A classic example of a four in line trailer which was operated by Walter Edmundson during the early 1960s
Regards Paul
Hi, We had a fixed 65’ trailer at Thomas Ingles built by Thompsons for hauling their 70’ header pipes to Dounreay power station, it was never fitted out with floorboards as we carried the pipes on sleepers. With a police route (that took out a post box in Inverness weekly ! 
) and second man it took up a big chunk of the week , they were always after a backload for it but that caused more problems than it was worth. You could never guarantee you could get a trailer that length in to load and the same for tipping the other end so backloading was rare.
Liked the shot of Edmundsons 4-in -line, that would make sense for the Isle of Man ferry, he still operates short 33’ or 36’ tandems stacked high as presumably they still charge by length on the crossings. I used to take windows/doors (double glazing )into their Preston depot, thats gone now but I still go weekly to their place at Skelmersdale, hasn’t everyone on the Isle of Man got double glazing yet? 
Trev_H:
Liked the shot of Edmundsons 4-in -line, that would make sense for the Isle of Man ferry, he still operates short 33’ or 36’ tandems stacked high as presumably they still charge by length on the crossings. I used to take windows/doors (double glazing )into their Preston depot, thats gone now but I still go weekly to their place at Skelmersdale, hasn’t everyone on the Isle of Man got double glazing yet?
Have you seen the Edmundson picture gallery on the Northwest Trucks site here
Regards Paul
moomooland:
Trev_H:
Liked the shot of Edmundsons 4-in -line, that would make sense for the Isle of Man ferry, he still operates short 33’ or 36’ tandems stacked high as presumably they still charge by length on the crossings. I used to take windows/doors (double glazing )into their Preston depot, thats gone now but I still go weekly to their place at Skelmersdale, hasn’t everyone on the Isle of Man got double glazing yet?Have you seen the Edmundson picture gallery on the Northwest Trucks site here
Regards Paul
Edmundsons belongs to Manx Independent Carriers now Trev.The IOM Steam Racket - sorry Packet charge by the metre,but you don’t see many short trailers off the boat now,nearly all max length tackle.
A lot of the double glazing will be for regeneration projects over here,lots of ex hotels and boarding houses are being refurbed and converted into flats/apartments,who’s going to live in 'em I don’t know .There’s more scaffolding up here than in all the UK - at least that’s what it seems like.
There will be places in the north of the IOM where they don’t have double glazing,places where they still eat their young in winter,and go across to Whitehaven at night to do a bit of pillaging .
Hi Chris, Yeh its M.I.C. now but I still call it Edmundsons, old habits eh?
I take a full load on a 40’ step frame and they fit it plus more added to it on a 36’ flat , wouldn’t fancy sheeting those on a regular basis.
We’ve been sending a full trailer load to the IOM every week for 20yrs or more, were the hell is it all going ?
Mind you I did deliver one large glass unit 5 times till it finally arrived over there without a crack in it !
This is a shot of our first artic Jan ‘70 and it is in the Mill one Sat. morning having just been loaded for the south east.It would leave Milnthorpe around noon on Sunday and run right down to possibly Markyate, Aldgate or maybe Rochester.I’ve put the shot on this thread as I believe this tandem 4 configuration could be classed as the successor to the 4-in-line which had an 11ton axle(classed as a twin axle).The T/4 had a 12 ton bogie and the tractor had a 10 ton drive and a 6 ton fron’t axle so at 26 ton GVW there wasn’t a lot of lee-way.The ULW was 8ton so we regularly put 18ton on it’s back.From memory it is fully freighted in this shot and the first set of artic sheets we had made were 2 off 30’ X 24’ with eyes and ties on all sides so you could turn them for some of the high loads we carried.It didn’t half roll with a high and heavy load as both rear mudguards on the unit had paint blistering on them from contact with the tyres.However I think that the T/4 was a bit more stable than the old 4-in-line! Dennis.
Trev_H:
Hi Chris, Yeh its M.I.C. now but I still call it Edmundsons, old habits eh?
I take a full load on a 40’ step frame and they fit it plus more added to it on a 36’ flat
We’ve been sending a full trailer load to the IOM every week for 20yrs or more, were the hell is it all going ?
Mind you I did deliver one large glass unit 5 times till it finally arrived over there without a crack in it !
Now you know who was responsible for damaging your penthouse picture window Chris!!! Dennis.
Bewick:
Trev_H:
Hi Chris, Yeh its M.I.C. now but I still call it Edmundsons, old habits eh?
I take a full load on a 40’ step frame and they fit it plus more added to it on a 36’ flat
We’ve been sending a full trailer load to the IOM every week for 20yrs or more, were the hell is it all going ?
Mind you I did deliver one large glass unit 5 times till it finally arrived over there without a crack in it !Now you know who was responsible for damaging your penthouse picture window Chris!!! Dennis.
I got 5 clear signatures for it, was ok when it left me boss
Many years ago in the 1960’s I worked for J G Fielder’s in Bradford, we only had a couple of four in lines, but late one night I was doing a bit of low flying through Littleborough Lancs loaded with plate steel from Liverpool, when there was the loudest explosion, the whole place woke up, and when I stopped I could see one of my inside tyres had blown, " a bit strange really"must have been something to do with the 20 ton on the trailer, suddenly there were people running at me, and an alarm going off so I took off to the police station just down the road, but unknown to me, the blast had blown out the shop window in the post office, the window out of the next door, and another window out of the house door on the other side, they must have thought I’d let a bomb off or done it on purpose, it took another 3 hours to get our tyre fitter out, “and the coppers didn’t even ask me for my records thank god”,they were more interested in keeping the locals away from me…
It’s one of the few times I was happy to be with a copper. :-Jack Graham 
Tayforth group had a lot of four-in line-trailers in the sixties they were pigs to handle,i think siddle cook had two 50 footers not good…
Right 2 things:
4 in line.
I remember going with two of our trucks and drivers from BRS Darlington to our first LDoY competition at Team Valley in 1974.
Got talking to a NCL driver who got back from holiday to attend the competition to find his “normal” trailer had been replaced by a 40ft 4 in line flat - he did not hold out much hope in the manouvering section!
He and the old time operator at the depot both referred to it as a "poor mans trailer. I am guessing extra payload without the extra axle.
Fixed overlength trailers.
At BRS Darlington we had a fixed 45ft flat bed, and gained another when Consett closed (sorry Harry!).
These were used to deliver petrol station canopies made by a local engineering company (Skerne Engineering) long since gone.
When I became an operator I checked the use of these trailers, and can confirm, one of the legs had to have an indivisible load at least of that length.
At Darlington we did not have a lot of work, so the trampers would do something like this: Darlington to Cardiff, tip reload from Newport Docks for London, tip reload Tilbury Timber Terminal for Scotland, tip reload tractors out of Bathgate, or explosives or milk powder from Dumfries, tip Teesport, so any check would show at least one (hopefully the first!) needed a 45ft trailer - the timber was quite often overlength anyway.
Regards.
harry_gill:
harry_gill:
Bewick:
harry_gill:
hiya,
Dennis you have spelled “deft” as in deft skills correctly have’nt you??.
thanks harry long retired.On second thoughts “H” should the word have been Daft!!! Dennis.
hiya,
Yes Dennis i think it should in my case read “daft” followed by “as a brush”.
thanks harry long retired.hiya,
Now Dennis maybe you can answer me a question that has puzzled me for a long time, when i worked for BRS Consett formerley Siddle C Cookes we had overlength trailers not trombone’s just normal flat beds and these varied in length from the normal 40footers to 45, 50 and 55 footers there was 60 and 75 footers as well the latter two were just used for special long loads but the 45, 50, and 55s were used on a daily basis on general haulage i regularly pulled them on journey work i thought anything over the legal 40s would have come under construction and use and would only be allowed to work when the load was the length of the trailer and any movement should have been notifiable, it did’nt seem to apply to us and we all used them as you would a normal 40 footer as i said can never remember anyone being pulled i certainly never
thanks harry long retired.
When I was at BRS Hampstead Depot in the Mid 60’s the first changes to the new C&U regs came in ie. Plateing, max weight 32t. Gross and length changed so you could use a 33ft. trailer. Up till then the change over we did with Bolton Depot was with 8 wheelers Bolton usually with a Leyland Octopus and Hampstead a Bristol or AEC the load from Bolton usually consisting of two 8t. Ingots for the Woolwich Arsenal to be turned into Artillary Barrels, when the length regs came in Bolton started to send a Bristol with a old 40ft trailer which would have a load of new Edbro tipper bodies on, now this was clearly a naughty but nobody could be bothered and we never got a tug…Tony.
i worked for jaguar cars in coventry from 1976 to 1989 and we had several purpose built B.T.C. engine trailers with 4 in line axles.
they were built to carry engine/gearbox assemblies on trollies from the radford engine plant to the browns lane assembly plant.
there were 2 decks racked out for the trollies to fit in…they originionally had roller shutters to enclose the engines but i never saw one closed,i think they were all seized through lack of use.
i remember one day a trailer was leaving the factory and as it went round the corner by the surgury an engine assembly on its trolley fell off the top deck onto the bonnet of an austin princess car!!
when we took them for test at garretts green we were told that we had the last 4 in lines in the area…they had to test the trailer at the front of the lane and then back out and go round the end of the lane and back on the brake rollers because the bogies use to collape into the pits so we could not drive them over the pits!
in the 80s when we tried to get parts we discovered the axles were very early models predating the trailers…we discovered that the 4 in line bogies were removed from the origional trailers and fitted to the “new” trailers that were built much later.
A few pics on this subject
A meachers transport AEC with a four in line trailer
VIP four in line fuel trailer
Four in line trailer advert
Unusual Dyson trailer advert
Bakers Transport of Southampton lowloader with the four in line removed
Another Bakers
A four in line lowloader going through Twyford Hants
Dallas Transport with ‘Lively Lady’ on a four in lie lowloader
Hills of Botley double four in line lowloader
Hills again going over Beacon Hill on A34 south of Newbury
Hills again in their yard at Botley loaded with a heavy Hymac
Hills again in their yard
Hills four in line drawbar trailer on Isle of Wight ferry
Regards Pat
Hi Pat those are great pictures and the “Bakers” low loaders would entail a lot of hard graft as quite a few of those loads would require the back wheels out and if the ground was uneven it was a right pain and a lot of sweat especially with the big earth moving type tyres as it could sometimes take 3 men to man handle them on difficult ground. They were one thing I was pleased to see disappear when the goose neck front loading trailers came out.
cheers Johnnie
sammyopisite:
Hi Pat those are great pictures and the “Bakers” low loaders would entail a lot of hard graft as quite a few of those loads would require the back wheels out and if the ground was uneven it was a right pain and a lot of sweat especially with the big earth moving type tyres as it could sometimes take 3 men to man handle them on difficult ground. They were one thing I was pleased to see disappear when the goose neck front loading trailers came out.
cheers Johnnie
hiya,
Johnnie are the old “toe jacks” we used to jack the old lowloaders up to remove the backend to unload/load still in use if so the old “elf and safety” should step in I’ve had them fly out more than once dangerous bleedin things.
thanks harry long retired.
Thought this might be of some intrest,
I remember they were still loads of kit round in the early seventies, we had dozens running in Pickfords, quite a few then went into plants as static storage tanks before scrapping, iirc there were still a few around into the early 80’s
hiya,
Don’t know how they got away with using four in lines on the hazardous IE fuel and dodgy chemicals transport I found them horrible unstable things and have seen them on their sides on several occasions usually on roundabouts I could certainly get the wheels off the deck when in “hurry-up mode” whooo slow down George.
thanks harry long retired.
Found another one for you harry
George Baker & Sons of Southampton
The 4-in-line flat trailer is a totally different animal to the “knock out” 4-in-line bogie low loader,OK the axle configuration may have been the same,albeit on different size tyres,but there the similarity ended!Cheers Bewick.