Monday, Preston to Inverness
…as I was saying, I got the text message from Shaun my Transport Manager last Friday that I was going up ‘Scotch’. I dropped into work on the Sunday to set the timer on my night heater and check if any of the drops are timed. They weren’t and best of all, the last one is Inverness. Looks like the God of nice runs out has smiled on me…
Or so I thought, the weather has been awful the worst I’ve ever seen over Shap. I’ve seen at least three jack knifed lorrys and one abandoned car and now I’m parked in a huge queue of traffic on the A74(M) engine off, waiting to go. Radio Scotland tells me that there has been a string of incidents all the way down the 74 from Glasgow and the one we are stuck in is away at the very back. A lorry has shed it’s load apparently.
It must be at least three hours before we all get going again. The crash is a mess as we creep past the scene on the barely open lane 3. One truck is jacked round and down the grass verge off the hard shoulder. The other, one of ESL’s finest, is on it’s side facing back toward the oncoming traffic. It’s load of 2 litre bottles of pop has crashed through the roof of the trailer and is scattered over the carriageway. An all terrain fork truck has turned up on a low loader to help clear up. I would of thought a loading shovel and a tipper truck would of been a better idea. There is no news on the radio about any casualties.
In a way the delay has been a blessing, the weather is starting to clear the bulk of the traffic has died down and the other smaller incidents have been tidied up. I easily find my first drop in Belshill the second is near Paisly that I’ve done before and the third is north of Dumbarton. The weather is bright now and as I drive over the Erskine Bridge I think to myself this trip might make a good Diary for TNUK.
In Dumbarton the stacker driver laughs when he sees my next stop is Inverness. There has been another accident on the motorway and with the weather ‘it’s pure carnage pal’ he tells me with that particular glee that stacker drivers have for passing on bad news. I stop on the Industrial Estate to get lunch and have a think about what I’m going to do. I get out my bridge map and fire up my SatNav to work out how long it will take me to get up north. I ring the customer to see if they will be open, they shut at five so I’m not going to make it on time but I can park on the premises so that’s something. Finally, I ring Shaun to tell him my plans and he tells me I’m reloading in Montrose.
I take the Old Military Road to Stirling and catch the A9 up to Perth and beyond. The weather is bright the traffic is all stuck in that Jam back in Glasgow and I’m really enjoying myself. The only snow is out in the fields and on the mountain tops. I stop to try and get a photo of the Truck with the hills in the background but the camera on my phone doesn’t do them justice.
I get to the customer just before six just like I said I would and they are shut, just like they said they would. I park in close to the door where I’ll get tipped (a trick I learned in Germany) lock the fuel cap and walk into town for my tea.
Tuesday, Inverness to Montrose and Tebay
I’m up in good time and make some porridge in the microwave, careful to run the engine for about the same length of time the after cooker has been on. I open up the curtains so the customer can tip the pallets and pretty much leave them to it. These guys check each item off carefully, I suppose they have to when they are based so far away and checking takes ages. I use the time to slope off to get a wash and a shave, rinse my porridge things and rustle up a brew.
It looks to me the best route down to Montrose will be down past Elgin but there is a low bridge 15’3" in the book. My trailer is marked 15’5" but I know it’s smaller because I measured one of the batch when they first came. Just to make sure I measure it again, 14’11" I thought so, I write the heights in the front of my road atlas. They finish unloading, it’s a clear tip I back down a busy entrance to get out and I’m off. I’ve done the first part of this route on my old road bike and I remember how straight and bumpy it was, less bumpy in an artic though. There are a few oncoming lorries that look roughly the same height as mine so that makes me feel confident.
I don’t bother with the SatNav, it’s an app on my phone and it uses too much data. I don’t really need an ETA so I just do what I’ve always done and just follow the roadsigns. Just south of Huntly there is a low bridge warning sign but it’s something daft like 15’9" I don’t remember it on my map so I just crack on. Eventually, I come to the real low bridge and it is, it’s 14’6" luckily there’s an alternative route for high vehicles which seems to bring me out the back of Inverurie and on to the main road to Aberdeen.
I’m surprised just how long I’ve been driving by the time I hit the infamous Aberdeen Ring Road. It looks like it’s going to take at least four hours to get from Inverness to Montrose, looking on the map I would of thought two and half maybe three hours. I ponder this as I queue for yet another roundabout or set of lights.
I arrive at Montrose Harbour on their lunch break and just in time for my own. I park inside the dock and walk down to a bakers just down the street. There is a queue of kids from the local school, I join the back of it and two of them offer to let me go before them. I thank them and decline, I’ve got forty five minutes to kill but I decide not to try and explain Drivers Hours rules to them. A lorry from a firm in Kendal bounces past me as I eat my lunch I guess he’s loading for Lancaster like me.
I book in on the weighbridge find the right shed and get loaded. The truck from Kendal has an old Euroliner he’s loaded but there is tilt boards and straps everywhere. I think to myself I might give him a hand once I’ve sorted my own load out. Pulp doesn’t take long to load or secure and by the time I’ve finished the lad from Kendal is just about done too. I follow him out to of the Dock but he turns left to take the old road to Dundee, I think ‘good luck with that mate’ and head for the main road instead.
I trog down through Dundee and head for Perth. The radio tells me there are tailbacks on the motorway to Glasgow so I head down the old way over the Forth Road Bridge. I stop for fuel at Hartshill, I know I’ll be in the yard tomorrow so I just get enough to get home. I get a text with my job for tomorrow and I crack on south.
With my work for tomorrow I’m going to have a reduced rest tonight. I would rather get to our customer in Lancaster and rest there but I’m not going to make it. I pull into Tebay get a shower and go to bed.
Wednesday, Tebay, Home via Linconshire
I sleep well but I get ‘Revvin Rodney’ for an alarm clock. A DAF I think, he’s revving the thing that hard to build the air up I can’t really tell. What’s that excuse? It’s a good idea to gently warm the engine up before you set off? reckon he didn’t see the memo…he’s long gone by the time I’m dressed and have made my porridge. I brush my teeth and walk round the truck and we’re all set to go. I’m in Lancaster for seven.
I drop my trailer in the space they save for pulp deliveries and pick up the high volume mega trailer I’ll need to load tissue reels. I’m soon loaded and secured and I head to Preston and our yard for fuel. Shaun is in the yard and he tells me, while I draw fuel, that I’m reloading in …a large Port in Linconshire…(I’m not allowed to say) he asks if I liked my trip out to Scotland and I tell him it made a nice change from Leicester.
I need 400 ltrs to fill my 480 ltr tank so I’m pleased with my ready reckoning. Then again, I’ve been driving the thing nearly every day for the last two years I should know it’s range by now. I tip out at the customer near Huddersfield. What was that truism on TNUK about when you want to do an awkward reverse every car in the county turns up to get in your way? A bus driver stops and gives me a chance to back in.
I stop at the Woodside for lunch and get off to the Docks. The reels I’m loading are 3.1m high and about 2m in diameter. They need ratchet straps and corner protectors to secure them. I have a laugh with a Foxes driver as we wait to load, he’s lucky his are going shotgun mine are going on end. There must about five Dockies messing about loading the Foxes lad as he stands by his cab and lets them get on with it. My reels are on in less than ten minutes I get the big set of steps and the stick for the corner protectors from the office, my days of clambering around trailers like bloody Tarzan are long gone. The whole lot is done in twenty minutes.
The God of not very nice short runs is smiling and I have an almost clear run over the M62. I hit the Mill half an hour late but Shaun rang in advance, the clamp driver is a nice fella and he’s happy to see me again. He’s tipped and stored the reels before I’ve managed to stow my straps. I get my notes and go home.
Thursday, Local then South
I finished pretty late last night so I’ve got a nine o’clock delivery in Manchester (another client that must remain nameless). The Traffic is epic and with the Digicard a local shunt costs me two and a half hours driving, just to get there! I come back load the trailer at our warehouse and drop the thing off then it’s time for lunch.
I’ve no idea what the plan is for the afternoon but I need to keep an eye on my time because I’ve no more reduced rests left I had nearly fourteen hours off on Monday night but they didn’t fall inside the twenty four from when I started.Turns out I have to pick up a loaded trailer in Heysham and tip Greenford in the morning, well that’s a turn up. I would of never of guessed I would do that. I top up with fuel in the yard and set off for Heysham.
Our customers yard in Heysham is rough,wet and muddy. I ask the foreman where he wants my empty trailer and I pick up and secure my loaded one, luckily I don’t have to exchange slots one for one. My boots start leaking in the rain, good grief, I only got them in October. I know I’m going to reload in Tilbury and I know I’ll never make it back on Friday night so I plan what I’m going to do.
I decide to park up slightly early, there is no point chugging through all that traffic in the Midlands burning my driving time so I stop at the Saltbox on the old A50. I get my choice of parking slots a decent meal (funny how mince pie is cheaper than everything else…cheers Dobbin!) first go in the showers and dry my feet.I walk down to the village to get some cash and stop off in the Pub for a pint. Some drivers are already in there waxing lyrical about the DCPC a bit like TNUK but for real. I get my pint and settle down to watch Emmerdale. I don’t like Emmerdale but I prefer that to listening to a whinge of drivers trotting out the same old cobblers they and I’ve heard a hundred times before.
It’s not long before I’m off to bed.
Friday, Saltbox, Town and Coalville
I’m up in good time and I’m off to Greenford. I’m not going to name the exporter where I’m going but I’m pretty sure any Maritime driver on TNUK will know exactly where I mean. I rock up early but I’m still the second truck there. The old Indian boy in with a Handlebar mustache and a Turban does his Sgt Major bit and parks me up after doing the horribly tight U turn in the yard. I unfasten the curtains and wait for the stacker drivers.
The fork trucks swarm round the place, it’s actually pretty dangerous but I’m tipped quickly and my notes are thrust into my hand. I stop at the end of the access road for a brew from the cafe and I see Sgt Major marching up the lane, I beam a huge grin/smile at him politely tell him ‘excellent service old chap, always tipped quickly well done’ he was going to tell me off for not moving on but he’s stumped. I fire up the truck and smile broadly as I leave.
I’m lucky with the traffic on the North Circular but I need to keep an eye on the time. I see a sign for a transport cafe on the A13 my times about done and I drop in. I look at the Industrial Estate as I pull in and grimace, it looks like a cross from a scene from a post apocalyptic disaster movie and a bad British gangster film. There is hardly any space with clapped out cars, vans and lorries lining the metal fences on either side of the entrance and along the access road but somehow I find a space to park up. The cafe itself looks derelict and I have to look hard to find the right door but inside it’s really quite nice,they do a cooked breakfast and a brew for four quid. I keep thinking Ray Winstone will be here in a minute…
There is another whinge of drivers at the booking office in Tilbury, talk to a lorry driver on his or her own and you talk to a perfectly sane and rational Human Being. Get a group of three or more and you are dealing with a group of urban myth spouting, gibbering idiots, ah well… the clerk is on his own so luckily it’s not that busy. I get my notes and guess what? I join the back of the queue. I’m loading heavy paper reels again but nice short stumpy ones. I unbuckle the curtains and sweep the load bed but do not fasten the curtains back on account of the weather. I notice some of the others have fastened theirs back and think ‘good luck with that mate’ for the second time this week.
Incredibly, my notes are ready when I emerge from the loading shed and again I’m lucky (or early) with the traffic. There is still no way I can make it home but I don’t want to hit the Industrial Estate I want to park at too early because all the cars will still be lining the roads. I stop off for a brew at Watford Gap but I’ve got to remember to stay inside thirteen hours too. I roll into Coalville turn the corner into the Estate and there is lots of cars but a couple of spaces for trucks too. This Estate is very close to the town centre but is absolutely silent a couple of bulkers turn up later on but I don’t even hear them turn up. I was going to have a pint but I decide not to bother an get an early night.
Saturday, Coalville to Home
I’m up early but no porridge, got to crack on it’s home time.
The weather is pretty wet but I still decide to go to Woodsides for a livery wash, I need to catch the fitters when I get back so there is no point getting back too early. I time it just right because they turn up as I’m refuelling. I get some oil and some more screen wash, replace the straps and corners I’ve used and give the cab a quick blast with the jetwash then I’m off to our trailer yard. My mate John is putting a new recruit through his paces when I get there. Johns given the bloke a pretty hard reverse to do but it’s not a pass or fail test, more of a way of guageing a drivers attitude a bit like looking at the blokes car to see what nick it’s in (we do that too). I drop my trailer, park my unit finish my timesheet and download my card.
I meet John and the prospect as I walk to my car I ask them both ‘are you both still alive… well he must of passed then?’ get in my car and get on home.
epilogue
Well this is my first working diary for TNUK and I hope you all enjoy reading it. I have got a few pictures too but if they failed to download they erased the diary as I was writing it.I shall try to publish them tomorrow. I have to admit that this was not a typical week for me and although we get the odd trip most of our work is just typical work to the East Midlands or Kent. Thanks again for reading,
W
