Inter City, Charles Alexander, John Russell, TDG.....Answers

UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUMS OLD TIME LORRIES, COMPANIES AND DRIVERS (INTERACT
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I came upon this site a couple of days ago and spent hours reading some of the posts on here, totally fascinated with many of the threads.

Whilst doing so, I came upon a couple that related to a large part of my past life, also the best part of my working life.

The post related to Inter City transport from the early 70’s until its subsequent disappearance amongst the corporate changes made by TDG in the 1990’s.

I joined Inter City Transport at their depot on the Moss Ind. Est. near Leigh in the summer of 1974 as an office junior, the depot was only a few hundred yards from my home. The Manager was a man called Arthur Chattaway an elderly man from Bolton. The depot was a staging post between their head office in ■■■■■■■■■■■ and their Southern depot at London Colney. The main contracts being Ford Spares from Daventry, Colgate Palmolive, Dunlops, Carnation Foods and a wines and spirits distributor in Aintree, Golding Hoptroff. I am still in touch with the good people at Golding Hoptroff to this day.

The Company MD was a man called Ian MacLean, who was a goalkeeper with Rangers before suffering a serious injury. The man in charge of operations at ■■■■■■■■■■■ was Sanny Dickson, a real character with a short fuse and a heart of gold in equal measure.

After a couple of years Ian MacLean left and was replaced by Les O’Brien, he was the only man in my entire life that I never called by his first name, a man that I liked, admired and respected.

After a couple of years, Arthur Chattaway became ill and subsequently died of cancer. He was replaced by the yard foreman, Phil Darbishire, a tough no nonsense man from Wigan who did a very good job for a fews years before he tragically also developed cancer and passed away. This was a very sad period indeed, Phil was another person that I greatly admired and learned an awful lot from.

During this time Alex Miller became Operations Director at the head office, the southern depot moved to Harpenden and the depot At Norton Canes relocated to Chasetown. I was given the Depot Manager’s job on a trial basis, understandably so, due to my young age…

In the next few years, things changed due to the heavier involvement of TDG. I will detail those in my next update…These days I own a leased pub, which unfortunately is very time consuming. I hope some answers are beginning to fall in to place. I will update later today…

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Throughout the 80’s and 90’s, the TDG began to cut the number of individually named Companies. To that end, Inter City “swallowed up” other Scottish based hauliers within the Group. Charles Alexander, Sutherland’s, Highland Haulage, Russell’s of Grangemouth all lost their identity. Inter City moved their head office to the Russell’s site in Grangemouth, next to their biggest customer, BP Chemicals.

Jim Brackenridge the MD of Charles Alexander received an actual Scottish pound note from Les O’ Brien for the transfer of his Company. Jim left not long after and formed JBT. He installed Murray Prentice as his MD and they operated out of part of the old Inter City site at ■■■■■■■■■■■■

David Thompson and Neil Munro eventually re-launched Highland Haulage, with sites in Glasgow and Inverness.

Contracts came and went, the haulage game is a notoriously cut-throat business, Directors Bill Cochrane, Les O’ Brien and Alex Miller all left as part of the Corporate merry go round. The writing was on the wall. Ian Buntane was now the MD of Inter City, but it never had a permanent feel to it.

By now, I was responsible for all the Inter City sites in England, namely Tebay, Warrington, Chasetown, Grantham and Stevenage. After an ill fated attempt to run the Company from the hub in Grangemouth, which meant that I spent 6 months in the Westerwood hotel in ■■■■■■■■■■■■ the idea was abandoned. I returned to Warrington briefly. Soon after, it was announced that Inter City would itself become part of Williams Distribution in 1995.

I was given orders to close down certain Depots, putting people that I had known for years out of work. Finally, after being forced to endure a humiliating week at the Williams site at Mold in North Wales, I was lured to a bogus meeting by Ian Buntane. The Williams HR Manager was with him. In a mater of 10 minutes, my 22 years of service was brought to an end. By now I viewed this as an act of mercy, I was told that I was not to go back and tell my staff, I informed them that I would be doing exactly that.

Ten minutes later, my phone had been disconnected and a period that had stretched through the whole of my adult life was over. Few Inter City personnel survived for long after that, they were almost ethnically cleansed by a very unpleasant group of people indeed.

I met many great people at Inter City, sadly, many are no longer with us…I stayed in Transport/Logistics for another 7 years, but got out in 2002…

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This is the price of “Logistics”

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I had a rather shorter career than you with two of the named companies ( and not at your pay scale ) , but was at a level to observe some very very ! bad management at all levels . TGD from it`s inception was profitable and well managed so long as the original owners and management team were in charge , as they moved on or retired etc and new staff employed the rot set in .

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Well like someone quoted a while ago, The Transport Dissaster Group, There is no way that modern logistics or whatever one wants to refer to them as will ever btake the place of the good old traffic manager that new all the drivers by their first names, & new who he could rely on to get him out of the ■■■■ when things went wrong, long gone are those days, allong with a lot of nice blokes that were part of them, , Regards Larry.

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Lawrence Dunbar:
Well like someone quoted a while ago, The Transport Dissaster Group, There is no way that modern logistics or whatever one wants to refer to them as will ever btake the place of the good old traffic manager that new all the drivers by their first names, & new who he could rely on to get him out of the [zb] when things went wrong, long gone are those days, allong with a lot of nice blokes that were part of them, , Regards Larry.

Larry,i for one could’nt agree more well said,Vic.

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Well said that man, BUT, the guys that are now in haulage , from the humble warehouse man to the traffic manager , they are out to make a name for them self and to get as much promotion as they can , no matter who they ■■■■ on , they dont care , years ago it was a profession , and a job that we cared about, not just a glory boy show as it is now. You only need to look at the " ■■■■■■■■■ on the gate as you go into any site " and you know how much bigger the ■■■■■■■■■ inside the site are going to be

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I suppose this is “progress”, but I agree with a lot of the comments posted. The common use of GPS, multi vehicle tracking systems etc causes as many problems as it solves. Other than family run Companies, the days of people working their way up through hard work, common sense etc have gone.

The four jobs that I had after Inter City were awash with University graduates who didn’t know what a wagon looked like and many of them would never dream of actually speaking to a driver.

At Inter City in Leigh, we had a football team in the South West Lancs league, totally made up of employees, a cricket team that played friendlies. On one occasion we even managed to field a full rugby league team that gave a decent local team a run for their money.

Alas, I only seem to see people at funerals these days…

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imperial183:
I suppose this is “progress”, but I agree with a lot of the comments posted. The common use of GPS, multi vehicle tracking systems etc causes as many problems as it solves. Other than family run Companies, the days of people working their way up through hard work, common sense etc have gone.

The four jobs that I had after Inter City were awash with University graduates who didn’t know what a wagon looked like and many of them would never dream of actually speaking to a driver.

Having worked for both family-owned/operated companies and also a global shipping line, with various interactions at different levels along the way with the large “logistics” groups, there is much I can sympathise with!

In a global company, those who will prevail (though not exclusively) are the purveyors of “bull”, the box-tickers and those who slavishly follow the KPI path.

I was told, for instance, that the way to reduce long stay containers in a depot was to run an empty in, swap for an identical one that had been there for a while and carry on with the job. Reducing the statistical dwell time for an individual box was thought more important than the cost of haulage to and from, plus depot handling. That was an HQ senior management instruction! Of course, it was all about meeting KPIs for someone at HQ who was measured on the efficiency of container turnround time, but not haulage profitability.

Meanwhile, whilst doing a driving shift at a large 3PL, the transport planner confided that “geography isn’t my best subject” when I queried a nonsensical plan…

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In my last job, which was in purpose built site for one client, I saw some things that I never believed possible.

One example, the warehouse was so disorganised , I was asked to hire trailers to be used as mobile storage.

Also many hauliers delivering/collecting from the site submitted demurrage/delay invoices due to the warehouse delays.

My line Manager decided that these costs would be allocated to the transport costs, despite being totally due to warehouse failures.

The costs in one month totalled £16k. I was then given a formal reprimand, because I had failed to meet my profit targets by £3k.

In reality, I had exceeded my profit target by £13k…

Just one example among many. My line Manager left the Company about 6 months later and made me redundant on the day he left…

That was the end of the road (literally) for me, I went to watch the England cricket team in Australia for a month or so, then looked

for a pub to buy !

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This has the potential to become a great thread. The TDG seemed to decline after the retirement of Sir James Duncan.

imperial183:
Jim Brackenridge the MD of Charles Alexander

I never knew that, when was he the managing director?

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georgeking:
This has the potential to become a great thread. The TDG seemed to decline after the retirement of Sir James Duncan.

imperial183:
Jim Brackenridge the MD of Charles Alexander

I never knew that, when was he the managing director?

Hiya “george”,Sir James was “the”,or one of,the origional founders of the TDG in the '50’s starting with,I believe,the purchase of Datrford Wharfage a Thames Lighterage firm.The group then expanded progressively throughout the UK particularly in Scotland.Sir James was Excecutive Chairman and was the “main man”,a chap called J.D.Lockhart was F.D. and I met them both on a number of occaisions,once in the small head office they both operated from in the City.If you ask me,I would say that the last surviving member of the group that operated to the origional “blue print” of the TDG and Sir James would be W.& J. Riding of Longridge,but of course,they had the great Mr.Tom at the helm and he definitely didn’t tolerate any “Bollox” from H.O. in the later years.I came across Sir James in later years after he had left the group and was by then Chairman of Bo-Alloy,I had a few very pleasant evenings as a guest of Bo-Alloy at gatherings in London and I found Sir James a very interesting chap to talk to,and he was buying the drinks !!! happy days,Cheers Dennis.

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Welcome to the site imperial183.My dad was one of the unfortunate ones to get transferred to ict,he was with Connal Highland and got moved to ■■■■■■■■■■■ when they merged with ict.He worked with Neil Munro and Davy thomson at Connal highland.When they set up Highlan Haulage mk2 he was the first driver to be based at Glasgow depot.Sadly Neil Munro passed away few yrs back from cancer still a relatively young man.Davy left Highland Haulage and last i heard was working for Macritchie Highland Distribution in Inverness.

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Gentlemen, what a superb thread, and with such potential, given the “intimate” knowledge of the inceptor, and contributors. I can only echo Dennis`s words regarding Sir James Duncan, and his “low overhead” team at Head Office! The manner in which the Group was initially, and most succesfully, run, individually accountable, individually managed, was a lesson to the “later” managers(?), and certainly to the “chrome and glass” despots currently presiding over the death throes of our industry. I had many dealings with their European operations, which were held in high regard by some of the “movers and shakers” of the French industry. (Non more so than a young man whose operation was based at St Vallier)! And along with them watched in amazement as the Group imploded! I await with interest future posts from the people involved. Cheerio for now.

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Saviem:
Gentlemen, what a superb thread, and with such potential, given the “intimate” knowledge of the inceptor, and contributors. I can only echo Dennis`s words regarding Sir James Duncan, and his “low overhead” team at Head Office! The manner in which the Group was initially, and most succesfully, run, individually accountable, individually managed, was a lesson to the “later” managers(?), and certainly to the “chrome and glass” despots currently presiding over the death throes of our industry. I had many dealings with their European operations, which were held in high regard by some of the “movers and shakers” of the French industry. (Non more so than a young man whose operation was based at St Vallier)! And along with them watched in amazement as the Group imploded! I await with interest future posts from the people involved. Cheerio for now.

TDG had quite a large French business at one time, they also had businesses in Australia and the USA. They owned non haulage companies such as Square Grip and Edison Plant Hire. correction British Electric Traction Plc owned Edison Plant Hire, TDG owned Cox Plant.

One of the French hauliers they owned was called Translitterol they paid Nobert Dentressangle to take this company off their hands the rest is history!

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I am really sorry to hear about Neil Munro, he was a lovely bloke. I remember driving up to Paisley on a Friday night to go out on his stag night. Managed to put quite a bit of work his way when Highland Haulage re-emerged.

Since I left the Distribution industry, I have sort of lost touch with events. Having had first hand experience of how Williams Distribution operated, I knew that TDG would go downhill quicker than Frans Klammer! The emergence of Stobart and their policy of targeting huge volume clients with low rates has probably cost the industry thousands of jobs. I find it difficult that such an organisation have been glamourised by TV.

I drove past the old Inter City site at ■■■■■■■■■■■ about 18 months ago and it has gone. Even the OKI factory is now one of those horrific retail parks. I have been approached a couple of times to go back into the industry, but there is no way I would ever seriously consider it.

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I remember TDG owning some of the finest names in Scottish Haulage:-

Inter City Transport
Sutherlands of Peterhead
Aberdeen Ice Company
Charles Alexander - probably one of the finest names in Scottish Haulage history
James Patterson (merged with Sutherlands of Peterhead)
McPhersons of Aberlour - now an independent company again
Highland Haulage (merged with Connal) - now an independent company again
Connal
Glasgow Hiring Company (merged with Inter City Transport)
Strathclyde Transport (merged with McKelvie & Co)
McKelvie & Co
Russell of Bathgate (merged with John Russell (Grangemouth)) originally both were owned by the same family
John Russell (Grangemouth)
Thomas Smith Jnr (Newhaven) - they had around 20 Volvos and were based in Pitt Street, Leith, Edinburgh

TDG owned these companies through a subsidiary called Cairngorm Holdings Limited who had very nice offices at:-
55 Melville Street, Edinburgh, EH3 7HL

Other large Scottish hauliers owned by PLC’s were
Dobson of Ednburgh - owned by the Ryland Group Plc
Smith of Madiston - owned by the British Electric Traction Plc
Andrew Hogg - owned by the British Electric Traction Plc
WH Malcolm - owned by Grampian Holdings Plc, now an independent company again
Christian Salvesen - owned by a quoted Plc

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georgeking:
I remember TDG owning some of the finest names in Scottish Haulage:-

Inter City Transport
Sutherlands of Peterhead
Aberdeen Ice Company
Charles Alexander - probably one of the finest names in Scottish Haulage history
James Patterson (merged with Sutherlands of Peterhead)
McPhersons of Aberlour - now an independent company again
Highland Haulage (merged with Connal) - now an independent company again
Connal
Glasgow Hiring Company (merged with Inter City Transport)
Strathclyde Transport (merged with McKelvie & Co)
McKelvie & Co
Russell of Bathgate (merged with John Russell (Grangemouth)) originally both were owned by the same family
John Russell (Grangemouth)
Thomas Smith Jnr (Newhaven) - they had around 20 Volvos and were based in Pitt Street, Leith, Edinburgh

TDG owned these companies through a subsidiary called Cairngorm Holdings Limited who had very nice offices at:-
55 Melville Street, Edinburgh, EH3 7HL

Other large Scottish hauliers owned by PLC’s were
Dobson of Ednburgh - owned by the Ryland Group Plc
Smith of Madiston - owned by the British Electric Traction Plc
Andrew Hogg - owned by the British Electric Traction Plc
WH Malcolm - owned by Grampian Holdings Plc, now an independent company again
Christian Salvesen - owned by a quoted Plc

When i worked at Cert in Warrington Thomas Smith Jnr did a lot for Bells whiskey down to us and then reload soap powder from Levers Bros back up to Scotland , i,m sure the address on the side of the trucks was Broxburn ■■ and I,ll always remember they had a driver called Jimmy who had a wooden leg.

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Boatchaser:
When i worked at Cert in Warrington Thomas Smith Jnr did a lot for Bells whiskey down to us and then reload soap powder from Levers Bros back up to Scotland , i,m sure the address on the side of the trucks was Broxburn ■■ and I,ll always remember they had a driver called Jimmy who had a wooden leg.

They could have relocated to Broxburn at a later date, the depot at Pitt Street, Leith, Edinburgh was quite small. When I lived in Edinburgh in 1984/85 I used to walk past this place quite a lot, other hauliers also had bases in Pitt Street such as Blue Band and a green parcels company from Armadale.

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