Middle East - Not Astran!

Piece of memorabilia,

Original Saudi Number Plate from my Truck, approx 1977, shouldnt have managed to get it out of the country, but i did,

Perfect condition,

Offers?? about £3.50 to post

Hang it on your wall all you Old Time Middle Easter’s

Stumbled across aload of middle east trucking photos today which i thought may be of intrest.

Austin from the 1950s check out the home made sleeper !

Londra 1970.

Mocamp

On route to pakistan in 1970.

Overland transport Rotterdam to Bombay.

Some great pics there Dean! Wonder where the Reynarts pic, the one with the camels was taken?

Anyway, just for fun, in the last pic, the German tour bus has the city names along the side describing the route. So we have a start point, Amsterdam - Frankfurt - Istanbul - Tehran - ? - New Delhi - Bombay. Any one care to guess the missing name hidden behind Mr Checkshirt? :laughing:

Im guessing Kabul or possibly Islamabad. Im sure some of our more well travelled members here can work out their route from their own past experiences. Happy Easter! :wink:

bullitt:
Some great pics there Dean! Wonder where the Reynarts pic, the one with the camels was taken?

Anyway, just for fun, in the last pic, the German tour bus has the city names along the side describing the route. So we have a start point, Amsterdam - Frankfurt - Istanbul - Tehran - ? - New Delhi - Bombay. Any one care to guess the missing name hidden behind Mr Checkshirt? :laughing:

Im guessing Kabul or possibly Islamabad. Im sure some of our more well travelled members here can work out their route from their own past experiences. Happy Easter! :wink:

Reynarts pic: maybe Pakistan, as they were doing that at the time.

The missing city on the bus: in those days they would probably have crossed the border from Iran to Pakistan at Zahedan, and from Pakistan to India at Amritsar; so the missing place is likely to be Quetta or Lahore route. Only guessing, of course! Robert

bullitt:
Some great pics there Dean! Wonder where the Reynarts pic, the one with the camels was taken?

Anyway, just for fun, in the last pic, the German tour bus has the city names along the side describing the route. So we have a start point, Amsterdam - Frankfurt - Istanbul - Tehran - ? - New Delhi - Bombay. Any one care to guess the missing name hidden behind Mr Checkshirt? :laughing:

Im guessing Kabul or possibly Islamabad. Im sure some of our more well travelled members here can work out their route from their own past experiences. Happy Easter! :wink:

Who remembers ‘Rotel Tours’, saw them just about everywhere in the 70’s, but didnt realise they were running just about all over the world from Germany way before that, Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa, South America

Some of their trips made our efforts look like a ‘Local Trip’, mostly German tourists and usually elderly

Fascinating video taken in 1962 with great video of Khyber Pass, but i believe they were running in the 50’s.

youtube.com/watch?v=z5LwWA57aLU

Also ‘Top Deck’ ran a service Amsterdam to Sydney Australia, in old English double deckers, back in late 60’s/early 70’s. totally Mad,

Skip

Yes I remember those buses with a trailer that was used for sleeping accommodation, like rows of rabbit hutches.
Also the double decker buses for Top Deck, they were usually Bristol Lo Deckers, to keep below the four metre bridge height that’s common outside the UK.
I heard that one of their Bristols had a long hold up at Kapicule on one trip when one of the Turkish customs men was checking out the bus Triptyche
and did not believe there was such a thing as a five cylinder engine!, wanting to know where the missing cylinder was!.

bestbooties:
Yes I remember those buses with a trailer that was used for sleeping accommodation, like rows of rabbit hutches.
Also the double decker buses for Top Deck, they were usually Bristol Lo Deckers, to keep below the four metre bridge height that’s common outside the UK.
I heard that one of their Bristols had a long hold up at Kapicule on one trip when one of the Turkish customs men was checking out the bus Triptyche
and did not believe there was such a thing as a five cylinder engine!, wanting to know where the missing cylinder was!.

Quite right, Bristol Lo Decker,
What was one of those like to drive?
I see that ‘Top Deck’ is now a Multi Million pound company based on its innovative beginnings,
How many pioneering Truck companies are left??
Perhaps we were all in the wrong industry?
But i wouldnt have missed ‘The Trucks’ for the world,
I am just amazed that the Bus/Coach companies made our trips look like a ‘Jaunt’, nothing seemed to stop them,
We could have gone just about anywhere without the ‘Red Tape’
I guess Customs and Governments stopped us from the Really Long Haul’s,

Those times are now Long Gone,

Bus/Coach stuff has opened my eyes to what may have been possible,

Lo Decker at Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Pity it wasnt a 2800 DAF/F88/110/141 etc

Glad i did a Trip to USA when it was rare to see a European truck.

Skip

skipvitesse:

bestbooties:
Yes I remember those buses with a trailer that was used for sleeping accommodation, like rows of rabbit hutches.
Also the double decker buses for Top Deck, they were usually Bristol Lo Deckers, to keep below the four metre bridge height that’s common outside the UK.
I heard that one of their Bristols had a long hold up at Kapicule on one trip when one of the Turkish customs men was checking out the bus Triptyche
and did not believe there was such a thing as a five cylinder engine!, wanting to know where the missing cylinder was!.

Quite right, Bristol Lo Decker,
What was one of those like to drive?
I see that ‘Top Deck’ is now a Multi Million pound company based on its innovative beginnings,
How many pioneering Truck companies are left??
Perhaps we were all in the wrong industry?
But i wouldnt have missed ‘The Trucks’ for the world,
I am just amazed that the Bus/Coach companies made our trips look like a ‘Jaunt’, nothing seemed to stop them,
We could have gone just about anywhere without the ‘Red Tape’
I guess Customs and Governments stopped us from the Really Long Haul’s,

Those times are now Long Gone,

Bus/Coach stuff has opened my eyes to what may have been possible,

Lo Decker at Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Pity it wasnt a 2800 DAF/F88/110/141 etc

Glad i did a Trip to USA when it was rare to see a European truck.

Skip

Yes Skip they were and our impressive companies that do these megga long trips overland.
I have posted this article a couple of times before,but its worth sharing again,from 1976.
Click on the pages once to make clearer and gain to magnify to read.

Great Thread and photos. For those on Facebook, Rinus Rynart from NL, has some great photos and history here. Seems like a real Good Guy .

facebook.com/rinus.rynart?f … riends.all

slink780:
Great Thread and photos. For those on Facebook, Rinus Rynart from NL, has some great photos and history here. Seems like a real Good Guy .

facebook.com/rinus.rynart?f … riends.all

Looks like it was much harder for the Bus guys than the Trucks,
But i hate to say it the Bus Guys stuck to their guns, truck guys backed out in a hurry when times got hard,
A Few, and i mean a Few, truck companies stuck to ME,
But Economics and Customs curtailed the Truck routes,
Bus guys stuck to their guns, only a few survived,

I only introduced this Topic as something as a novelty,

But to be honest the Bus Guys carried on way beyond our ‘Truck’ companies, and they did it way before we did with our old English Trucks,

Dont like to say it, But ‘Hats Off’ to all those Bus guys that did it way before ’ Us Truck Guys’,

My ME Trips now look like ‘A weekend Away’,

All respect to guys that went around the globe

Skip (in awe of the globetrotters)

richardgregory.org.uk/images … il-map.jpg

As can be seen, they went far far beyond m/e but then they had weed and foreign chicks for company, must’ve eased the burden.

skipvitesse:

slink780:
Great Thread and photos. For those on Facebook, Rinus Rynart from NL, has some great photos and history here. Seems like a real Good Guy .

facebook.com/rinus.rynart?f … riends.all

Looks like it was much harder for the Bus guys than the Trucks,
But i hate to say it the Bus Guys stuck to their guns, truck guys backed out in a hurry when times got hard,
A Few, and i mean a Few, truck companies stuck to ME,
But Economics and Customs curtailed the Truck routes,
Bus guys stuck to their guns, only a few survived,

I only introduced this Topic as something as a novelty,

But to be honest the Bus Guys carried on way beyond our ‘Truck’ companies, and they did it way before we did with our old English Trucks,

Dont like to say it, But ‘Hats Off’ to all those Bus guys that did it way before ’ Us Truck Guys’,

My ME Trips now look like ‘A weekend Away’,

All respect to guys that went around the globe

Skip (in awe of the globetrotters)

Nice contribution with the bus stuff, Skip! However, I thought UK truckers were doing it before the buses, starting with Asia Trans (later Astran) in 1964, but it has been argued on this forum that others were doing it even earlier. And of course, they weren’t ‘guys’ because Brits didn’t speak like Yanks in those days :laughing: :wink: ; but talking of Guys, Asia Trans ran a Guy Warrior to Kabul in '64. IIRC, the buses came later with the ‘hippy trail’. Top Deck Travel started in '73. The buses were a rarity compared with the lorries, but hundreds of Brit trucks did M/E in those days and many companies did stick at, so I’m surprised to read that they didn’t!

The thing, for me, that marked out the bus drivers was their mechanical know-how. If you drove for Top Deck Travel, you weren’t allowed to leave the depot till you could strip down a Gardner and put it back together again! However, there are legion tales of Brit long-haul truckers towing knackered ‘magic buses’ and Bristol double-deckers across Afghanistan to safety. At the end of the day, it wasn’t a competition to see who was best: it was a wild adventure for all, doubled up as a full-time job and the object of the exercise was to survive - and countless good blokes did (and blokessess too, because Top Deck employed some pretty tough girls as crew on those buses, mostly from Oz, NZ and Taz). Robert

scan0003.jpg

PERSEPOLISIRAN1971.jpg

Remember the old TIR carnet !

Skip vitesse… You’ve really livened up the m/e thread. Great pics , great stories too. And nice that you’ve found some old friends on here.

Where are you in Oz? I may have missed it if you’ve posted where , sorry!
I travelled all round Australia in 2007 / 8 during a late mid life crisis. Did the whole coast anti clockwise from Sydney and up and down the " Red Centre " as well. 46,000 k’s in a Mitzi van… Only one puncture and one breakdown in the whole year I was there!
I recall Top Deck , very well… I thought they just folded , but apparently not. I had an old kiwi mate who drove for them … And nearly , very nearly , went on there as a driver / guide. Sorry I didn’t now looking back! Ah well. Cheers now, and keep posting.
Baldrick.
But i wouldnt have missed ‘The Trucks’ for the world,
I am just amazed that the Bus/Coach companies made our trips look like a ‘Jaunt’, nothing seemed to stop them,
We could have gone just about anywhere without the ‘Red Tape’
I guess Customs and Governments stopped us from the Really Long Haul’s,

Those times are now Long Gone,

Bus/Coach stuff has opened my eyes to what may have been possible,

Lo Decker at Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Pity it wasnt a 2800 DAF/F88/110/141 etc

Glad i did a Trip to USA when it was rare to see a European truck.

Skip
[/quote]

DEANB:
Remember the old TIR carnet !

0

I remember it very well as most on here will do…
Never did the Middle East but as we all know it was a common requirement back then …

Many a dodgy moment at Villa Formosa etc with a tilt cord ring missed or seal missing!

I also remember a time in a European tour with Queen… A trailer load of muso stuff , costumes etc plus 4 pairs of false ■■■■ for Freddie Mercury that weren’t on the manifest… Austrian Customs satisfied with a few t shirts etc… :smiley: :smiley:

robert1952:
0

When it Go’s wrong, 1971

Snowy White in background, he got them out.

Skip

Great stories from another post,
60’s & 70’s
Great comments that in early days it was rare to see a Brit truck, but then became more common.
Sad to see comment that in early days Brit Truck drivers always stopped to help coaches, but later on they got No help!!
Great shot of ‘Snowy’ directing operations

03-Mar-2008 01:55:25 (edited by Dave 03-Mar-2008 11:42:10)
Platinum
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From: March, Cambridgeshire, UK
Registered: 06-Jun-2006
Posts: 88
John, can I mention some of the pre-1970s Overland people as well - and as you’ve mentioned Astran’s Mr. Frost, later on a bit about some of the truck firms, since we all drove on the same routes, at least to Tehran on the the direct route to India - a very small number went as far as Lahore, but more of that further on.
I’d say that in the first half of the 1970s some of the Overland firms from the 1960s were still active; firstly because John, Harvey and myself drove for them - are Safaris. In 1966 (ish) the Fenwick brothers, Bob and John, started the Safaris company from the house in Lansdowne Gardens in Stockwell; nearby was the Canton pub in the South Lambeth Road where the meetings and bookings took place - for both Safaris and PBK Tours - which was run by Paul Beesley. The old information sheets from the late 1960s claims that PBK had been doing Overland Trips since 1962. Another name associated with Safaris and PBK was Brian Page - but I can’t remember much about him.
i22.photobucket.com/albums/b322/ … rms_02.jpg
When I first went Overland in 1968 and starting driving with JF in the Maudslay bus, Beesley was running with us in a newish, petrol engined, long-wheelbase Landrover. This seated, I think, 12 people - it must’ve been cramped in the back, and a long roof-rack carried all the rucksacks and clobber. This vehicle was very handy for a few of us to use in the evenings, or if the ancient Maudslay broke down. The Maudslay that I was in, I’d thought, was a 1948 bus, but I’m sure JF told me recently that it was rebodied in 1948; the chassis etc was apparently pre-war.
Tangerine Travels was another of the independent Overlanders; here’s the card given to me by Roland Watts. The last time I saw him was October 1972 in Istanbul; Mr Beesley I last saw in 1975 in Greece and Istanbul, he was driving a Bedford VAL - this was a 3-axled bus, in transport jargon they are referred to as a ‘Chinese-Six’ because they had four front wheels. He still owes me the 20 dollars I lent him, when we and and a few of his passengers (mostly female) had a well lubricated dinner in a floating resturant in Istanbul. He’d come out that night without any cash on him, or so he said; I knew I’d never see it again…
i22.photobucket.com/albums/b322/ … rms_03.jpg
Peter Day ran his own bus, and he may have operated as Roadrunner or something like that; I last heard from him in 1978, when he phoned me up and asked if I could run a truck (he must have known I had a HGV licence) from Germany out to Kabul for him - I didn’t like the sound of it, so I politely declined.
And there were many more people at it, especially as the 1970s progressed; not just from the UK but Europe. Dutch, German, French buses were doing the Overland as well, though I don’t think it was anything like the numbers from here (UK), although a fair percentage of drivers of buses departing from the UK were Australian or New Zealanders.
i22.photobucket.com/albums/b322/ … rms_08.jpg
And here is a motor belonging to AsiaBus, stuck on the Iran-Iraq border in 1966 - I don’t know who ran this firm, or who drove for them. The picture is cut from one that Rory MaClean has put on Flickr, and I’ve shown it before.
But before all this happened, as Derek says on here, Norm Harris started in 1958, and it was probably 10, or more, years later that Emil began the Budget Bus trips. It should be compulsory for all ex-Overland drivers and passengers to be computer users…there’s so much information and so many photographs, just locked away.
John wrote:
Another regular driver, though not of Overland Buses, was a guy called John Frost who drove for Asian International/Astran trucks on the rout to Tehran. There were not many trucks heading East in those days though after 1972 the situation changed quickly.
At the same time as the Overland Bus trips were running, the Europe to Asia transport activity was really growing; in 1964 two blokes set off from London for Kabul with an articulated truck loaded with printing presses. Following the success of this venture they set up a company called Asian Transport - which in later years was renamed Astran. This now large company still runs out to the Middle East today.
In 1970-1 Iran began to increase its hunger for trade with Europe so the amount of truck traffic increased in a very short period, all this freight movement overloaded the primitive road systems, particularly in areas like eastern Turkey. Reluctantly in 1977, the Turkish authorities opened an existing military road to create the northern bypass route around the mountain range that peaked at the notorious Tahir Pass - this old road had been a tortuous and twisting climb to over 8000’ on an unmade surface. By the late 1970s it’d be fair to say that for every Overland bus, there were many hundreds of international trucks on the same routes - and as the numbers of trucks increased the likelehood of those drivers stopping to help you out decreased.
i22.photobucket.com/albums/b322/ … rms_10.jpg
This is the situation on the Tahir before the northern route was opened up in 1977. In this picture, very few, if any of that lot of trucks struggling to get over the Tahir would have been from the UK - they came from all over Europe, including the eastern countries like Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Hungary and so on; plus the odd Turkish and Iranian ones. Not all the Overland bus firms operated right through the winters, whereas the freight traffic ran whatever the weather - it just kept going. In 1968 there wasn’t anything like this number of trucks going to Iran - of course there were a few, but most of the time you had the road to yourself.
When I got into trouble on the old Tahir Pass road in 1971, it was an English Overland truck that pulled the AEC bus back onto the road, but also offering assistance was another Englishman called ■■■■ Snow who drove for Asian Transport - his yellow Scania truck and drawbar trailer are in the background of the picture picture below. This man went on to become a cult figure among the truck drivers who went out to the Middle-East; his reputation founded on his legendary trip times of 21 days from England to Tehran and back - not bad going in a 40 ton vehicle, with no co-driver. He once told me that he now and again drove as far as Lahore in Pakistan, and that these trips were usually for the British Embassy in Pakistan; and that the loads consisted of personal property of long-serving senior officials out there, or new furniture being sent out to the Embassy. The staff were either commencing or finishing a term of duty.
i22.photobucket.com/albums/b322/ … rms_09.jpg
Now that there some Hughes and/or Intertrek drivers here, do any of them know anything about the Bedford in this picture that I’ve posted 2 or 3 times before?
John, that bloke to the right of you, in the picture is Hank - a passenger going from Delhi to London in 1971. In 1972 he phoned me up and told me he’d bought a Bristol double-decker and was setting up on his own to do Overland Trips. Anyway, he asked me a lot of questions and in the end I went down to see him and his bus in a yard at Westbourne Grove in London; I didn’t fancy his chances with it and told him so, but some months later off he went. I think it all went wrong before he got out of Turkey, his few passengers deserted, the bus was abandoned out there and he lost a lot of money. At some of the borders were fenced off compounds full of confiscated vehicles - from cars to buses. It wasn’t as easy as it may have looked; it was an understandable thing to want to have a go at - many people did, and a lot of people failed. Too many people went out there for the wrong reasons.
John, or Johnny, Frost came to Astran after Snow had started (these meteorological sounding names are real…) and as far as I know, is still alive. Mr Snow gave eventually gave up his long-haul driving to run a pub in Essex, and died some years ago. In the picture below he is seen, on the right, overseeing the recovery operation of a European truck that had gone off the road on the Tahir road in eastern Turkey. A truck and a grader, chained together, are attempting to extract a Scania 110 and its semi-trailer from the snow - this was a far too common sight, this one was lucky; some guys didn’t survive these incidents.
i22.photobucket.com/albums/b322/ … rms_07.jpg
The Euro-Asian truck movements were not totally the activity of European firms; for a long time Turkish trucks went up into Eastern Europe and into Germany, as did the Iranian firms like Marand, and Shams Express Transport (from Maku). The largest Iranian firm to do international work (in those days) was ICC (Iran Container Company) - based in Tehran, they regularly ran as far as Germany from 1970 onwards. They used dark blue Mack Maxidyne tractor units for this work - each one double-manned, to minimise stop time. One night in Erzerum, one their drivers, an English speaking Kurd, helped me fit snowchains to the AEC, and afterwards I helped fit the chains onto the (6 x 4) Mack. This was a miserable task when the temperature had fallen to below -30

When things go bad, boy do they go bad!!

Yugoslavia

Skip

Slavonsky Brod autoput ?