In my Sameday Courier day’s,I once went from Andover to Peterlee in a Transit with a small bag of nuts and bolts for a Stannah Stairlift engineer as he couldn’t be bothered to go to his local B & Q.
Also took a Laptop from Andover to Edinburgh as the guy had left it in his office and was already on the plane.
One more, took one small pallet of brochures from Southampton to Nice (southern France) in a Transit. The boss quoted £1700 to do the job thinking the customer wouldn’t want to pay that much,but he accepted,saying we were £300 cheaper than DHL!!
Ran a little contract in a Sprinter/Vito for 5 months or so moving aircraft spares.
Load out of Feltham
Run up to Birmingham, tip and load
Then to Wolverhampton, tip and load
Next Coventry, same again.
Then a 2 hour kip in a layby because I wasn’t allowed to get to Hemel Hempstead before 4.30pm
Finally back to Feltham
The pointless bit was that in five months I carried exactly 4 little boxes. The rest of the time I ran around empty.
Many’s the time I would pull into one or other of the drop points to meet another one of our motors already there. Still had to go though as I was the contracted van !! Sheesh
Or the run from Norwich to Birmingham in a 7.5 tonner with a Bra which had been returned and had been left off the trunker. Littlewoods home delivery that was, when Fedex had the contract. There was always a persistent rumour that Fedex lost millions on the first year they had the contract. Not surprising really !!
office ok run to barrow on sourand load for london
me ok what time is it tipping
office 8 am
me hows the plant running how many are there already
office it running fine there only a couple there
me ok
i left a day later the load was refused and i had to returnit to barrow the run empty back to winsford to do a load of cardboard
and then there was the time i was sat in a layby for 7 yes 7 hours waiting for a load i was sat near pollgate having just tipped got told to run empty to bedfont and load up the next day
what wonderful planners city had at least it was summer and the butty van was good
Years ago a load of t-shirts out of Heathrow airport, went to Holyhead and caught ferry to Dublin. Cleared customs in Dublin Port, didn’t leave the port or even open the doors on the trailer, then got back on the ferry and took the load back to our depot, which is 5 minutes from Heathrow.
Last week needed 3 pallets to go to Genk in Belgium the major pallet companies where looking for £90/£100 pallet called a company we use for full loads. Quoted £250 collected Monday 22nd delivered yesterday 3 pallets on a trailer looked very small but the company seemed gratefull of something to go back to Belgium. UK company with a Belgium subby driven by a Brit who lives in Belgium.
Mal:
Maybe not so crazy as some trips Ive read here, but I loaded a 20’ box in London, took it to tilbury Freightliner to go on the Felixstowe train, and then went MT skel to Felix!
Mal.
Me too - and I beat the train!!!
I was talking to an old friend this week who was suitably confused after he was asked to load a box in West Wiltshire and put it on the train at Barking…which would then take it back to Southampton! (To be fair, this was a few years ago when only intermodal freight could be run at 44t…in order to be legal it had to go road, rail, sea…there was no other way of legally shipping it. )
(To be fair, this was a few years ago when only intermodal freight could be run at 44t…in order to be legal it had to go road, rail, sea…there was no other way of legally shipping it. 
)