Anyone ever nighted into this beast of a place? What’s the procedure?
I went there couple of weeks ago was just told at security box which door to drive in and that’s it you drive inside at whichever door wait to be unloaded then drive out opposite end simples all inside so fab in crappy weather.
Lack of paperwork worried me as nothing to prove had delivered but apart from that fab
Pull up at gatehouse, tell them your company and depot number if you don’t already have them on display (most members have the depot number on a laminated card in the windscreen) and give them the orange bag with the notes in if you have it. Tell them if you’re picking up or collecting or both. They will direct you to the relevant queue for door A1/2/3. If you are what’s known as fast-track you should be in the queue for A3 iirc. If you arrive after around 2045 you’ll probably find there are 2 separate queues each for A1 and A3, join whichever line you prefer. Pull up behind bloke in front of you, get out, undo curtains, pull them to the back, secure them and make sure you fold your rear curtain poles inside the curtain pleats so that the thick ■■■■■ on the FLTs won’t bend them when they move the pallets at the back end. Remove all your straps and move them away from the pallets as best you can. If the queue starts to move up, jump back in and keep up.
When you get to the door take it in turns to go in if there are 2 lines running. When you go in the door pull up immediately on the left or right (whichever side has space) and reverse back up to the warehouse wall but position yourself at such an angle that you can see down the full length of the warehouse. There are spaces for 2 lines of 7 wagons over the full length - 1st space is the holding space as mentioned above, the next 5 spaces are for tipping and loading, and the far end space is for curtaining up if it’s ■■■■■■■ down outside 
. When you see one of the 10 central slots become free when a wagon pulls out, drive down to it and wait for the FLT guy to come to you. He’ll lift a STOP stand with a key holder to your window, put your keys in that then sit back and relax til he brings it back. DO NOT get out of the cab ffs. You’ll receive the biggest bollocking you’ve ever had in your entire life from fatboy Dave.
When you have tipped and got your keys back, drive out, turn left back towards the gatehouse, then left again where the offices are and park up anywhere along there. Get your head down for some hours until FLTs come round and wake you up. They’ll tell you to drive round to the other side and park up outside A1/2/3. DO NOT drive into the warehouse to reload unless they tell you to. Usually you will park outside the relevant door and put your depot number on display. When they are ready for you the FLT will come out and flash his lights at you. You will need to know which slot you reload in as they generally expect you to know, but if you can’t find out beforehand just collar one of the team leaders and they’ll tell you eg. A3, 3rd on left.
Once loaded drive out and curtain up outside, or if there’s a slot free at the end of the warehouse just before you drive out you can do it there too. On your way out of the gate make sure you pick up your depot’s bag with all the delivery notes in.
It sounds pretty complicated but just watch what the others do and you’ll soon suss it out. If in doubt just ask another driver; most of the regulars are quite chatty. 
Rachel can be found at the burger van as you pull out of the warehouse. She does some decent hot meals usually, but depends what day of the week it is. I can recommend the spag bol or chile con carne. Not a fan of her chicken curry and the roast beef dinner has some pretty nasty tasting beef imho but other drivers swear by it. The coffee is better out of the machine in the canteen near the gatehouse than the coffee she does, plus it’s also cheaper.
Just don’t upset fatboy Dave . He’s the team leader in A1 with a bald head, constant scowl and always looks like he’s about to fall out the side of his FLT because he’s so fat. Everyone hates him.
If you tell gatehouse that it’s your first time on site I think they give you a card to put in your windscreen so the guys know.
If you enjoy being in a queue and then sitting on your arse for a few hours, you’ll be fine. I personally hated the place, in fact it was a big
Contributing factor for me leaving a job. No body has mentioned it, but If it’s raining, don’t pull and tie your curtains until you are inside. God I hated that place!
Palletforce is luxury compared to Palletways.
Been there many times - job’s a doddle. As said - tell the gateman that you are a virgin and you get a card for the window. If you don’t, they assume you know the ropes. If you haven’t got a card with your depot number on, make one yourself so the forkies can see it. INMHO It would be hard to come up with a better system for transferring thousands of pallets every night.
If you are reloading in the morning, when you are tipped, there is no need to close the curtains unless you want to.
Comprehensive info @LEFT HAND DOWN. Much obliged to you
palletways, fradley, must have some of the fastest fork truck loaders in the world but by golly they dont half balance them on top of each other, its like a game of ker plunk when you arrive at the satellite depot !!!
Well, done a couple of trips into here now and it’s pretty straight forward. Rachels on hols for a few weeks now so her van is shut. I spotted fatboy Dave straight away, omg he looks so angry 
! And boy do those forkies fly up and down the warehouse.
It’s quite an eye-opener to sit in your cab and watch them all flying around. Took me a while to work out the pattern as they don’t just work on one trailer - they take a pallet off and park that, then they go to the nearest trailer for another, park that, and so on.
I was pretty lucky, whenever I went; I was there before the queue got going, and late out in the morning. Compared to the old hangars at Fradley the Burton depot is paradise:)
Anyone know where the new hub is? I’m on for a different company now but apparently they now have a 2nd hub somewhere nearby and the job has gone to [zb] because you have to tip and reload at both hubs which means no zzzzz’s. ?
I concur that Burton with it’s two lanes of drivers with undone curtains seemed to work a lot better than Fradley Park (“Lichfield Palletways”) did with it’s 3-4 hour tip queue that moves forward just often enough so you run out of hours before you get tipped…
Plenty of space to park up after tipping at Burton Palletforce as well.
Most people working there seemed to be British as well, in complete contrast to Fradley Park where even the managers were “not from around here”, and the most British person I could find on site was another driver from Carstairs who looked and sounded like Rab C Nesbitt - but at least I could call him “British.” 
The only other palletliner hubs I’ve been to are Brum Airport (Palletforce) and Watford Gap (Fortec Pallet). At the former, it’s a bit of a squeeze parking up alongside the numerous other deckers. I had a bit of trouble getting past the tip queue that goes right around the building to get parked up before I ran out of 4.5 hours.
Watford gap has you queueing along the winding road just off the A5 alongside the high-speed rail line, to have your stuff scanned at the “racks” before getting tipped using a “everyone moves at once when the police whirly lights activiate on the ceiling”.
They seem to have this “put your keys in the metal cup on a signboard” system though, whilst you sit in your cab to be unloaded. There seemed to be a lot of Scots/Northerners at Fortec from my recollection. One nerdy looking Scots lad was chucking his forktruck around corners like Tron - accounting for the rather peculiar skid marks at the end of lanes where he was working. 
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Didn’t know they had moved used to go to Fradley in the afternoons about ten years ago the place was bedlam but good fun, saw more than one collision between forkies. 