One for the tacho experts

Stussy:
We run 3 trucks on a long distance trunk every night, which is too far to go and fit into a 9 hour shift.
We can do it on a 10, but obviously only two nights a week.They tried a mid way trailer swap but it was too expensive, as we run 5 trucks a day with it occasionally being 6.

We’re in exactly the same situation trunking Scottish loads up to Bellshill from Howden. It’s what we’re having to do with Scottish loads and we’re sending up as many as fourteen loads at the moment. Depending on how far the changeover is from the final destination you could do it with only half as many coming down to the trailer swap so you’d not need 12 lorries in total to do the 6 loads, you’d only need 9.

Here’s how we do it. So say there’s 8 loads to go up. Final destination for the loads is a subbies depot at Bellshill. There’ll be four lorries going from Howden to the changeover near Lockerbie to arrive around 8pm. Four lorries will come down from Bellshill, do the changeover. They then go back to Bellshill, pick up four more trailers, head back down to the changeover point to meet a second set of lorries that set off from Howden four hours later and arrive around midnight. Works like a charm. We get there, take 45, drive back. Bellshill drivers can come down, do first changeover, go back to Bellshill, trailer swap and get back to second changeover and then take their 45 at the same time as the drivers on the second run from Howden.

I’ve told this story before but I think it’s worth repeating:

When I worked for Blake’s at Alcester they used to send three or four trailers to their Paisly depot every night with a trailer swap at Preston. Both drivers could easily do one leg, take 45 and then return. A frequent problem was that one or another driver would be late, meaning a long wait at Preston.

One evening an agency driver with a broad Scottish accent took a trailer from Alcester to Preston. He dropped his loaded trailer, parked up and settled down on his bunk. An hour or so later another Alcester driver set off.

When driver two arrived, he saw a Blake’s truck waiting and woke the driver (the one with the accent) up. Driver one duly set off with the second trailer on his way home. Driver two had to take a break and was surprised when there was a knock on the door.

Obviously, driver one had taken driver two’s trailer South and if the driver from Scotland hadn’t arrived in time, driver two might well have followed him. Fortunately, the first driver was not too far down the road before they found a phone number for him and turned him around.