Retired Old ■■■■:
Hi, Dean,
The Octopus powder tanker could be ex-Rugby Cement. You are correct- Western Express Haulage were the transport arm of English China Clays.
Wasn’t Western Express Haulage also known as Heavy Transport ROF?
Retired Old ■■■■:
Hi, Dean,
The Octopus powder tanker could be ex-Rugby Cement. You are correct- Western Express Haulage were the transport arm of English China Clays.
Thanks “ROF” i thought there was a tie up with ECC looking at the paint scheme ! 
moomooland:
DEANB:
One for “moomooland” Sykes of ManchesterHi Dean thanks for another Sykes motor from up here in the Northwest that’s the third one to turn up on here.
Today Sykes have not got a single HGV or even a van left as everything is outsourced to DFDS including most of their cold storage, they now concentrate on developing their factories for the processing of seafood leaving the transportation and problems associated with it well alone.
If you remember Dean i sent the first one that you posted back in August to Martin Sykes at in case anyone missed it this was the nice reply i received…That brings back memories, Paul.
We started running our own vehicles on a daily basis to Aberdeen in the late sixties, but the Fords we used could not stand the continuous non stop use.
In 1969 I bought my first ERF from Peter Foden, who later became a good golfing friend.
He equipped them with Gardner Diesel engines derived from the marine engines manufactured by another good friend, Paul Gardner, and which could run for ever at a most economical rate (8 miles per gallon).
My father went ballistic when he heard the price of £5,000 for the first one as the Fords only cost £2,000, but at least I wasn’t woken by reverse charge calls each night from drivers broken down on Shap with 10 tons of fresh fish.
The vehicle in your photograph would be early seventies, by which time we were shipping them over to Denmark via Harwich, mainly artics, and collecting fish from all round Jutland.
At our peak we ran 15 artics and 5 rigids, covering south west and north east Scotland, Cornwall, Devon, Denmark and Holland as well servicing the whole of England and Wales.
Now all our transport is sub contracted, but some of our vehicles are still used in Grimsby, but no longer ERF’s.
Regards Martin SykesChairman -Sykes Seafoods.
Shame they have no transport anymore ! I remember that reply,decent sort of bloke to come back to you ! 
phop:
Definitely hoveringham dene quarry Cromford “wra” Derbyshire reg
Thanks for confirming “phop”
moomooland:
For those who thought LPG of Batley only ran tankers take a look at this article below…
Thanks for that Paul,must admit i only thought they run tankers from the pics i have seen !
windrush:
I know that the tippers were boarded out Dave but one of their ex tanker drivers told me that he had a five gallon drum tied to his catwalk? If they ran short of diesel it was down to the driver to buy some and they wouldn’t get it refunded so they always carried spare fuel with them. Having said that I did much the same when running tarmac from Ballidon to St Clears, I carried a five gallon can of diesel and a gallon of oil in the passenger footwell which I poured in while having my second 45 minute break near Stafford Park, Telford!One day while doing that a car pulled up and two guys got out, they asked what engine I had in the Foden and I told them it was a RR 265Li. Turns out they were from Rolls Engines at Shrewsbury and asked how many miles it had done and what repair work the engine had, it had done around 900,000 ks by that time (ten years) and never even had as much as an injector replaced so they had me tilt the cab and took photographs of it! I didn’t tell them it drank a gallon of oil daily, around two weeks later the engine expired!
Thats a classic Pete, gallon of oil a day and then the engine blew ! Brilliant
Chris Webb:
Maggie of LPG Transport.I can’t quite make out the hazchem code on the LPG tank but could be 2W 1999 which was Tar Products or something similar. I don’t recall LPG running Maggies out of BSC Chemicals Orgreave but that vehicle could well be working out of there.
lespullan:
Chris Webb:
Maggie of LPG Transport.I can’t quite make out the hazchem code on the LPG tank but could be 2W 1999 which was Tar Products or something similar. I don’t recall LPG running Maggies out of BSC Chemicals Orgreave but that vehicle could well be working out of there.
Looks like Batley on the cab, sure they ran some Maggies from there and it looks like a Huddersfield reg. Les
Cheers Les !
Chris Webb:
Retired Old ■■■■:
Hi, Dean,
The Octopus powder tanker could be ex-Rugby Cement. You are correct- Western Express Haulage were the transport arm of English China Clays.Wasn’t Western Express Haulage also known as Heavy Transport ROF?
I think you are right Chris as Heavy Transport had vehicles operating out of Cornwall and they were the
same colours as EEC,as were Western Excavating
Heres one !
Taylor’s transport Marathon.
Two Findus Volvo F7’s and a Thomas Allen Seddon Atkinson.
B.Thompson & Son’s Seddon Atkinson.
Geo Blackett Scania from Newcastle.
Cadwallader Scania
lespullan:
smallcoal:
Hi dean the transcon is driven by ■■■■ Hopkins he used to work for Cardiff and John raymonds always kept his wagons spotless and spent money doing them up two pics of his trucks that defiantly must be ex j&m he also had a bull nose scania with carline now sadly passed away rip ,cheers JohnWas it this one
0
2 bull nose scania Peter salmon had one and ■■■■ had the other he paid £300 out of his own pocket to have the bumper spots fitted as carline refused to pay
DEANB:
Dennis, you will know this fella must have been a neighbour !Click on pages twice to view.
2
1
0
Yes Dean I knew them well ! that article was just about the years they were busy on the A6 between Lancaster and Shap summit but it was just a short potted version. The chap in the shot was Raymond Bowman who was the Boss and he was succeeded by his Son Nigel. But the real driving force in the business throughout the '50’s was Raymond’s mother Maggie who unfortunately passed away in 1960. Apparently she had “balls” and could hold her own “big style” in the business world. On her passing Raymond took over and he reorganised the firm, selling off the 5 vehicle haulage side of the business together with the old name J.B.Hudson Ltd ( 4 Octopus 8 wheelers and one ERF 4 wheeler all on “A” Licence) and re naming the firm Hudson Engineers Ltd. as well as the garage repair and towing work they also went into Crane Hire in the early 60’s which became a successful part of their business. I could carry on but some of my first hand recollections I don’t really want to impart 
However I can say that I was good Pals with Ted “Sweetie” Lowe RIP who had been a driver on the Haulage fleet and then had transferred into the workshop side when the motors were sold, he drove their AEC Millicent Wrecker and was their main recovery driver until he retired, he loved “Millie” as he called it which was often parked outside The Station Inn near our depot !! Cheers Dennis.
Buzzer:
Silverdale:
Just as an aside to paper reels in the elements. I sailed for many years on cargo vessels carrying timber and paper products (such as seen in many pics here). It was always imperative that the paper was kept dry and that hatch covers kept water out. One ship in our fleet was carrying fluffing pulp in one hold. That is a very absorbent paper product. Water got in to the hold and the pulp swelled up and expanded so much it lifted the 50 tonne hatch cover up, breaking the securing cleats. Quite an interesting job to remove the pulp and quite an insurance claim!Just read the above and IIRC back in the 80’s there was an OCL container that had loaded out of Tampax in Havant parked in Lloraines lorrypark and it rained hard all night and there must have been a hole in the roof and the whole thing swelled up bowing out all round, bet they had to be careful when they opened the doors on that one. We used to load 40ft box vans out of there all the time going to Prato in Italy and the foreman used to get in the box prior to loading and some one else shut the door purely to check for light coming in any holes, Buzzer.
That’s the very same. Fluffing pulp was used for tampax and other absorbent products. Powerful stuff!
W Brennan tankers were based in Leeds.
WM Rainford was based in Liverpool and here’s an earlier lorry of theirs
Bewick:
pete 359:
hi all,
great shots again Dean.S.Protheroe were originally based in my home town,Porthcawl.During the early 1970’s they moved to port talbot docks.they finished trading in 1984.Just like my dear friend steelboyf10,i noticed the wrope on this load.Speaking technically like “Dai Bach” if those reels were to “leave” that trailer prematurely they would, 99 times out of a hundred, leave by the “side door” and that front top reel wouldn’t go forward from the “hole” it was sat in. Plus if I had caught any of our Lads ( I never did
Correct me if I am wrong but are you saying it is not the rope or the sheeting that makes the load safe but the size of the outgoing invoice !!! Harvey
smallcoal:
2 bull nose scania Peter salmon had one and ■■■■ had the other he paid £300 out of his own pocket to have the bumper spots fitted as carline refused to pay
Bugger that ,spending your own money on lights ! 
Bewick:
DEANB:
Dennis, you will know this fella must have been a neighbour !Yes Dean I knew them well ! that article was just about the years they were busy on the A6 between Lancaster and Shap summit but it was just a short potted version. The chap in the shot was Raymond Bowman who was the Boss and he was succeeded by his Son Nigel. But the real driving force in the business throughout the '50’s was Raymond’s mother Maggie who unfortunately passed away in 1960. Apparently she had “balls” and could hold her own “big style” in the business world. On her passing Raymond took over and he reorganised the firm, selling off the 5 vehicle haulage side of the business together with the old name J.B.Hudson Ltd ( 4 Octopus 8 wheelers and one ERF 4 wheeler all on “A” Licence) and re naming the firm Hudson Engineers Ltd. as well as the garage repair and towing work they also went into Crane Hire in the early 60’s which became a successful part of their business. I could carry on but some of my first hand recollections I don’t really want to impart
Thanks Dennis for some back ground info on them ! Are they still going,or have they packed up now ■■
Silverdale:
Buzzer:
Just read the above and IIRC back in the 80’s there was an OCL container that had loaded out of Tampax in Havant parked in Lloraines lorrypark and it rained hard all night and there must have been a hole in the roof and the whole thing swelled up bowing out all round, bet they had to be careful when they opened the doors on that one. We used to load 40ft box vans out of there all the time going to Prato in Italy and the foreman used to get in the box prior to loading and some one else shut the door purely to check for light coming in any holes, Buzzer.That’s the very same. Fluffing pulp was used for tampax and other absorbent products. Powerful stuff!
Seriously powerful stuff like you say “Silverdale”
Stanfield:
W Brennan tankers were based in Leeds.
WM Rainford was based in Liverpool and here’s an earlier lorry of theirs
Thanks John for that,nice pics !
HRS:
Bewick:
pete 359:
hi all,
great shots again Dean.S.Protheroe were originally based in my home town,Porthcawl.During the early 1970’s they moved to port talbot docks.they finished trading in 1984.Just like my dear friend steelboyf10,i noticed the wrope on this load.Speaking technically like “Dai Bach” if those reels were to “leave” that trailer prematurely they would, 99 times out of a hundred, leave by the “side door” and that front top reel wouldn’t go forward from the “hole” it was sat in. Plus if I had caught any of our Lads ( I never did
Correct me if I am wrong but are you saying it is not the rope or the sheeting that makes the load safe but the size of the outgoing invoice !!! Harvey
One for Pete Smith.
F88 of Appleby’s
Watch out the Welsh are about !
Rhys Davies & Sons F88.
T.D.Williams ERF, unusual colour ■■
R.Nessbert & Sons Transcontinental from Cardiff.
Trevor Davies Seddon Atkinson.
Entress Volvo F7
Elsby Foden.
Think its William Murrie FIAT.
Amoco AEC tanker.
J & H Coppenhall Foden.
Compass ERF
They closed down a long time ago Dean, in the early 90’s, here is a few shots of their cranes working for us over the years the second shot( circa '73) is of one of their strut cranes setting up to lift a CAT Gen set off our trailer at K Shoes in Kendal the last shot is lifting new TASK trailers down in the depot… Cheers Dennis.
T D Williams when they set up original colour was red Trevor Davies came from LLanwrda between LLandeilo and LLandovery Carmarthenshire carried animal feed concrete products and timber ran a few Seddon Atkinsons later moved over to Scanias also ran an early and late Spanish Dodge as well as a coupl of Fodens and a couple of Dafs
Love the photo of the Nessbert Transcontinental. Another set of cracking photos!
Hi Dean,
excellent welsh images youve kindly shared there.i wasn’t aware that Nessbert’s had a Transcon? The Entress F7’s would imo be the last VOLVO’s that they bought brand new.Maybe trucknet member Rward,can enlighten us on the Rhys Davies driver?
regards Andrew.
Hiya Great shots from Paul again…Andrew posted a comment with the shot of Entress’s F7…I wonder if there were two of them,heres a pic of YCY 712T and my poor old eyes thinks that the shot from Paul may be YCY 713T,perhaps Dean can see better than me,Cheers Bubbs,
I think the nessbert of Cardiff Transcon my brother bought it of them as an od and I took it to France it used some bloody oil regards rowley