Sorry for the diversion on to Canals, Saviem first pic of Aldersley junction showing the now demolished toll/lock keepers buildings, second and third pics showing Hordern road wharf from either side of the cross over bridge, now occupied by Double Pennant boats, Cheer’s Pete
pete smith:
Sorry for the diversion on to Canals, Saviem first pic of Aldersley junction showing the now demolished toll/lock keepers buildings, second and third pics showing Hordern road wharf from either side of the cross over bridge, now occupied by Double Pennant boats, Cheer’s Pete
No need for an apology Pierre, lovely to see old pi’c any time of anything…
With the advent of supermarkets selling petrol and diesel, the old garages slowly disappeared…here are few oldies
A few abandoned garages…so many long gone now, they were always handy, enough space to get a wagon in, and and a coffee and snack…
It is sad to see, but I guess that’s life. Bigger and better… I preferred the smaller and friendly ones. Johnny
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Fergie47:
A few abandoned garages…so many long gone now, they were always handy, enough space to get a wagon in, and and a coffee and snack…
I’ve found it getting more awkward there in recent years driving a thirsty car with relatively short range away from the motorways.While most of those types of garages right across the continent can also have limited opening hours like closed for long lunch periods and after 5-6 pm which makes life even more difficult there.
Carryfast:
Fergie47:
A few abandoned garages…so many long gone now, they were always handy, enough space to get a wagon in, and and a coffee and snack…I’ve found it getting more awkward there in recent years driving a thirsty car with relatively short range away from the motorways.While most of those types of garages right across the continent can also have limited opening hours like closed for long lunch periods and after 5-6 pm which makes life even more difficult there.
However, there is normally a supermarket or two in every town which all have have 24h pumps…the one advantage of supermarket stations, plus they’ll be a hell of a lot cheaper…
Carryfast:
Fergie47:
A few abandoned garages…so many long gone now, they were always handy, enough space to get a wagon in, and and a coffee and snack…I’ve found it getting more awkward there in recent years driving a thirsty car with relatively short range away from the motorways.While most of those types of garages right across the continent can also have limited opening hours like closed for long lunch periods and after 5-6 pm which makes life even more difficult there.
However, there is normally a supermarket or two in every town which all have have 24h pumps…the one advantage of supermarket stations, plus they’ll be a hell of a lot cheaper…
Fergie47:
However, there is normally a supermarket or two in every town which all have have 24h pumps…the one advantage of supermarket stations, plus they’ll be a hell of a lot cheaper…
On that note I can remember my debit card being declined at an unmanned supermarket pump out of hours for no reason having used up the limit of the allowed goes at entering the PIN number the next one of which would have meant my card being locked.So never again would I use that option. 
There was also the example of my card being swallowed by an unmanned Autoroute peage and it refusing to give it back or open the gate.Don’t ask me how it finally decided to sort itself out.But let’s just say that communicating in English with the French speaking voice at the end of the emergency phone intercom on the machine wasn’t what did it and I can still remember the laughter of the locals passing through in the other lanes while I was stuck there. 
Which then left the incident in which my card was locked numerous times on a run home from Monza only the emergency UK number being the difference between running out of fuel long before Calais with out enough cash left to fill the thing.I finally found out the reason was that the card provider’s security system had no way of recognising a card being used in four different countries in one night.
Carryfast:
Fergie47:
However, there is normally a supermarket or two in every town which all have have 24h pumps…the one advantage of supermarket stations, plus they’ll be a hell of a lot cheaper…On that note I can remember my debit card being declined at an unmanned supermarket pump out of hours for no reason having used up the limit of the allowed goes at entering the PIN number the next one of which would have meant my card being locked.So never again would I use that option.
There was also the example of my card being swallowed by an unmanned Autoroute peage and it refusing to give it back or open the gate.Don’t ask me how it finally decided to sort itself out.But let’s just say that communicating in English with the French speaking voice at the end of the emergency phone intercom on the machine wasn’t what did it and I can still remember the laughter of the locals passing through in the other lanes while I was stuck there.
Which then left the incident in which my card was locked numerous times on a run home from Monza only the emergency UK number being the difference between running out of fuel long before Calais with out enough cash left to fill the thing.I finally found out the reason was that the card provider’s security system had no way of recognising a card being used in four different countries in one night.
Well you would have trouble “CF” if you was using a “cloned” card you’d bought of some dodgy bugger, how much did it cost you and can you give me the contact number 
Cheers Bewick.
Evening all,
Fergie, Pete, Michel, pv83, thank you all for the time that you spend posting such delightful pictures to keep us interested in our past and present…so where do we go from here?
Fergie, you have got me into lots, and lots of trouble! Pete , Ive never seen that picture of Aldersley Junction before, and I remember a long negative conversation with a “know all” canal author who said no such buildings ever existed…you have given me the proof! Thank you.
Fergie, to explain my" trouble…well it all started with your 08 Juillet post, and the odd looking Tractomas from Buzzichelli…did you know Buzzichelli`s? What a company, crane hire, from the early fifties Berliet Pinguellis, with their lattice jibs, then the explosion onto the national market with , “Jacquline” the massive, (in its day), Terex AC700, with its myriad hydraulic extensions…and attendant lorries to carry her ballast weights…
Then came the big Liebherer 16x10s, the 1280`s that lifted big lumps to build the Veledrome in Bordeaux, and the colossal Grove hydraulic extension self propelled units, and all this via their initial corporate growth where they employed the ex Transports Mayer TG 200 Willeme 200 tonner with Mercedes power, to tow the dead weight of their Gottwald MK 600 on its 32 wheeled carriage…
And I will not bore you about their present day operations, and their company in Morocco, (a major player in that countries economy), or in Senegal, or the operations that try to carry on in what is left of Libya, and the sub Saraha regions…that Tractomas, (a very early one), was but one of a rather eclectic lorry fleet…
But it was thinking about that Tractomas, coupled with gazbo`s comments about the Econofreight one, and pvs input that sent my mind down those, (far too easily accessed), “railway sidings”…and made me dig out many of my old diaries…(and the hours that that took …well, my other half was none too impressed…
I started to think that it would be fairly easy to analyse just who had run a Tractomas, and from there just how many had been built…(Here, I have now great understanding, and sympathy for Robert 1952, in his quest for the “Holy Grail”, on his ERF European`s)!..once you start trying to research…there are many cul de sacs along the way!
What occasioned the birth of the Tractomas, from Champs sur Yonne based Nicolas…or the Mercedes based Titan…or the acquisition by MOL of the licence to build the Willeme TG range…or even Unipower…maybe the quest to build, and sell, and profit from the manufacture of the worlds best heavy hauler…because that market is truly world wide…and although small in volume terms, if the product is right…well a big share of a small cake is the reward.
The first Tractomas, back in 79/80 physically resembled a direct copy of the TG 300 Willeme 8x8, exactly as sold to China…(and so did MOLs first version)…as did the licence built Trabosa…(and for reasons of clarity, I will not go down the Spanish route, as I mentioned it before).
In trying to separate the actual build numbers, from the number of Tractomas actually operated, well there is a lot of false trails…these old girls seem to have quite a few owners along the way…For instance, my friend Phillipe Bramé, purchased new, a T66, Mercedes Benz OM 620 hp unit 6x6 …ISTRANS, in Marseille, ran a similar unit…in fact the exact same lorry.
That ugly Buzzichelli 6x4 Tractomas…went down to Italy and was run by Tilli Walter. The Lemarechal from Celestin 6x6 seems to have been operated by Pau based Ayla Transports…but then appeared in Nigeria!..and how is it that SARENS can be operating a Tractomas in Nigeria in 2015/2016…where did that one come from? Certainly two 6x6 TR66 OZ units were sold to Impas Mendoza in Argentina,rated at 220 tonnes gtw…but did one of them come back to rocky Greece as a 340 tonner■■?
And gazbo was correct in that the ex Sunters/Econofreight unit was sold to India…actually an Indian Company…but as far as I can find out she is residing at a Mombassa Kenya address at present!..and what ever happened to the similar specification Brackmills 6x4 unit that did sterling work on the oil refinery site up in the Shetlands at Sullom Voe? Was she the one that went to Stannet in Norway…but they disposed of their Tractomas in 1997!
The Chinese ones with their Premium cabs are easy to follow…they even went to the same site at Guangzho as the 1000 tonne TG300 Willeme`s…there were three Tractomas…6x6, and 8x8, powered by V12 MAN, and ■■■■■■■ 700 hp for their 600 tonne gtw…but then there were two sold to Korea TR88s 8x8…Dong Ah the client…but the work was to create a man made river in Libya…but then French Contractor Dresser was building oil field support business in Egypt with two unique Tractomas fitted with oil field bodies, rigid 6x6s with bonneted Renault/Saviem Cserie cabins behind the Mercedes 404 power units…in fact in the 81/82 period most Tractomas leaving the factory were Mercedes powered.
I do not wish to bore you so I will not go into reams of boring detail, but there were other units for Al Jaber, in the UAE,( serie C 6x4), and another 6x4 for B&J in Thailand, and the very first, (Willeme esque), 8x8, with its Pelpel cab, and V16 Detroit power went to Compagnie des Phosphate in Tunisia And then there is the scrapped Millon of Venissieux unit, or the elusive Trans Europe from Challon sur Marne 6x6…and perhaps the Mamoet unit was the ex Walter Wright unit from Thailand…
So where did all this dodging about lead me?..well if one takes Dennis Childs fleet at RoTran as 20 units, then certainly from 1980 there are another 19 built…but if like the Argentinian units some have stayed in the original clients fleet…well then there could be in excess of 70 built!..and annual production 80/85 seems to run at 15 units per annum according to the statistics published by my old friend Pascal Stich, (now of Camions magazine, but formaly of Poids Lourds, where he published a superb appraisal of the market potential for Nicolas in their endeavours)…so between 80, and 2016…well there are quite a few that I do not know of!..and the total is a lot more than 40 units built…do any of you know who runs them, and in which parts of the globe they reside… and what they actually comprise of in terms of power units, gearbox, axles etc, would be great for us all to know.
Finally, if I have excited any of you to follow this meandering track further…
Nicolas type designations…
.6x4 64
6x6 66
8x4 84
8x8 88
Engines;
■■■■■■■ C
CAT D
G Detroit
M MAN
O Mercedes Benz
Gearbox
A Allison
C Clark
R Renk
Z ZF
Axles
U Unipower
R Renault Vehicules Industriels
K Kessler
R Renk.
Thus my old friend Phillipé Brame`s TRB 66 OZ unit was a 6x6 Tractor, heavy chassis, 3metres wide, with Mercedes power, and ZF transmission
Apologies if its boring…but I found the following of each lorry, and its history, very interesting…
Nice lorry Tractomas…but personally…well I prefer the TITAN!..(but my soulmate is the really superb, brutal, Willeme TG range. in all its forms).
Cheerio for now.
No need to apologise Saviem, it’s quite the opposite of a “boring” story mate!
It’s actually a good read to start the day with
About Titan, I’ve got a pic of what seems to be the first and only build 10x4, was sold to a Norwegian company, don’t know if it’s still in use or what happened to it…but that’s quite another “investigation”…
Will post that pic shortly…
Cheers, Patrick
Fergie47:
However, there is normally a supermarket or two in every town which all have have 24h pumps…the one advantage of supermarket stations, plus they’ll be a hell of a lot cheaper.…
The reason supermarket fuel is cheaper, apart from them selling it as a “loss leader” is that it doesn’t contain any of the costly additives that give cleaner burning and less gummy deposits on valves etc. When I was researching my oil company transport book back in the late 1990s I spent a day at the Total fuel terminal at Colwick, Nottingham. All the major fuel companies pool their base products from the refinery into a terminal and whilst, for example, Colwick was a Total terminal, all the other companies send their tankers into there to draw fuel. What is in the tanks at the terminal is base fuel and each company drawing from there, such as Shell. Texaco, etc. has it own additives supply that is metered into the tanker when it loads. Supermarket fuel is the base fuel without additives and much of it is bought on the spot market in Rotterdam.
Carryfast:
Fergie47:
However, there is normally a supermarket or two in every town which all have have 24h pumps…the one advantage of supermarket stations, plus they’ll be a hell of a lot cheaper…
On that note I can remember my debit card being declined at an unmanned supermarket pump out of hours for no reason having used up the limit of the allowed goes at entering the PIN number the next one of which would have meant my card being locked.So never again would I use that option.
I wouldn’t mind betting that was a few years ago Carryfast , when Chip and pin first came out French pumps would not accept UK cards as the chip was slightly out of line with the French ones , I got caught a couple of times ,luckily I had my Credit Agricol card with me to use.
The card thing could also be something to do with the amount of British Herberts running to Italy on “le plastique” in the 80s and 90s. There was even a documentary about it, possibly that Roger Cook bloke, I can’t remember.
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Fergie47:
With the advent of supermarkets selling petrol and diesel, the old garages slowly disappeared…here are few oldies
The days whendropping a truck’s engine needed just a couple of hours… Here a Berliet GDR
kerbut:
Carryfast:
Fergie47:
However, there is normally a supermarket or two in every town which all have have 24h pumps…the one advantage of supermarket stations, plus they’ll be a hell of a lot cheaper…On that note I can remember my debit card being declined at an unmanned supermarket pump out of hours for no reason having used up the limit of the allowed goes at entering the PIN number the next one of which would have meant my card being locked.So never again would I use that option.
I wouldn’t mind betting that was a few years ago Carryfast , when Chip and pin first came out French pumps would not accept UK cards as the chip was slightly out of line with the French ones , I got caught a couple of times ,luckily I had my Credit Agricol card with me to use.
Twice over the years I’ve had my card (French) declined, both times by coincidence I was on the bike, and both times it was afternoon early evening…I always carry “emergency money” on the bike for those “just in case moments”…didn’t have to wait too long before someone comes in for fuel, they filled the bike up and I gave them the cash… probably not good at 3.00am in the morning in a remote village, but in normal circumstances it works fine…I’ve also done the same for three people, two cars and a bike, returning the favour…must admit, haven’t needed to do it recently as the delivery pumps and cards have got so much better.
Saviem:
Evening all,
Fergie, you have got me into lots, and lots of trouble!
Cheerio for now.
John, hope I don’t get named in your divorce proceedings 
…
The garage in the nearby village of Montigny circa 1925. The premises were recently used by two joiners, the last having closed 3 years ago.
