Own Account Driver:
nurglets:
630, thirty kg sacks, all handballed, because i’m not just some soft steering wheel attendant in a shirt and pressed trousers.
Why on earth would it ever make sense to load a wagon like that?
Even if it did, for loading, a walking floor would have had, what probably took 5 hours, out in 5 mins.
See, you start organised, they come off the boat in groups of 7 or 8 on the boat winch and derrick, swung directly into the back of the trailer, the cable dragging the top edge and pulling the top marker lights off. you then pallet them up in the back, 30 sacks to a pallet, then half way down you realise because the sacks over hang the pallets, you can’t get the usual 20-22 pallets on, so you start stacking them neatly in rows on the floor, then when you get to the last quarter you realise there’s still quite a few left to come, so as well as trying to stack rows, you start chucking bags back over the completed stacks.
By the time you get to the last couple of rows, no one cares as long as they go on and you can shut the doors, so it’s not all that bad along the length of the trailer, and you can only work as fast as they can haul the sacks out of the hold of the boat, it took a couple hours.
bestbooties:
Used to do 20 ton loads of bricks, kerbstones, bagged salt, bagged grain, all handball 40 years ago and I was as fit as a butcher’s dog then.
Mind you, I think I’m paying for it now!
My knees are shot, arthritis in my hands and it’s taken this long to find an easy job.
as above , but i took the sensible option and retired . nearest i get to handball now is loading a trolley at morrisons .
nurglets:
630, thirty kg sacks, all handballed, because i’m not just some soft steering wheel attendant in a shirt and pressed trousers.
So why do you need a pallet truck that is wedged in by sacks at the right hand side of the trailer? 
Working at height regulations .on a day to day contract .I’d find a company that’s aware of health and safety .there’s one in grimsby
Yup still regularly do, mostly butchers shops.
Oh, I’ve just remembered we got new work recently. Bedsprings. Full load of bedsprings makes muscles I didn’t realise I had ache
Did my time on food service rigid work and then my first class 1 job was a dray work - definitely the hardest, this was in 2014, no handball for me nowadays.
30+kg 8 gallon ales were the lightest. Then you had 11,22 and 36 gallon kegs.
I used to do Central London mainly. Hotels and bars. Sometimes massive deliveries, but to places that were built long before the advent of the pallet.
2 tonne plus per drop with crappy Rolson sack trucks, bouncing stuff up or down countless flights of stairs.
Never again. Was bloody killing me.
Used to handball roughly 3t of vino every day in the west end. Still the best job I’ve ever had
i suppose it depends on what the product is personally i dont have a prob with the know how deckers and boxes
its stuff like Brake bros class 2 where its canteens and pubs multi drop split ambiant and frozen and you end up moving stuff twice or three times and forget bookers shop deliveries did it once NEVER again
but i agree if delivery point is taking the p iss it goes back
PaulNowak:
I used to do Central London mainly. Hotels and bars. Sometimes massive deliveries, but to places that were built long before the advent of the pallet.
2 tonne plus per drop with crappy Rolson sack trucks, bouncing stuff up or down countless flights of stairs.
Never again. Was bloody killing me.
These places don’t have back yards or loading bays, you park as close as you can. If that’s 2 streets away, you just get on with it. So even if your drop was palletised, you’re stuffed.
Own Account Driver:
nurglets:
630, thirty kg sacks, all handballed, because i’m not just some soft steering wheel attendant in a shirt and pressed trousers.
Why on earth would it ever make sense to load a wagon like that?
Even if it did, for loading, a walking floor would have had, what probably took 5 hours, out in 5 mins.
Maybe because it’s cheaper to employ the driver to unload it then buy a walking floor trailer.
PaulNowak:
These places don’t have back yards or loading bays, you park as close as you can. If that’s 2 streets away, you just get on with it. So even if your drop was palletised, you’re stuffed.
Plus the loading time limit of 20 minutes in London. If these places want deliveries, the customer should carry it from vehicle to premises.
20 minutes is a joke. Used to get a ticket most days. Company used to pay them straight away, then seek to get it back from the driver if he was found to be in the wrong, or could have parked elsewhere. Told them that they either paid all mine, no questions asked, or I’d stop going in, or throw a sickie. Wasn’t going to go to work to maul my norks off to end up out of pocket.
Plaster-board, thermal laminate, dust (cement…obviously 
), vermiculite, dpm, loft roll, but my favourite is Celotex. But not if it’s windy, stuff turns you into a kite 
Had to open the curtains today, devastated 
PaulNowak:
20 minutes is a joke. Used to get a ticket most days. Company used to pay them straight away, then seek to get it back from the driver if he was found to be in the wrong, or could have parked elsewhere. Told them that they either paid all mine, no questions asked, or I’d stop going in, or throw a sickie. Wasn’t going to go to work to maul my norks off to end up out of pocket.
Where i used to work is was simple if you were in the centre they covered the tickets unless you did something really stupid like blocked the garage door of a fire station for example.
Everyone says its really bad for tickets but i was there 5 days a week for 18 months and only got 5 tickets.
500 gas bottles a day at 50 it keeps me fit
When I was driving the nearest I got to hand balling was pressing a button on the Skate trailer 26 pallets off with a press of a button, happy days. Until they moved us onto Hydraroll trailers and I had to pull two levers and plug in a cable slave labour!!
quite a few still do on heathrow,especially when you collect and BA say you need to exchange pallets if you don’t have exchanges you handball onto your vehicle as we want the pallets back,fortunately im no longer on or around airports so I don’t do it anymore