Interesting read, thank you for sharing.
But, I can’t see any pics 
. I use MIE (version unknown) with Win98, any tips?
TravelAgent:
Interesting read, thank you for sharing.But, I can’t see any pics
Sorry, I’m not too clued up with computers. Try lowering your security settings in IE. All the pics are normal jpegs so you shouldn’t be experiencing any problems.
Can any tech wizz’s help this chap ?
Travelagent,
Go to your start menu then click windows update and then download the latest version of Microsoft Explorer from there, the trouble with Windows 98 is was their first attempt at multi media but if you update it with thier patches you will be ok
If you want to know how to find out your explorer version i’ll tell you but be prepared…
richiessex:
If you want to know how to find out your explorer version i’ll tell you but be prepared…
Yeah, you click on the HELP menu and then ABOUT INTERNET EXPLORER and it tells you.
TravelAgent:
Interesting read, thank you for sharing.But, I can’t see any pics
Windows 98 and Microsoft Internet Explorer was originally version 4. If your system cannot handle v6 and above then get at least 5.5 
Make sure in the settings you have the option to load images switched on.
Another option is to right click where the image should be and select “show image”.
Back on topic,
Nice read Rob, I now remember what I am not missing! 
TC:
Back on topic,Nice read Rob, I now remember what I am not missing!
Rob K:
jessicas dad:
good read rob i didnt regonise m62 at top of windy without the traffic
I think your eyes are deceiving you Jess D, because there are no pics of the top of Windy Hill in my original post
im must be wrong i thought windy hill was the run from brighouse to ainley top on m62 and theres a pic of halifax and brighouse with you coming down.
thats what i meant… still didnt regonise it without the traffic.
jessicas dad:
Rob K:
jessicas dad:
good read rob i didnt regonise m62 at top of windy without the trafficI think your eyes are deceiving you Jess D, because there are no pics of the top of Windy Hill in my original post
im must be wrong i thought windy hill was the run from brighouse to ainley top on m62 and theres a pic of halifax and brighouse with you coming down.
thats what i meant… still didnt regonise it without the traffic.
As far as I know, ‘top of Windy Hill’ is where the Yorks/Lancs border is. Brighouse to Ainley is known as Ainley Brow or Ainley Bank as far as I know. Perhaps some of the old-timers could comment here ?
good read
Rob K:
As far as I know, ‘top of Windy Hill’ is where the Yorks/Lancs border is. Brighouse to Ainley is known as Ainley Brow or Ainley Bank as far as I know. Perhaps some of the old-timers could comment here ?
Not an old timer but I always believed Windy Hill to be the climb from the Lancashire side up to the highest point of the motorway, which is Saddleworth Moor.
Nice to see you back Rob and a great picture story.
Yesterday I wouldn’t even have attempted it but now, miracle, out here in the sticks - broadband! What a difference it makes. Like a whole new world. Just inside the 5kms range from the local village though.
Keep 'em coming mate.
Salut, David.
very good diary!!! good plenty of colourful pictures!!! 
Cheers Ben (Betz fan)
Betz:
very good diary!!! good plenty of colourful pictures!!!Cheers Ben (Betz fan)
I’ll try to get Willi Betz pics for you but it’s difficult when I’m on the move. Once I’ve seen a Willi Betz wagon come into sight heading the other way, I can’t turn my camera on quick enough and set it up properly and get the picture taken before they’ve gone past.
If I see any stood still I’ll get some pics for you. Is there anything/part of the wagon/trailers you want me to photograph specifically
Like I say, I’m not promising anything especially as some weeks I just can’t be ar$ed at all.
Well there’s another week over with and what a week it’s been. 
I was ready to throw the towel in on Tuesday night as you’ll see below, but things have improved since and all is going well again … for now.
Monday 11 April saw me in at 0700 as I was meant to be doing a couple of locals then over to Knottingley to do an Allied Glass for Shepton Mallet for 1700 but that had all been re-arranged and I was now doing a Mama’s and Papa’s load for Harrod’s In Isleworth, London for 1100 (and it was 0700 already 
).
The week nearly got off to a catastrophic start after I’d hooked up to my trailer and tried to set off. The air was still down so I wasn’t going anywhere just yet, so I took the opportunity to get a pic before I set off. That idea came to an abrupt halt when the wagon started rolling backwards on its own . I had left the driver’s side door open too and there was another trailer parked close to that side. You’ve never seen me move so fast . Fortunately the CF cabs are fairly low down and I only needed to get on the bottom step to be able to reach the hand brake lever. I just managed to slam it on in time before the trailer at the side of me would have taken the door clean off its hinges . Lesson learned.
Jammymutt recommended I went down the A1 instead of the M1 so I did do and apart from a 20 minute hold-up in the roadworks round Newark (I think?) it was clear and reasonably quiet all the way down into London.
Just to prove that Martin Oliver’s are back in business, here are a couple of pics whilst I was sat in the aforementioned roadworks :
A bit further on in the roadworks I thought the comment on the back of this XF summed up the trucks on our roads perfectly (just posting it to wind up Karl actually 
) :
A nice and quiet A1 at 0800 on a Monday morning - can you imagine the M1 being this quiet :
Hatfield tunnel :
I made a right hash of getting across London to get to Harrod’s. I should have whipped round the North Circular to the A4 and gone in that way at it’s just off Syon Lane but instead I went along some other random roads - A41/A404/A4127 etc, down through Harrow and Sudbury, over the A40 and down to Southall where I attempted to do a left under the bridge then a right at the other side of it which would virtually put me on the top of Syon Lane. Sadly, in typical London style, no-one tells you about the weak bridge quarter of a mile down that road and grossing around 20 tonne myself I uttered a number of words which aren’t repeatable on here, pulled up and pulled out t’big map for find an alternative route that wouldn’t take me miles out of my way.
In the end I went along the A3005 through Southall and Heston and popped out on the A4 there and went in that way.
I soon had my load off at Harrod’s, fortunate in that it was one of the rare Mama’s and Papa’s loads that are on pallets. I’d seen one of our subbies - Chris Pickles - in his MAN XXL 480 on the way and we’d agreed to park up outside after tipping for a natter. I’d pulled up behind him, locked my door but left the window open about 8 inches as it was warm and went over the chat to him. About 15 minutes later I saw a black guy walk in between the back of Chris’s trailer and the front of mine, looking very dodgy. I thought it was strange because he wouldn’t have any reason to walk through there. I went back to my wagon and noticed that the driver’s door was now unlocked and I feared the worst in that half of my stuff would be gone. A quick look around revealed that everything still seemed to be in place, including my digital camera (£200+) which was proudly on display in the centre tray and would have been the first thing he would have seen, so thanking my lucky stars I wound the window up, locked the door once again and continued my conversation with Chris.
It was only about an hour later when I went to use my phone that I realised it was missing from its usual spot. Weird. Knowing that it was fully charged and switched on, I got chaos-control to phone it for me, hoping it would either ring in the cab somewhere or ring elsewhere where someone would hopefully answer it. Strangely, it said that it was switched off/unavailable which kinda confirmed my suspicions that it had been nicked and the SIM removed. I still find it strange that the guy nicked my phone - a well ancient and battered Nokia 3310 which is now worth approximately £2.50 - and left the camera alone, but I guess I can see that the SIM card - on contract - is potentially worth much more than the camera could ever be.
At this point I was nearing the bottom of the M1 on the North Circular, heading for a bonded warehouse in Daventry to load, but my current concern was to bell Orange up and get my phone and SIM blocked before this lad uses my SIM to phone his mates in the Caribbean/wherever for example.
I pulled up at London Gateway MSA and found a phone box to bell my brother up who’s also on Orange so that he could contact them on my behalf and get them blocked for me, but this was when it all started to go horribly wrong. I was under the impression that all phone boxes were BT’s, but apparently not. So when I dialled 100 for operator services to make a reverse charges call they calmly informed me that it wasn’t a BT phone box and they don’t permit reverse charge calls. Great 
. Not having enough cash on me and being one of the ones that doesn’t accept credit cards I was stuck.
Nothing else to do then apart from get back on the M1, come off at the next junction and head for the nearest parade of shops where there’s usually a phone box kicking about. Job done and it was a BT one too. Dials 100 and asks for a reverse charges call only to be greeted with ‘reverse charge calls are not permitted to mobile numbers’. You what ? 
Do you ever get those moments when you just want to smash up everything in sight ? Well I was close to that point . Luckily this one accepted cards so I got through to my brother that way and asked him to phone me back on that number as they charge your card at a crazy rate per second. Two minutes later and the phone still isn’t ringing, but then I noticed in the smallest print ever ‘this phone does NOT accept incoming calls’. At that point my steel toe-capped boot went straight through metal box underneath the phone . Card back in again and more stupid charges - to the tune of £5.95 for a 4 minute call
Continued on my way up to Daventry and saw this :
What’s wrong here then ?
I asked them kindly at Daventry if I could use their phone to bell Orange up in order to get a new SIM sent out and I’d purchase another 3310 or whatever off Ebay, but of course life isn’t a simple as that. They won’t send you out a replacement SIM unless they have a crime reference number from the plod. Oh FFS . So I phoned the plod up and asked them for one. ‘Nope, you need to physically go in person to the local plod station in the area your phone was stolen because this is not our area’. 
As I was now nowhere near Isleworth in London this was physically impossible. Okay, thinking head on, how do I get around this one? A-ha! 
Phone local plod up to where I live (W Yorks plod), create random - but real - street name in dodgy area in Leeds and tell them phone’s been nicked. Result! Crime reference number generated and back to Orange with it. Because I was so near to the end of my 12 month contract with them anyway, they’ve issued me a free upgrade and replacement SIM with a Nokia 6230 and ‘you should receive it within 3 working days’. Mission accomplished.
Night out in Daventry.
Tuesday 12 April saw an 0430 start and me running up the M6 to Middlewich where I had a Tesco 0700 booking. Arrived there bang on time and saw what could have been young Ross’s dad pull up alongside ? :
From there I ran up to Alpha Flight Catering at Manchester airport but the address was very indescript and wasn’t listed in my OS book. I got chaos-control to look up the postcode on Auto-route and headed the street it gave me but that promptly put me in to the middle of a housing estate, much to the disgust and curtain-twitching of the residents there. I headed back to the airport and found the place eventually, right at the side of the apron where I got this nice shot :
Of course, this wasn’t the right depot either and I needed to be over at the Cargo Centre on the other side of the airport. I eventually found the place and got tipped then it was literally to the place next door which was GCS Sky Chefs or something like that where I had a couple of pallets.
From there I went up to Wigan Beer Co. in, er, Wigan, to get shut of 2 pallets then back towards the M6 for the Asda RDC to tip the rest off. Sadly, Asda had other ideas and proclaimed that it wasn’t booked in until tomorrow and weren’t going to tip me. Well cheers guys.
A call to chaos-control alerted them to this fact and they said bring it into the Birch depot (Archbold’s) and they’d take it off and store it until tomorrow. At the same time I reminded them of the conversation I’d had with them once that day already and twice on Monday where I told them that I needed to be home for 1800 at the latest on Tuesday. It was around 1500 by this point and I was assured that it wouldn’t be a problem.
I was tipped and reloaded at the Birch depot with empty trays for Wabco in Morley, Leeds and Federal Mogul in Bradford, in that order. I only realised after I’d set off and looked at the paperwork. No problem thought I - I would do the Wabco drop and then take the rest back to the yard for someone else to deliver. Back across the M62 and a pic of the bridge that carries the B6114 from Greetland to Denshaw :
And going across the top of the Scammonden Dam :
Just as I had come off at J28 Tingley for the Wabco drop the bell rang from chaos-control.
‘Can you do your Bradford first as they’re screaming for the stuff’.
‘No, because I’m at Wabco now’.
‘Well leave that one and do the Bradford first please’.
’ The Bradford is on the front up against the head board so it can’t be got out. I’m at Wabco now so I’ll tip this off and then bring the Bradford back to the yard as it’s 1700 now and I need to be home’.
‘No, leave that one, do your Bradford and then come back to the yard’.
‘[SIGH]… If I do that one then they’ll have to be bloody quick and also move the Wabco stuff up to the head board for me because I’m not being 
about now’.
‘Yes, okay, we’ll sort that out with them’. Yeah right, my arse.
So off I goes over to Federal Modul and after turning in to the car park (well there’s no signs to say where HGV’s are meant to go and I’m not a bloody psychic ) I eventually found where I was meant to be tipping. The FLT driver comes out and starts whipping their stuff off but when I mentioned about the agreement to move the Wabco stuff up, oh no, can’t do that, he’s got to get home, see. Right okay then, no problem, and I started closing the curtain back up.
‘What are you doing?’, says the FLT driver.
‘Taking it all back to our yard’.
‘Why? We’re desperate for this stuff’.
‘I know, but the agreement was if you wanted your stuff first that you’d move the Wabco stuff up to the head board for me as there are no internal straps on this trailer’.
‘No-one said that to me’.
‘Well I’m telling you now. I’m not being about as I need to be finished for 6pm myself so the whole lot is going back if you won’t move the stuff up’.
‘Okay we’ll move the stuff up but it will be the night FLT driver as I go home myself in 5 mins’.
It was 1755 by this point. . So his whips all their stuff off and then disappears. A few minutes later the night FLT driver comes out and starts moving the 13 lifts up for me. I wondered why he was going so slow - I’ve only just passed my test and this is the first time I’ve used a FLT. Oh nice. Nearly an hour later and 3 lifts re-stacked after he dropped them on the floor and I was away. Flaming typical . To say I was spitting feathers was an understatement and of course then I sat for nearly the same length of time in all the traffic on the A650 trying to get through Tong and Gildersome. and that was the point when I nearly threw the towel in when I got back at 1950 when I’d clearly said I wanted to be finishing for 1800 at the latest. They certainly heard about it, that was for sure.
Wednesday 13 April saw an 0800 start running empty over to Selby Distribution and Freight (via Whitwood for my breakfast) for 22 pallets of rice for a cash and carry in Nottingham.
Had that tipped off after a longgggggggggggggg wait and then nearly had another dummy spitting do with them over 3 packets of rice and they were going to refuse the whole load because of this :
Luckily they saw sense and just sent that one pallet back but that meant that my reload out of Stone Market in Coventry was scuppered now as it was a 26 pallet load. Back over to Daventry then for another night out and load out of there in the morning.
Thursday 14 March saw me leaving Daventry at 0700 for Co-op at Bulwell, Nottingham for 0820 where I just made it on time.
Five pallets off there, then over to Newark for John Smith’s on Jessop Way to get 8 pallets off.
I took the ‘ring road’ if you can call it that, round the top of Nottingham through Arnold and Carlton and got on the A612 to Southwell. Quite a nice road but it was soon to be ruined when I got to Southwell which is quite tight in places to get round with an artic. I had to wait for some traffic to come through as there were parked cars on my side and an old couple in a Skoda Favorit came dawdling along at a snail’s pace towards me. I was just about to set off round the parked cars when I saw them both pointing their fingers at me and shaking their heads. The old giffer who was driving wound his window down and told me in a true jittery old giffer’s voice :
‘You shouldn’t be down here in that’.
‘And why is that then?’
‘Well, just look at the size of it !’
‘And the problem is what, exactly?’.
‘You’re a damned well menace, that’s what you are ! Look at all the traffic you’re holding up’.
‘Well if you get out of my way and get yourselves to the local incontinence clinic or wherever you’re going then I won’t be holding anyone up will I !’
‘How dare you speak to me like that! I’m going to report you to my MP and also to the Corporation. Damned NUISANCE you are!’
Once I got on to the A617 it wasn’t long before we all came to halt and set on a wild goose chase round the countryside because the bridge over the River Trent was closed eastbound. We all got sent up through Kelham, Little Carlton and South Muskham before coming back down into Newark.
Once tipped at Smith’s I noticed that my front o/s trailer wheel wasn’t going round but dragging along the floor. A few stabs of the brakes and tried of the handbrake didn’t resolve it so a mechanic was called out to fix it. Whilst waiting I saw a quality piece of parking by an artic driver :
One thing I’ve never understood about these pub delivery wagons :
is that beer and drinks are not lightweight, so why do they use Volvo FL6 units which can’t have more than 300hp surely (?) and single axle trailers. Surely they’d be overweight
The mechanic turned up about 90 minutes after calling him out and couldn’t find anything wrong with the wheel/brakes or anything else. It was all working fine as far as he could see. Needless to say when I set off down the road it was indeed now working fine.
Over to the Co-op at Lincoln for my last drop and whilst waiting this was worthy of a pic or two :
This entire operation to get 1 pallet out of the back of a van took nearly 25 minutes and was hilarious to watch. Why they didn’t just use a piece of strap or rope I’ll never know.
From Lincoln I ran back to the yard empty via the B1190 where I nearly ‘fell off’ the edge of the road taking this pic :
and another a bit further on where there was this sign which was in fact lying as there weren’t any at all :
I’d forgotten about the toll bridge half way along the A57 and luckily just had enough in change (90p) to pay for it. The guy who had been following me pulled up alongside me and told me every time I braked that my trailer wheels were all locking up. Ah, I’d had this problem earlier at Newark, so it looks like I wasn’t imagining things after all. Trailer duly defected when I got back to the yard.
A57 just before the big drop down to Markham Moor :
On to the M62 at Ferrybridge and this 7.5 tonner was obviously on a suicide mission. The pic doesn’t do it justice but suffice to say he got extremely close to the back of the liquid hydrogen tanker; fool :
Once back at the yard I was given a Mama’s and Papa’s collection to tip out John Lewis’s at Northampton for 0700 Friday morning. I decided to run down the A653 into Dewsbury from Morley and then out through Mirfield and Cooper Bridge that way.
The sky was looking a bit angry :
(Sorry Jon, couldn’t stop for coffee mate 
)
And then it came with avengence (sat in a major hold-up just near John Cotton’s in Mirfield, but couldn’t understand why we were sat there for so long) :
Then it all became clear (under the Cooper Bridge railway bridge) :
Needless to say, several cars got an unexpected and extremely thorough wash when I went through .
Got to M & P, told them it was Archbold’s and asked for the John Lewis Northampton 0615 load for tomorrow. The young lad (or was it a lass? ) gave me my paperwork and off I went. I saw that the trailer was a plain red one which is a first for me as ours are nearly always blue but thought nothing more of it, thinking that it must be one which had been leased in.
Going down the M1 heading for a night out at Long Eaton I saw this Culina wagon - nothing strange with it you might think :
But then :
Friday 15 April saw another early start at 0500 and me running down to Northampton where I arrived at Lewis’s at Brackmills a bit late. Went to book in and he said that the stuff I had on didn’t match up to the product codes they were expecting. . Apparently it was booked in at Grange Park, not Brackmills - and in fairness it did say Grange Park on the delivery notes - but as Brackmills was the only one I knew and my Northants OS map appears to have gone AWOL then that was the one I went to
The guy phoned up Grange Park and they said it was for them but it wasn’t booked in while Monday at 1200 and they wouldn’t accept it. I went over there anyway as requested by my gaffer and got exactly the same reply there. What had happened was that there were 2 loads for John Lewis’s at Northampton, one booked for 0615 Friday to be taken my us in our own trailer and the other one for 1200 Monday to be taken by another haulier. Having trusted the muppet at M & P to give me the correct load and noted I never bothered checking and you’ve guessed it, I had the wrong load and trailer.
Back up to Huddersfield with it and drop it off.
Saw this on the M1 - think there are either a number of load issues here, or maintenance issues perhaps :
Likewise, coming up past Tibshelf we all thought that the contents of this artic tipper were on fire :
Turned out to be exhaust smoke and looking very oiley at that too :
One of Fred Sherwood’s MAN TGA’s and fairly new too .
Back at Mama’s and Papa’s :
This was where I nearly made a fatal error as I got distracted. Took the susies off and noticed that a lot of the curtain buckles had worked loose so I went about tightening them all up, left the reg plate for now and did the other side. Came back to pick up the reg plate, pulled the pin, got in the wagon, dropped the air and started to pull out. I always drive out slowly and usually by the time the trailer has slid off the fifth wheel you get a visible gap between the unit and the trailer but it hadn’t happened. In fact the more I drove out the more the trailer was dropping and it was just about at the end of the ramps on the unit . ! The legs! Handbrake on, reverse gear selected, lot of biting point applied and handbrake off and I managed to rescue it just in time before the trailer flipped the unit out like a tiddly-wink . Phew . Lesson 2 learned. How long have I been driving wagons…
After doing a bit of shunting here I left to call for some food at Brooklyn’s Bar on Ravensthorpe Ind Est for the best food in the country. Well recommended, believe me. Double cheese burger with onions with the best tasting and meatiest burgers you’ll come across for £2.30. After a bit of a natter with Lynne and Steve there where I learnt that my ex gaffer, Malcolm of Malcolm Featherstone Temp Controlled Transport, Thirsk had had a bad heart attack , I called home to see if my replacement mobile phone had turned up yet. Alas, no, but there were two cards from Parceline stating they’d tried to deliver. Under the impression that they’d have a local depot somewhere not too far away I attempted to bell them up to arrange to collect it. Sadly there isn’t an option to do that on their national rate number and merely only options to organise another date for re-delivery which I don’t want as I’m rarely at home. Useless people . Luckily I was able to rattle up Google.com and find where my nearest depot was which included a phone number and off I went to get it. Now check this out for dumbness :
Parceline knew that the contents were a replacement mobile phone because it says as such on their paperwork.
The lass says to me :
‘We did try to contact you on your mobile number but it said it was unavailable’.
Derrrr, what do think is in the bag, dim-wit
Luckily for her I was having a reasonably good day so she didn’t get the rough side of my tongue this time… (Others aren’t so lucky ).
Back to the yard then, drop off my trailer and defect it as it’s got a bad water leak then pick up a loaded one for Grimer’s yard over at Whitwood.
I thought all my birthday’s and Christmas’s had come at once when I opened the back doors to check the load security :
Something wrong though here, only 1500kgs total weight for the load
It was then I learned that they were in fact all empty …
Now I know Jim is quite a popular geezer on here and is well known by many, but DHL’s attempt’s to try to retain the few good driver’s they have got by giving them trailers with their own name on is just taking the a bit I think :
Soon had my empty cans tipped at Grimer’s/Rexam then it was back to the yard to finish and park up.
My beast :
The WTD paperwork :
Time in minutes to be entered for :
-
Vehicle checks
-
Supervised loading/unloading
-
Completing company paperwork (no time left to do any driving, see)
-
Opening/closing curtains (what’s it got to do with them what time I go to bed at night and get up of a morning
) -
Trailer swapping
-
Completing tachographs
-
Fuelling vehicle
Needless to say, the sheet was handed in exactly as it is shown there but with the addition of my name and date on the top of it. I do not believe it is my responisibility as a driver to do the job of an admin person / tachograph analysis company. Nothing’s been said so far but it’s only a matter of time I bet.
Next Monday see’s me starting at 0600 to load at Allied Glass / CT Transport at Knottingley for Shepton Mallet.
Good read again Rob, not sure about the writing on the back of the Daf though…
Nice one, Rob! Again, a great read and some good pics (I guess you must get your ‘passenger’ to take them, cos I can’t think of another safe way to do this when driving )
Southwell is a bit of a tight one. I went through on the 1st day of my class 1 course and met an artic on the 90 degree bend! I did sweat a bit. I must have been doing something right, cos my instructor said he’d never been through Southwell with a pupil before.
Good read Rob, Keep em coming.
Know what you mean about the cans rob i was in eddie stobbies yard in warrington a few months ago and it was stacked floor to ceiling with fosters cans my eyes must of been hanging out there sockets as the forkie said “forget it mate there all empty” to say i was gutted was an understatement
simon
Good read with some good photos Rob, keep them coming