all the other trailers for their respective runs back to their depots.We’d often still be sitting at there at 2 am if not later still waiting for them to arrive let alone start their sort.
Whereas with a direct changeover type run if Scotch was running late ( as usual ) I’d run up as far as Killington and still usually get back to the yard before the Nuneaton hub run had got back.
That was using 2300 ATI drawbar outfits, which were geared to perfection and punched well above their weight in that regard on the hills or on the flat.
Based on the logic that the prime mover was actually doing a paper haulage contract trunked over night to Feltham then bulk dropped during the day.So might as well put a trailer load of urgent next day freight on it for free with the bonus that it didn’t get ■■■■■■■ in the hub system cluster zb.With the bonus of a whole outfit load of urgent going up.However as in all cases fitting limiters to them was a game changer regarding journey times.
But the Dewsbury run had some more severe hills than the M40 and M6 don’t ask me how they got that done with Gardners when the V6 Merc 2534, crippled by a limiter on the flat, was bad enough.
The message is that South or Midlands - Scottish round trip runs are best done as direct changeovers not double manned single truck runs.
Sploom:
Thanks for the replies
Accounting for the illegality of much of what is written on here regarding speeds I did Hamilton Services to Inverness totally legal speeds (i.e not above 50mp north of end of M9 at Dunblane) in 3h 50 driving 6 times this week for another parcel carrier.
FWIW I drive at 50mph truckers sat nav speed, which for most wagons where 90kph = 54 mph (because the speedo is not accurately calibrated) is about 52mph.
There is a long stretch north of Perth at 40mph (dualling in process) and 3 or 4 others where there are traffic lights because of surveying for future dualling. If you haven’t done it down the hill at Daviot is pretty exhilarating and there is the long hill down past Culloden which requires the retarder if you are not to end up in the Moray Firth or more likely taking someone out at the Longman roundabout.
A9 best road in UK for scenery, absolutely stunning between Pitlochry and Inverness and magical with the snow on a sunny day.
Why the hell all the discussion about the possibilities ? It’s a ridiculous concept dreamed up by some pointy shoed genius to gain browny points . No way should any PROFESSIONAL driver even contemplate trying to achieve it , just digging a deeper hole to try and fail to climb out of . One has to wonder about the traffic comissioner’s take on it should it come to their attention , considering that even if the company suffers their wrath , the drivers are first in the firing line .
^^^^^
Absolutely spot on.
You can be certain that if the vehicle becomes snowed in for 24 hrs or whatever then Mr Pointy Shoes will want all that time booked as off the clock.
rigsby:
Why the hell all the discussion about the possibilities ? It’s a ridiculous concept dreamed up by some pointy shoed genius to gain browny points . No way should any PROFESSIONAL driver even contemplate trying to achieve it , just digging a deeper hole to try and fail to climb out of . One has to wonder about the traffic comissioner’s take on it should it come to their attention , considering that even if the company suffers their wrath , the drivers are first in the firing line .
Like I said mate, you’ll get one hero (or in this case 2) trying it…and achieving it. 
Thus setting the pace for every other poor ■■■■.
They only push you or get you to do unreasonable things if they think or know they can get away with it. 
Whenever I used to get when I first started here the old… ‘‘Well so and so does it’’ my answer was ‘‘Nothing to do with me what he does, but get him to do it again next time., cos I aint’’
I was never bothered again.
Only double man runs from Hinckley are Cornwall and Glasgow.
Inverness is 9:45 each way according to TomTom mydrive. So only 30 mins leeway for delays, manoeuvring etc.
Sent from my moto g(6) play using Tapatalk
Noremac:
trevorking1964:
Large section of A9 to Inverness is currently 50mph for hgv.
It’s an ongoing trial. Not sure how long for though. Been like that quite a while. Dual carriageway bits are 60mph.The dual-carriageway sections of the A9 are actually the same as the rest of Scotland - 50mph for HGV. However, these sections are not covered by the average speed cameras.
Sorry… you are wrong! The whole point of the hateful ‘average speed cameras’ is that they take an average. The fact that there is not a camera on the Dual carriageway sections is immaterial… they can still work out your average from any 2 cameras!
Win-Stone:
Sorry… you are wrong! The whole point of the hateful ‘average speed cameras’ is that they take an average. The fact that there is not a camera on the Dual carriageway sections is immaterial… they can still work out your average from any 2 cameras!
Hey, thanks for the reply.
I am not aware of any plans to do what you are talking about. A mixed section of road would have different speed limits for some vehicles, so how could a speeding offence and severity be pinned down?