hiya,
When working as a driver most of my working life was spent roping and sheeting, that should really read sheeting and roping the work being done in that order, i always liked to stand back and admire my “work of art” which i considered it to be, there was satisfaction in the job and believe me i could sheet the oddest shaped load and drive at a cannier rate of knots than today’s stuff can only dream about and there would’nt be the hint of sheet flap, i’ve even re-done somebody else’s work when picking up a pre- loaded trailer because it was in my opinion a mess, have seen some horrors in my time and have on many occasions tried to help a newbie or two and literally “show him the ropes”.
thanks harry long retired.
Bewick:
I gave the “snide” coments of the “wind up merchant” a bit of thought last night,and I reckon us “duffers” are just resigning ourselves to having to accept that we would be unable to operate in to-days modern industry! However I am convinced we are selling ourselves way short of what would be actual reality! I believe I could come up with two scenarios that would be as close to the actual outcome if it were possible to implement.Lets take a round trip from say Glasgow to London A) carried out with to-days state of the art equipment and a current type of load,and driven by one of us “Duffers”.B) turn the clock back 50 odd years and using a state of the art motor of the times together with the type of traffic carried at the time,but driven by one of todays “steering wheel” jockeys! If my idea is not shot down in flames in the next few hours I will be back on the thread later on to-day when I will try to be as descriptive as possible of the two scenarios I have described!!! Cheers Dennis.
Taking the first scenario,I am certain that with one hours “induction” on the latest spec tractor any one of the so called “old duffers” on the thread would be “up to speed” and quite capable of piloting a 44ton outfit to London and return to Glasgow( if the modern day “jockey” receives the same kind of “training” it would be a doddle for an “old un” to grasp easily!)Right oh! the load (6am),and in keeping with the latest methods,“reverse your trailer onto that hole in the wall Drive” no need to open the curtains! but it is quite easy to open a curtain if needs be!! In goes 26 shrunk wrapped pallets,full width of the trailer so no need for additional strapping.Close rear doors,get the notes,and off we jolly well go(say 7am).Out of Glasgow and south on the M74,Ooo,goody gum-drops Motorway all the way to London @ 56 mph up hill and down dale( legal breaks taken of course!) 400 miles listening to Radio 2,what could be easier,lifes a ■■■■■!!! The motor would probably be pulling into the depot in the London area at,say 5 or 6pm,drop trailer and couple up to another loaded one for return trip next day.Park up in truck stop,nice shower,good meal but oh!dear not many other lads to chat to as they’er all sat in their sleeper cabs alone,watching tele or texting or maybe reading/looking at pictures layed on their bunks!!! Alot different to 50 years ago when drivers had a good craic and even went for a pint,but I suppose its a sign of the times but by no means an improvement! Next day off back to Glasgow up that 400 miles of boring Motorway! Simples! 2 days,absolute doddle!! Dennis.
Bewick:
Bewick:
I gave the “snide” coments of the “wind up merchant” a bit of thought last night,and I reckon us “duffers” are just resigning ourselves to having to accept that we would be unable to operate in to-days modern industry! However I am convinced we are selling ourselves way short of what would be actual reality! I believe I could come up with two scenarios that would be as close to the actual outcome if it were possible to implement.Lets take a round trip from say Glasgow to London A) carried out with to-days state of the art equipment and a current type of load,and driven by one of us “Duffers”.B) turn the clock back 50 odd years and using a state of the art motor of the times together with the type of traffic carried at the time,but driven by one of todays “steering wheel” jockeys! If my idea is not shot down in flames in the next few hours I will be back on the thread later on to-day when I will try to be as descriptive as possible of the two scenarios I have described!!! Cheers Dennis.Taking the first scenario,I am certain that with one hours “induction” on the latest spec tractor any one of the so called “old duffers” on the thread would be “up to speed” and quite capable of piloting a 44ton outfit to London and return to Glasgow( if the modern day “jockey” receives the same kind of “training” it would be a doddle for an “old un” to grasp easily!)Right oh! the load (6am),and in keeping with the latest methods,“reverse your trailer onto that hole in the wall Drive” no need to open the curtains! but it is quite easy to open a curtain if needs be!! In goes 26 shrunk wrapped pallets,full width of the trailer so no need for additional strapping.Close rear doors,get the notes,and off we jolly well go(say 7am).Out of Glasgow and south on the M74,Ooo,goody gum-drops Motorway all the way to London @ 56 mph up hill and down dale( legal breaks taken of course!) 400 miles listening to Radio 2,what could be easier,lifes a ■■■■■!!! The motor would probably be pulling into the depot in the London area at,say 5 or 6pm,drop trailer and couple up to another loaded one for return trip next day.Park up in truck stop,nice shower,good meal but oh!dear not many other lads to chat to as they’er all sat in their sleeper cabs alone,watching tele or texting or maybe reading/looking at pictures layed on their bunks!!! Alot different to 50 years ago when drivers had a good craic and even went for a pint,but I suppose its a sign of the times but by no means an improvement! Next day off back to Glasgow up that 400 miles of boring Motorway! Simples! 2 days,absolute doddle!! Dennis.
Well put Dennis!!
Us old duffers?,should stick together,
Take it easy,
Rgds,
David 
5thwheel:
Bewick:
Bewick:
I gave the “snide” coments of the “wind up merchant” a bit of thought last night,and I reckon us “duffers” are just resigning ourselves to having to accept that we would be unable to operate in to-days modern industry! However I am convinced we are selling ourselves way short of what would be actual reality! I believe I could come up with two scenarios that would be as close to the actual outcome if it were possible to implement.Lets take a round trip from say Glasgow to London A) carried out with to-days state of the art equipment and a current type of load,and driven by one of us “Duffers”.B) turn the clock back 50 odd years and using a state of the art motor of the times together with the type of traffic carried at the time,but driven by one of todays “steering wheel” jockeys! If my idea is not shot down in flames in the next few hours I will be back on the thread later on to-day when I will try to be as descriptive as possible of the two scenarios I have described!!! Cheers Dennis.Taking the first scenario,I am certain that with one hours “induction” on the latest spec tractor any one of the so called “old duffers” on the thread would be “up to speed” and quite capable of piloting a 44ton outfit to London and return to Glasgow( if the modern day “jockey” receives the same kind of “training” it would be a doddle for an “old un” to grasp easily!)Right oh! the load (6am),and in keeping with the latest methods,“reverse your trailer onto that hole in the wall Drive” no need to open the curtains! but it is quite easy to open a curtain if needs be!! In goes 26 shrunk wrapped pallets,full width of the trailer so no need for additional strapping.Close rear doors,get the notes,and off we jolly well go(say 7am).Out of Glasgow and south on the M74,Ooo,goody gum-drops Motorway all the way to London @ 56 mph up hill and down dale( legal breaks taken of course!) 400 miles listening to Radio 2,what could be easier,lifes a ■■■■■!!! The motor would probably be pulling into the depot in the London area at,say 5 or 6pm,drop trailer and couple up to another loaded one for return trip next day.Park up in truck stop,nice shower,good meal but oh!dear not many other lads to chat to as they’er all sat in their sleeper cabs alone,watching tele or texting or maybe reading/looking at pictures layed on their bunks!!! Alot different to 50 years ago when drivers had a good craic and even went for a pint,but I suppose its a sign of the times but by no means an improvement! Next day off back to Glasgow up that 400 miles of boring Motorway! Simples! 2 days,absolute doddle!! Dennis.
Well put Dennis!!
Us old duffers?,should stick together,
Take it easy,
Rgds,
David
There’s a lot to be learned from some of the old duffers on here .
Cheers Dave.
Hiya David/ Dave,just a bit a busy at the moment but when I post the 2nd instalment of circa 50 odd years ago with “a 21st century jockey” behind the wheel of — a state of the art motor of the times 59/60? say a Guy Warrior/4 in-line or a Super Comet doing the same round trip as previously described I may draw a torrent of abuse from the younger end!!! Glad you liked my thread I don’t think I’m a mile away from a true description of to-days “Logistics Industry” Piece of cake!! Cheers Dennis.
Dave the Renegade:
5thwheel:
Bewick:
Bewick:
I gave the “snide” coments of the “wind up merchant” a bit of thought last night,and I reckon us “duffers” are just resigning ourselves to having to accept that we would be unable to operate in to-days modern industry! However I am convinced we are selling ourselves way short of what would be actual reality! I believe I could come up with two scenarios that would be as close to the actual outcome if it were possible to implement.Lets take a round trip from say Glasgow to London A) carried out with to-days state of the art equipment and a current type of load,and driven by one of us “Duffers”.B) turn the clock back 50 odd years and using a state of the art motor of the times together with the type of traffic carried at the time,but driven by one of todays “steering wheel” jockeys! If my idea is not shot down in flames in the next few hours I will be back on the thread later on to-day when I will try to be as descriptive as possible of the two scenarios I have described!!! Cheers Dennis.Taking the first scenario,I am certain that with one hours “induction” on the latest spec tractor any one of the so called “old duffers” on the thread would be “up to speed” and quite capable of piloting a 44ton outfit to London and return to Glasgow( if the modern day “jockey” receives the same kind of “training” it would be a doddle for an “old un” to grasp easily!)Right oh! the load (6am),and in keeping with the latest methods,“reverse your trailer onto that hole in the wall Drive” no need to open the curtains! but it is quite easy to open a curtain if needs be!! In goes 26 shrunk wrapped pallets,full width of the trailer so no need for additional strapping.Close rear doors,get the notes,and off we jolly well go(say 7am).Out of Glasgow and south on the M74,Ooo,goody gum-drops Motorway all the way to London @ 56 mph up hill and down dale( legal breaks taken of course!) 400 miles listening to Radio 2,what could be easier,lifes a ■■■■■!!! The motor would probably be pulling into the depot in the London area at,say 5 or 6pm,drop trailer and couple up to another loaded one for return trip next day.Park up in truck stop,nice shower,good meal but oh!dear not many other lads to chat to as they’er all sat in their sleeper cabs alone,watching tele or texting or maybe reading/looking at pictures layed on their bunks!!! Alot different to 50 years ago when drivers had a good craic and even went for a pint,but I suppose its a sign of the times but by no means an improvement! Next day off back to Glasgow up that 400 miles of boring Motorway! Simples! 2 days,absolute doddle!! Dennis.
Well put Dennis!!
Us old duffers?,should stick together,
Take it easy,
Rgds,
David
There’s a lot to be learned from some of the old duffers on here
Cheers Dave.
And the not so old ones. 
I’d prefer to mix and match the the 1970’s/80’s with today.So I’ll take my old DAF 2800,no limiter,log books no tacho,night trunking using box trailers,job and finish London-Leeds-London 5 nights a week.If you think that run would take me 10 hours you ain’t seen nonthin’ yet 
.Think I might even be able to get away with having just 15 minutes break legally,between the outward and return runs,under current regs. 
YEP! 900x20.
loader8:
Roping and Sheeting?
You old duffers are way behind the times.
What you do now is use a curtainsider and no matter what you are carrying,any shape, any size,all you need to do is put whatever it is on a pallet and even if it is hanging off the pallet just put some shrinkwrap round it,put it on the trailer,there is no need to strap it down,the shrinkwrap will prevent it moving,shut your curtains and off you go.
Its the wonder of shrinkwrap.
Windup merchant you may be but if you were serious dont venture anywere near germany with your slapstick ideas on loading tautliners unless you have plenty money to pay the fines.
regards dave.Another old duffer
have a nice day.
Tut tut.
Bewick:
Hiya David/ Dave,just a bit a busy at the moment but when I post the 2nd instalment of circa 50 odd years ago with “a 21st century jockey” behind the wheel of — a state of the art motor of the times 59/60? say a Guy Warrior/4 in-line or a Super Comet doing the same round trip as previously described I may draw a torrent of abuse from the younger end!!! Glad you liked my thread I don’t think I’m a mile away from a true description of to-days “Logistics Industry” Piece of cake!! Cheers Dennis.
Bearing in mind it’s mid January as well when these two round trips were done.So away we go! Super Comet and 4 in-line BTC 26ft trailer empty in Glasgow one frosty morning in late 1959,driver a 21st century “steerer”! straight out of an FH 6X2 tractor.First off what hasn’t the Comet got when compared to the FH 1) A sleeper cab 2)a decent heater 3)Power steering 4) good brakes 5)No sat nav!! 6)No cab phone 7) Not very comfortable 
chronically under-powered at 24 tons GVW. Our man has to get on the phone at 8am sharp looking for a load back to London,using a Red phone box 4d a call.He spends an hour ringing round some of the contacts from the “little red book” “H” gave him!!! He finally has got himself fixed up with two collections and two drops,one of them is for a ship that is “closing” day after to-morrow!!(This is what is called tramping son,not the "sanitized version of the word bandied about nowadays) Its now 9.30am and our man is waiting to HANDBALL 6ton of tinned food on from a warehouse for delivery to Sainsbury’s Stamford St.He gets started and a good hour sees it on the fron’t 11/12 ft of the platform.The next problem is sheeting and roping this cab high part of the load! What an effort! I think our man worked in a “rodeo” with a lasoo!!!The 1 hour induction that he received was a complete waste of time(he’d obviously been to the bog since then)anyway although he’s getting sicker by the minute he’s going to show us “duffers” how its done!! He finally locates his next collection by 1pm just as the "jimmy’s have returned from the bar! This pick-up is two heavy wooden export cases 5ton and 4 ton respectively.He has about 13ft of deck left and the only way he can get them both on is one on top of the other so he has 60% of his weight on half his trailer ugh! But then of course thsi weight distribution doesen’t bother our man as he hasn’t got a clue!!! Anyway at around 2.30 pm he’s fully freighted and ready for the off! He’ll have get his finger out now and try and get down to Carlisle or maybe Penrith as he’s got the closing dock day after to-morrow!!!Where does he “book” his bed this is the next problem and the weather is terrible over Beattock aparently this afternoon! Balls out we’ll go for Penrith!!! 5 hours later,puching down the old A74 and that fairly good bit of A6 between Carlisle and Penrith our man arrives in Penrith with eyes like “■■■■ holes” in the snow,knackered! Parks up and just makes it in for his eveninig meal!! “H” and his mate have been parked up since 5.30pm and are washed and changed ready for a pint!!! Our man is dead beat though,can’t understand where this previous generation get all their energy from!! No showers in those days,most digs had the washbasins in the backyard.Wash and shave and our man collapses into bed to sleep like a baby! But he’ll be in for a rude awakening when “H” and his hobo fall over him when they come staggering in at closing time 10.30pm----noisey barstewards.But to-morrow is another day and a Scotsman has told him you can’t see a hand in fron’t of you coming over Shap!! Here endeth the first episode of “To-days steerer gets a dose of reality from 50 odd years ago” If you find my interpretation interesting I think I can manage a few more(if our man dosen’t jack before he gets back to Glasgow) he’s a few day’s to go and I seriously doubt wether he can stay the course!! Cheers Dennis.
Come off it Dennis,next youll be telling us that the wagon and drag only did 40mph flat out and it took over 12 hours to get to London,and you couldnt stand the noise at top speed
ramone:
Come off it Dennis,next youll be telling us that the wagon and drag only did 40mph flat out and it took over 12 hours to get to London,and you couldnt stand the noise at top speed
Are we singing off the same “hymn” sheet “ramone” ? Cheers Dennis.
You make it sound so appealing Dennis, when can I start. Ps think I’ll go over the A69 and have a “dodgy” at home!! Log sheets? plenty more in the book. regards kevmac47 
Bewick:
Bewick:
Hiya David/ Dave,just a bit a busy at the moment but when I post the 2nd instalment of circa 50 odd years ago with “a 21st century jockey” behind the wheel of — a state of the art motor of the times 59/60? say a Guy Warrior/4 in-line or a Super Comet doing the same round trip as previously described I may draw a torrent of abuse from the younger end!!! Glad you liked my thread I don’t think I’m a mile away from a true description of to-days “Logistics Industry” Piece of cake!! Cheers Dennis.Bearing in mind it’s mid January as well when these two round trips were done.So away we go! Super Comet and 4 in-line BTC 26ft trailer empty in Glasgow one frosty morning in late 1959,driver a 21st century “steerer”! straight out of an FH 6X2 tractor.First off what hasn’t the Comet got when compared to the FH 1) A sleeper cab 2)a decent heater 3)Power steering 4) good brakes 5)No sat nav!! 6)No cab phone 7) Not very comfortable
Thank zb I was only around a year old in the winter of 1959 and now I know why my old dad decided not to bother with keeping his licence and went back into the factories when he was de mobbed after the war. .
Somehow Middle East work in the late 1970’s still seems to me to be the pinnacle of the British Road Transport industry though from a real driver’s point of view. 
Good days the 1970’s that’ll never come back just a shame that I was’nt lucky enough or old enough at the time. 
Bewick:
ramone:
Come off it Dennis,next youll be telling us that the wagon and drag only did 40mph flat out and it took over 12 hours to get to London,and you couldnt stand the noise at top speedAre we singing off the same “hymn” sheet “ramone” ? Cheers Dennis.
Im much too young Dennis but ive heard the tales from my dad,
How would these modern Bulljockey’s manage when the speed limit for lorries was still 30mph in the early 60’s,and before that only 20mph.Don’t think they would be putting much bling in the motors then.A windscreen wiper on the passenger side was an extra.
Cheers Dave.
Makes enjoyable reading tonight, Dennis.vic.
Productivity wise in the 70s we could carry 21t on a 33ft flat legally, I could leave home (next to the golfcouse beside the A194m) on a sunday and be at Scratchwood services 5hs 30mins later before I needed to take a break. Atki borderer 220■■■■■■■■ I would bet anyone I could not do the same now, bearing in mind there were seven roundabouts before the A1m at the Redhouse Doncaster.
Ps non stop is always supposing I didnt get tempted by the hospitality at the Bedale Hunt (look out for Lex’s kamikazi chickens). Now where did i leave my walking stick. regards kevmac47
keep it comeing pal
i’m one of the guys that still rope n sheet on a daily basis and am not that old either :-p annnd i still have pride in the job unlike some of my counterparts but thats aother story