newmercman:
Turks of Benendon had ERFs pulling Ferrymasters tilts and flats out of Dover.
Ah! You mean like this 5MW? Robert 
I did indeed…
The closest I ever got to driving a Ferrymasters wagon was one of these
Mind you, at 10 years old I was a bit inexperienced.
ParkRoyal2100:
The closest I ever got to driving a Ferrymasters wagon was one of thesehttps://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8286/7719996412_9bd11a1346_b.jpg
Mind you, at 10 years old I was a bit inexperienced.
If you could reverse that between a jar of marmalade and the cruet on the blindside without rucking the tablecloth with the landing legs, then you were good for the road mate! 
Robert
When I was a fitter at R and N Wrights transport Bamber Bridge we got X2 2028s foo Ferry Maters. FBA698Y and FBA697Y and god where them truck in good nick when we got them.
They would not pull a skin off a rice pudding but never let us down.
Cheers Welly
Remember Ferrymasters very well did a lot of night trunks out of Teesport in the late 80,s. A that time there was just the one boat sailing to Gothenburg. Most of the work was usually irish traffic running over to Fleetwood, Heysham and Liverpool, at that time nearly always tilts or vans with spread axle tandems at 40 foot. Flats were same configuration, also most of them had those bloody palm couplings!
Remember the dreaded fibre board from Ireland always went steady with that. Remember one subbie losing a load of that a bottom of steep hill dropping into Kirby Stephen which we used at that time before weight limit was put on.
Also remember at Heysham where trailers were often dropped off backed up right against dock, and one driver backed under connected all up, airlines on, and he had forgotten to put on handbrake on his Mercedes, jumped down between trailers pitch black and realised vehicle was slowly rolling back, Managed to get into wagon put handbrake on , but not before trailer wheels had rolled over dockside and broke back of tilt which was loaded with 20 ton of coca cola!
A couple of my dad’s that were on subcontract to ferrymasters, the scammell was on at Desborough, my fiat was on at Ipswich, on that day I was being pulled onto the weighbridge at Wetherby, the load, Danish fairy cakes, about 2 tonnes all in, plod wasn’the happy
My dad worked for Ferrymasters out of their Westbank, Ipswich depot.
He had an F86, NRT 176P if my memory serves.
Did mostly nights and swapped trailers with the P & O north westerns at the cattle market, Desborough or Kettering? again if I remember.
I did go with him a few times as a lad but was never really allowed!
I remember looking up at the Sed Ak 400’s they had, in envy! I can still remember the smell of the brake linings in the air.
Dad said it was the best job he ever had and he had a few. British Gas, Atlas Express, Hunnable Concrete Products, to name some.
I remember him saying the money was good. He saved and bought a Zephyr Mk 4
Sadly he passed away in '78
These ERFs (an NGC ‘European’ with NTC 335 / 9-speed Fuller and an A-series with a 250 ■■■■■■■ and full sleeper cab) did Middle-East with Merryfasters trailers. Feel free to add detail on the Ferrymasters front. Robert
me and my wife met a great coup;e on holiday few year ago and got talking about the old days and he worked out of teeside for ferrymasters on the continent his name is jim adams and he said it was a great job to be on.
Just dropped by for a trip down memory lane, now retired 73 and in Japan. I was a Fitter in 1970 then got to be Workshop Supervisor at Immingham Depot through the predecessor Sid being a bad boy.
Great to see the photos of the old lorries, we had mainly F86’s about 30. I would have met many Drivers from Desborough, Felixtowe, Altringham and more, but I would be surprised if they were still around now.
Enjoying having a look over the site…
Thanks Admin for the membership, best wishes to everyone, take care. Dennis Ansell.
Morning Dennis, welcome aboard.
Forgive me but, as a man who has lived in various strange places round the world I just have to ask. How on earth did you end up in Japan?
I’ve been to Japan a couple of times and noted some big diferences in the heavy vehicles used there and I am sure people would be very interested in some pictures.
Best regards, David.
I used to sub for Ferrymasters out of their depot in South Bank,Middlesbrough hauling trailers to and from Teesport from numerous loading points around the country.I recall other depots near Ipswich and Warrington in addition to Irish traffic via Fleetwood.Their own drivers used to get irritated because subbies used to go from Teesport to Fleetwood via the A59;they used M62 and M6.An easy night shift.
From Teesport all trailers were shipped to Gothenburg on the mv"Elk."I’m certain this ship was commandeered by the navy during the Falklands War.
we had all 4 of these working on Ferrymasters out of desborough. The Maggie was bought from a Ferrymasters Esbjerg subbie
tony
Here’s a question:
when (what year) did Ferrymasters tilts start to sport the P&O name and flag? 
then
ERF-NGC-European:
Here’s a question:when (what year) did Ferrymasters tilts start to sport the P&O name and flag?
1yy
then
0
Bit late but would be around 1978, we had one one of the 1st f86’s with the white door and flag and the yellow chassis at desborough,joke at the time was the fact the flag was flying backwards on one side.
Tony