Dan Punchard:
All the square ones are from customers they are African Indian or Brazilian often from the rainforest very good hard wood burns longer and hotter than coal all saw on my Wisconsin v4 death trap then thrown in to tonne bags to be forwarded to my various log stores ,the axe cut logs are beech pine birch and sycamore from local woods just some of next winters stock pile .theres about 3.5 tonne .
Oh! so it’s you that’s causing Global warming Dan by pillaging the Brazillian rain forests You want “grassing up” to Greenpeace or the WWF (no not the World Wrestling Federation ) Cheers Bewick.
Before i went in the office and started pushing a compoooter about i still wonder how some of the new boys could cope with proper loading… I dont mean that in a nasty way but there are loads of blokes who come into my yard looking for work until they realise that we still do proper general and heavy haulage work which needs a good knowledge of how to keep it on the trailer. I spend a good amount of time teaching blokes to rope and sheet and am convinced that it should be something that every driver should know how to do. With out making me out to being supertrucker i was just wondering weather everyone else feels the days of stripping tilts and putting two canvas and the fly should be bought back… In all fairness it was only the brits who did it properly and all of the europeans wher [zb]!!!
In this policical correct world i know its all wrong now but mate i do miss the blokes who know what there doing!!!
A few pictures of before i came of the road.
I used to do it, I can still do it ,but to be honest ,in the wind, rain, and freezing cold I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. However, if you run flatbeds I agree with you that training should go along with maybe a higher rate of pay for their use?
What do you think?
Trubrit.
We should all be paid better money just for being able to do the job we do as i dont care what anyone say`s its a way of life not just a job.
I just worry that the art is going out of the job, i know blokes who could load anything and deliver it anywhere but have a job to read and write so come next year there gonna struggle with the CPC yet they are are best assetts…
I was a lot fitter when I had to strip a tilt in Scunthorpe Rodmill in the rain. I was certainly fitter when I had to chuck a couple of Tarpaulins 12’ up onto the top of a load of baled waste.
Health and Safety would have a duckfit now, and my rose tinted glasses steam up at the mention of a coil of rope. I have written before about the banter & camaraderie of a yard full of blokes who all would muck in to help you fold up a sheet or fasten a few hitches on the ties.
I dont think I want to go back to it, but do think that the basics at least should be shown before you are given any keys. We have blokes who dont understand how a curtainside buckle works, even more who cannot be bothered to tension a curtain properly.
Dont get me wrong here im not saying that everybody should get out monday morning and strip a tilt or sheet a flat, but im an old ■■■■ who given the chance would jump back in my old 88 do it all again!!! Sad i know…
I just think the job has changed so much and like everything in life it is not always a good thing… Not in a bad way just the knowledge that being lost…
we’re a dying breed mate. i sent 5 flats out to holland last week and i threw a sheet on every load. one of the drivers ditched the sheet before he left the yard and one of the older drivers told me that he ended up sheeting all 5 loads as the other four hadnt got a clue
yella:
we’re a dying breed mate. i sent 5 flats out to holland last week and i threw a sheet on every load. one of the drivers ditched the sheet before he left the yard and one of the older drivers told me that he ended up sheeting all 5 loads as the other four hadnt got a clue
Funnily enough I had to do the same thing in Mildenhall 15 years ago, none of the tilt jockeys could rope and sheet so I loaded seven flat trailers in two days (complex machinery) for Germany.
Doing flat work with ropes and sheets in the '70’s was hard graft,but I was as fit as a butchers dog.from what I gather,roping and sheeting is a “Specialised” job these days!
This was a load of reels of paper loaded for France, we used to send maybe 4-5 loads a day out and they were all on flats to various drops in France. We would usually reload with bags of plaster just north of Paris or out of Cotrama in Bolougne for LaFarge at Portbury. Some weeks we would do 3 round trips the next 2 trips. Sunday morning we would be down at the mill at 05.30 with a load of waste paper, unsheet that then tip and upto the top mill to load the finished reels, sheet that up with 2 full sheets then a fly sheet. Back to the yard drop that and pick up an empty flat back to the mill and load a second, back to the yard drop that and pick up another empty which would then be your trailer to go . Back to the mill load and leave for Dover, we would usually get into Dover on 14hrs duty, (that was if you were 1st in the mill) around 7pm. Ship over and park in Calias ( in the days when you could)
Monday we would tip, reload and be back in Dover that night and if we had the time we would run as far as possible towards Portbury. Tuesday tip Portbury reload waste paper around the Bristol area back to the yard pick up one off the trailers loaded on Sunday and turn back around heading for Dover. Wednesday we would ship over tip and reload Bolougne into Calais and do a change over. Thursday tip , reload Paris ship back over and run time out. Friday tip Portbury reload waste in the Bristol area and back to the yard.
We didnt get that every week but we could do that run for 3-4 weeks on the trot, then you would have it easy for a few weeks pulling a tilt or taut to Greece, Spain or the old eastern bloc.
Heres one loaded with waste paper no fly sheets needed so that would save 20-30 minutes.
One thing that roping and sheeting did give you was pride in a well sheeted load, knowing that you could do it and do it well.
Some of the drivers I work with now wouldn’t know were to start and thats not just the younger ones. A few years ago we had a company that would sub some of our work using our tautliners, but they did quite a bit of flat work. They would drop there empty flats at our yard and one day there were about 8-9 off them in there. One of the older hands asked me what the flat trailers were for so I decided I would wind him up a little. I told him that the company were trying to maximise the loads of chipboard that we send to another of our factories and that if they used flat trailers they could get more on for every 5 trailers using flats they would save 1 trailer having to be used. He told me he couldn’t rope and sheet and there was no way he was going learn at his age, infact he was going straight to the union shop steward and that they would be “on the gate” if this was allowed to take place. Kept me smiling for a few days
I never had to strip a tilt so I wouldn’t know much about that, but as for roping and sheeting I wonder what percentage of drivers now would know how to tie a dolly knot.
An honest poll may bring some surprises I fear
Years ago I used to quite enjoy roping a mixed load on a flat bed, can’t say I really enjoyed rolling up sheets in the wind though
In the past few weeks I’ve been using sheets again for the first time in years and guess what … I still don’t enjoy folding and rolling them up in bad weather
Since using sheets again I’ve noticed one thing about drivers though, now they stand and watch you fold and roll them up on your own, how many of the older drivers would have done that years ago
i roped and sheeted for years…then went onto tilts.
all hard work.
fridge work is the way foward for me now.
no tautliners.
30 years of hardship…
give me a fridge anytime
tachograph:
I never had to strip a tilt so I wouldn’t know much about that, but as for roping and sheeting I wonder what percentage of drivers now would know how to tie a dolly knot.
An honest poll may bring some surprises I fear
Years ago I used to quite enjoy roping a mixed load on a flat bed, can’t say I really enjoyed rolling up sheets in the wind though
In the past few weeks I’ve been using sheets again for the first time in years and guess what … I still don’t enjoy folding and rolling them up in bad weather
Since using sheets again I’ve noticed one thing about drivers though, now they stand and watch you fold and roll them up on your own, how many of the older drivers would have done that years ago
I think to be honest its more that they wouldnt have a clue what to do and would rather stand watching than feel embarassed, but we’ve all had to learn somewhere. My dad taught me and at the age of 10 I was always down the yard on a saturday morning help him and his mates sheet the loads, I even got paid off his boss for helping and was told that when I got my licence there was a guaranteed job for me. He kept his word too, as soon as I passed my test on the way home I went there, he told me there wasnt a spare truck at the time but the next one was mine and 6 months later I got my 1st class 1 job.
We used to pull Flats for a Belgian company. Looking at all your photos at least you have the right sheets and ropes. These trailers would come over with just two sheets , No fly, and were normally held down by the strangest knots you’ve ever seen.
I always prided myself on sending them back looking 50 times better than when we recieved them. I was out loading in Belgium once when in came one of our flats to load . I was kicking my heals waitng to load a powder tanker so helped said Belgy sheet up. He was absolutly amazed that this uk guy was helping but he was even more amazed at the dolly knots.
You could always tell when you had a trailer this guy had loaded from that day on.
Would always prefer to lad a flat at the steelworks though, rather than stripping a tilt.
Stupot:
We used to pull Flats for a Belgian company. Looking at all your photos at least you have the right sheets and ropes. These trailers would come over with just two sheets , No fly, and were normally held down by the strangest knots you’ve ever seen.
I always prided myself on sending them back looking 50 times better than when we recieved them. I was out loading in Belgium once when in came one of our flats to load . I was kicking my heals waitng to load a powder tanker so helped said Belgy sheet up. He was absolutly amazed that this uk guy was helping but he was even more amazed at the dolly knots.
You could always tell when you had a trailer this guy had loaded from that day on.
Would always prefer to lad a flat at the steelworks though, rather than stripping a tilt.
Thats so true. I use to pull flats for LV Shipping (Elvex) from Vlardingen. the trailers would come over with sheets, cut to fit the load of aluminium ingots, as sheet ties they used pieces of inner tube and a couple of ratchet straps over the lumpy bits
I nearly always had to call in the UK depot and pick up a couple of decent sheets as we then loaded waste bales out of Glenrothes.
It is certainly one thing we were better at than any European driver, although I did see a live cow roped to a stripped down tilt in Bulgaria
taught by old hands at brs warrington on the alcan contract,tho the first trip out on my own with 7 drops was still a sharp learning curve but u got better with practice.would go back on flats tommorow ,just gettin fatter by the day draggin tautliners around
whooshwhoosh:
taught by old hands at brs warrington on the alcan contract,tho the first trip out on my own with 7 drops was still a sharp learning curve but u got better with practice.would go back on flats tommorow ,just gettin fatter by the day draggin tautliners around
As I said earlier,I was as fit as a butchers dog when I was doing it.
whooshwhoosh:
taught by old hands at brs warrington on the alcan contract,tho the first trip out on my own with 7 drops was still a sharp learning curve but u got better with practice.would go back on flats tommorow ,just gettin fatter by the day draggin tautliners around
As I said earlier,I was as fit as a butchers dog when I was doing it.
aint that the truth, i’d probably start sweating and panting if i did one now
) Cheers Bewick.
but u got better with practice.would go back on flats tommorow ,just gettin fatter by the day draggin tautliners around 