There must be loads (excuse the pun) of tales out there about this hardworking set of lads so come on and lets have some !! How about some of you ex SOM drivers kicking the thread off !!
Here you are Dennis,a state of the art machine to start your thread off,one cared for ERF B series used at a factory in Knighton Radnorshire.
Dave the Renegade:
Here you are Dennis,a state of the art machine to start your thread off,one cared for ERF B series used at a factory in Knighton Radnorshire.
Oh dear Oh dear Renegade the thread seems to have nose dived into the floor already!!! I think you could get some tonnage of crusher run into those boxes all the same !! I wonder what the Quarries would cap them up to ? Incidentally in order to keep the thread sensible the shunters are those lads involved in ROAD TRANSPORT not British Rail shunters in the goods yard with their 8ft poles (sticks). Keep it sensible lads !! Bewick.
Hi Dennis,
That yard belongs to M A Evans who run some very tidy moters,the shunter is used around the yard moving those walking floor trailers to move old scrap fridges in and out of the factory.
Cheers Dave.
Burgoynes of Lyonshall still use this Sed/Atki to shunt trailers around,and there’s nothing rough about this unit.
I had this yellow 81 for a bit.
Then Wincanton bought us out and gave us this Scania 92 ex Middlebrook Mushroom contract at Selby - it did have a dockspotter though but it went through 5th wheels too quick,working 24/7.
Then they bought this heap of s*** ex Harwich docks,choked us to death in spite of stack being lengthened.
So we all saved up and bought this,best motor on the firm 
Apologies if you’ve seen 'em before but after 20 years of shunting at the same place these are the only ones I’ve got.
Bewick:
There must be loads (excuse the pun) of tales out there about this hardworking set of lads so come on and lets have some !! How about some of you ex SOM drivers kicking the thread off !!
I give up!!! it wasn’t the old knacker tractors I meant but the "salt of the earth sheeting and roping lads " .So I suppose those shunters that ponce about with Tautliners and Vans don’t qualify and would run a mile if they were asked to sheet and rope one flat never mind 10/12 in a shift !! Bewick.
Bewick:
Bewick:
There must be loads (excuse the pun) of tales out there about this hardworking set of lads so come on and lets have some !! How about some of you ex SOM drivers kicking the thread off !!I give up!!! it wasn’t the old knacker tractors I meant but the "salt of the earth sheeting and roping lads " .So I suppose those shunters that ponce about with Tautliners and Vans don’t qualify and would run a mile if they were asked to sheet and rope one flat never mind 10/12 in a shift !! Bewick.
Well I did my fair share of sheeting and roping years before I went shunting so don’t call me a ponce before you know the facts pal.
Chris Webb:
Bewick:
Bewick:
There must be loads (excuse the pun) of tales out there about this hardworking set of lads so come on and lets have some !! How about some of you ex SOM drivers kicking the thread off !!I give up!!! it wasn’t the old knacker tractors I meant but the "salt of the earth sheeting and roping lads " .So I suppose those shunters that ponce about with Tautliners and Vans don’t qualify and would run a mile if they were asked to sheet and rope one flat never mind 10/12 in a shift !! Bewick.
Well I did my fair share of sheeting and roping years before I went shunting so don’t call me a ponce before you know the facts pal.
Only one response Chris so there don’t seem to be many lads left that could tackle sheeting & roping !! It was a simple comparison of comparing the loading and shunting of flat trailers compared to opening and closing back doors or curtains!! I wasn’t suggesting that the existing lads involved in modern shunting were ponces. sorry if I caused a misunderstanding !! Cheers Bewick.
Bewick:
Chris Webb:
Bewick:
Bewick:
There must be loads (excuse the pun) of tales out there about this hardworking set of lads so come on and lets have some !! How about some of you ex SOM drivers kicking the thread off !!I give up!!! it wasn’t the old knacker tractors I meant but the "salt of the earth sheeting and roping lads " .So I suppose those shunters that ponce about with Tautliners and Vans don’t qualify and would run a mile if they were asked to sheet and rope one flat never mind 10/12 in a shift !! Bewick.
Well I did my fair share of sheeting and roping years before I went shunting so don’t call me a ponce before you know the facts pal.
Only one response Chris so there don’t seem to be many lads left that could tackle sheeting & roping !! It was a simple comparison of comparing the loading and shunting of flat trailers compared to opening and closing back doors or curtains!! I wasn’t suggesting that the existing lads involved in modern shunting were ponces. sorry if I caused a misunderstanding !! Cheers Bewick.
Aye,go on then,I’ll let you off 
I wouldn’t go back S and R ing trailers for love nor money.I remember coming back off holiday in late October and there was a 40ft flat in the yard loaded with scrap pallets for the GGD annual bonfire.It had been there a fortnight waiting for me to rope the bloody thing 'cos nobody else could tie a dolly - that was about 1987
I have to say that at Wincanton all four shunters were classed as supervisors and we were responsible for sorting service/MOT trailers out as well as keeping an eye on fridge temps and using correct types of trailers for all the different runs we had.We also had to put some of the TSMs right upstairs - not all had been on the road so no "hands on " experience.
It could be hard work sometimes especially when we were short of empty trailers and Tesco (Tossco) late delivery times were looming 
Chris Webb:
Bewick:
Chris Webb:
Bewick:
Bewick:
There must be loads (excuse the pun) of tales out there about this hardworking set of lads so come on and lets have some !! How about some of you ex SOM drivers kicking the thread off !!I give up!!! it wasn’t the old knacker tractors I meant but the "salt of the earth sheeting and roping lads " .So I suppose those shunters that ponce about with Tautliners and Vans don’t qualify and would run a mile if they were asked to sheet and rope one flat never mind 10/12 in a shift !! Bewick.
Well I did my fair share of sheeting and roping years before I went shunting so don’t call me a ponce before you know the facts pal.
Only one response Chris so there don’t seem to be many lads left that could tackle sheeting & roping !! It was a simple comparison of comparing the loading and shunting of flat trailers compared to opening and closing back doors or curtains!! I wasn’t suggesting that the existing lads involved in modern shunting were ponces. sorry if I caused a misunderstanding !! Cheers Bewick.
Aye,go on then,I’ll let you off
I have to say that at Wincanton all four shunters were classed as supervisors and we were responsible for sorting service/MOT trailers out as well as keeping an eye on fridge temps and using correct types of trailers for all the different runs we had.We also had to put some of the TSMs right upstairs - not all had been on the road so no "hands on " experience.
It could be hard work sometimes especially when we were short of empty trailers and Tesco (Tossco) late delivery times were looming
Aye Chris the “Hard old days” we had about 10 shunters throughout the fleet --all of them top lads !! In the later years when some of these younger lads were still pulling flats you should have heard them wine if the odd tie came loose down the road !! Because they hadn’t sheeted or roped it their sens they thought they couldn’t be held responsible if anything went wrong even if they did adouble back flip and the load came off it still wasn’t their fault !! tell them they were on shunting the next week soon shut them up though . All our traffic desk lads had done the the job so they didn’t stand any crap !! Cheers Bewick.
There was always an inquest if any Tesco or Safeway loads were late.One night a contractor came in for a Safeway Bellshill and the warehouse had to break the load down from about 30 pallets to 26 so they could get it on.It was one of V.G.Mathers from Aberdeen and he only had a 24 pallet box 
,not his fault.They couldn’t lose any more pallets so one of our drivers had to take it.It was late getting there of course but instead of ringing Mathers to make sure they came in with 26 boxes in future they were bloody barred! They were always on time coming in,the trailers were always spotless and they always delivered on time like the majority of subbies but Wincanton had that sort of attitude.
Not long after they were struggling for a subbie for Livingston and Mathers were in the area so my mate upstairs got him in,loaded him and away.Nothing was said because the powers that be didn’t know as it was a saturday night
I could write a book…
I passed my HGV1 in 1990 after being made redundant from the bus industry, and my first job was as a yard shunter for a textile firm in Wakefield. It was a busy enough place, running a mixture of artics and close-coupled drawbars with demountable bodies. Any particular trailer or box might need to be moved between 3 or 4 different areas on site until loading was finished. When I started, there were Leyland Mastiff and Bedford KM tractors, both with VBG drawbar couplings fitted, and a stretched TK with hydraulics for the demounts. None of these were particularly roadworthy, the Perkins V8 Mastiff for example had only the nearside front brake working, and the ex-Joseph Hoyle KM had no parking brake other than leaving it in gear, but you learned to live with them. Because there was no weight on the back end, the drawbars used to throw them all over the yard, and more than one managed to lift the (worn) pin and escape from the unit. After a while, the Leyland went off for scrap, replaced by a Daf 2100 (ex-ICI) that couldn’t pull its own shadow. The KM was parked up in a corner for nearly three years after a second, equally useless Daf 2800 arrived. About this time, a member of the caravan-dwelling fraternity helped himself to the TK, and so a replacement Ford D was brought in with the worst-designed lifting arrangement imaginable. This thing tore itself apart on several occasions, and ended up with so much strengthening on the frame that the lorry broke its own back trying to lift a loaded box. I was inches away from very serious injury, or worse, that day! Because of this, it was decided to go all-artic, mostly due to the Volvo F6’s which pulled the drawbars being 13-14 years old, underpowered and having increasingly regular corrosion and electrical problems of their own. They had cab-top sleeper pods which almost doubled the weight of the cab and eventually collapsed the floor around the front and rear mountings. There was a big clearout. All the old shunters , F6’s, drawbars and boxes went for scrap, and along came a proper tool, a Reliance-Mercury dockspotter, ex-Felixstowe. The boss came down the yard as it was being unloaded, and then tells me to show him what it could do. Now, although I’d seen them and knew what they did, at this point I didn’t know quite how they did it, but would give it a go. Now this one was a bit different from the others I’d seen - the driver sat FACING the trailer. there were no mirrors on it. I climbed in, took a look at the controls and quickly worked out what did what. Started up, into forward 1, off with the handbrake and gently down on the throttle. Backwards, towards the boss ! Not wanting to kill him (not in front of an audience anyway), I steered away from him, and ■■■■ nearly got him anyway. That’s how I found out that to go left, steer right, and to go forwards, engage reverse. Once I’d coupled up, I then discovered fact number three, I couldn’t see where the hell I was going. After fitting some mirrors, and a bit of practice, I got pretty good with it. That was, until the new generation of trailers started coming in. They were 44’ hi-cubes designed to run with a new breed of ultra-low Volvo FH12, amongst the first of their type in the country. That’s when I found that the shunter wouldn’t go under…! And when it did, the underrun bar grounded on even the slightest gradient. More modifications to machine and trailers followed, but never satisfactory until the Mercury was swapped for a later version, ex-Coca Cola, which would go under as long as the trailer had been dropped “high”. After a few years of trials and tribulations, ingenious bodges, cold, dark, wet hours mending things that fell apart or stopped working, and a lot of bloody hard graft, things settled into a bit of a steady routine - and I began to get bored, and eventually left!
Hy, Bewick I’ll help you out, I was a Shunter first as a Trailer Mate and then as a Driver on Suttons and I did spells of night trunking and shunting at BRS this was vitually all ropeing and sheeting. The day shunter in those days used to take over the waggon from the night Trunker and do what was known as a tip and turn which meant delivering one, two, three or more deliveries depending on the load, and then loading the waggon for the night Trunker to take, this would occur 6 and sometimes 7 days a week. Off course it was possible on occasions to have a full load for a shed at the Docks and wait all day only to be quickly tipped late after the dockers had been put on overtime and if this happened you could get a late load which meant a late finish (Hours regs what were those?) or even worse you would be signed off at the Docks and would have to return the next day which meant that if the waggon was an 8 wheel rigged or a waggon and trailer the night Trunkers who on Suttons for instance would be from Lancashire would have to stay on overnight and the next day at Brays, Liverpool Road and the waggon had lost a trip. I might add the roping and sheeting could be the easy part as so many loads were handballed including Orrs zinc white powder that allways felt a lot heavier than 112 pounds ( Hundredweight ) and when you got 224 pound sacks which were dead they could be a back breaker. Old Drivers will know what I mean when I talk about dead weight as a 112 pounds could feel very different according to what it was. During my time, only 10 years from 1958 to September 1968 the use of the fork lift began and grew and in the last couple of years the ISO containers began to appear and then the Skeletal Trailers to carry them, before this they would be roped. The worse loads to rope and sheet were the light but bulky loads of a mixed nature where you would try to build a wall each side of the flat with the heaviest and strongest cartons or crates and put the lightest and flimsiest and most crushable parcels in the middle, it must be remembered that all Bosses believed that everything above the flat on their waggon was theirs to be used for carrying loads and that bridges etc. could be avoided. All unloading, loading and roping and sheeting would normally be carried out in all weathers, and on Suttons the London Shunters were paid a gauranteed 68 hour week (the legal maximum driving time), Sundays was 11 hours at double time and Alf did not throw his money around. On Suttons as a shunter you sometime had to catch the milk train out of Waterloo to Southampton where you would find the waqggon or waggon and trailer parked outside in the front of the main Southampton Station in the car park, (try that today) tip at Esso Fawley, sometimes with extra deliveries of ships stores or if normal export at the Docks we would take these extra deliveries to Pitter’s for them to deliver for us, we would then drive back if early enough to ICI Dulux at Slough or back to the Depot for a load of Tea, six high and a binder and all handball or we would catch the train from Paddington to Oxford via Didcot to tip a full load of leathercloth in stillages at Morris Motors at Cowley, and then reload at ICI Dulux at Slough. We had one shunter who used to train it to Newport in South Wales who would tip a load of lever brothers soaps on pallets and the load hot tallow in a big rubber tank, known as a Portolite, leave the waggon there and catch the train home until one day he openned the wrong tap and was drenched in hot tallow which not only stank but began to solidify as it cooled in the open air, he had to go up to Sandbach with the night trunker or somewhere and swap to a southbound trunk motor as there was no way he could have travelled on the train. I’m sorry if I have bored you all but just some stories from times past…Tony.
Chris Webb:
There was always an inquest if any Tesco or Safeway loads were late.One night a contractor came in for a Safeway Bellshill and the warehouse had to break the load down from about 30 pallets to 26 so they could get it on.It was one of V.G.Mathers from Aberdeen and he only had a 24 pallet box
Not long after they were struggling for a subbie for Livingston and Mathers were in the area so my mate upstairs got him in,loaded him and away.Nothing was said because the powers that be didn’t know as it was a saturday night
I could write a book…
Aye Chris the modern "Traffic Planners " leave alot to be desired now-a-days ! You would think the first requirement at Wincanton should have been all trailers must be 26 'ers on this traffic unless we request otherwise !! But from what I can gather now ( having been out of it for 10 yrs ) Wincanton are not alone in their hide bound approach to traffic management as there are now so many rules and regs managements seem to think an operation can be run by someone in fron’t of a computer screen who dosen’t have a clue how the job runs at ground level !! This is made worse by the senior management understanding even less than the traffic planners !! Believe me I saw this change creeping in in the mid 90s when the old managements were retiring and the wizz kids were moving in and were going to "break eggs with a stick " .Common sense was one thing that went straight out the window !! I remember when the in thing was you achieved BS 9000 or some other number and a bloke came to see me and try to persuade us to achieve this mythical standard !! He tried to convince me that if I was to fall under a bus someone else could sit in my chair and open the BS file and run the firm as if nothing had happened ! B******s ! We were never once required by our exsisting or new customers to be British Standard accredited and I new of a couple of local Hauliers that were BS and they couldn’t hold a candle to our operation !!Cheers Bewick.
Suttons Tony:
Hy, Bewick I’ll help you out, I was a Shunter first as a Trailer Mate and then as a Driver on Suttons and I did spells of night trunking and shunting at BRS this was vitually all ropeing and sheeting. The day shunter in those days used to take over the waggon from the night Trunker and do what was known as a tip and turn which meant delivering one, two, three or more deliveries depending on the load, and then loading the waggon for the night Trunker to take, this would occur 6 and sometimes 7 days a week. Off course it was possible on occasions to have a full load for a shed at the Docks and wait all day only to be quickly tipped late after the dockers had been put on overtime and if this happened you could get a late load which meant a late finish (Hours regs what were those?) or even worse you would be signed off at the Docks and would have to return the next day which meant that if the waggon was an 8 wheel rigged or a waggon and trailer the night Trunkers who on Suttons for instance would be from Lancashire would have to stay on overnight and the next day at Brays, Liverpool Road and the waggon had lost a trip. I might add the roping and sheeting could be the easy part as so many loads were handballed including Orrs zinc white powder that allways felt a lot heavier than 112 pounds ( Hundredweight ) and when you got 224 pound sacks which were dead they could be a back breaker. Old Drivers will know what I mean when I talk about dead weight as a 112 pounds could feel very different according to what it was. During my time, only 10 years from 1958 to September 1968 the use of the fork lift began and grew and in the last couple of years the ISO containers began to appear and then the Skeletal Trailers to carry them, before this they would be roped. The worse loads to rope and sheet were the light but bulky loads of a mixed nature where you would try to build a wall each side of the flat with the heaviest and strongest cartons or crates and put the lightest and flimsiest and most crushable parcels in the middle, it must be remembered that all Bosses believed that everything above the flat on their waggon was theirs to be used for carrying loads and that bridges etc. could be avoided. All unloading, loading and roping and sheeting would normally be carried out in all weathers, and on Suttons the London Shunters were paid a gauranteed 68 hour week (the legal maximum driving time), Sundays was 11 hours at double time and Alf did not throw his money around. On Suttons as a shunter you sometime had to catch the milk train out of Waterloo to Southampton where you would find the waqggon or waggon and trailer parked outside in the front of the main Southampton Station in the car park, (try that today) tip at Esso Fawley, sometimes with extra deliveries of ships stores or if normal export at the Docks we would take these extra deliveries to Pitter’s for them to deliver for us, we would then drive back if early enough to ICI Dulux at Slough or back to the Depot for a load of Tea, six high and a binder and all handball or we would catch the train from Paddington to Oxford via Didcot to tip a full load of leathercloth in stillages at Morris Motors at Cowley, and then reload at ICI Dulux at Slough. We had one shunter who used to train it to Newport in South Wales who would tip a load of lever brothers soaps on pallets and the load hot tallow in a big rubber tank, known as a Portolite, leave the waggon there and catch the train home until one day he openned the wrong tap and was drenched in hot tallow which not only stank but began to solidify as it cooled in the open air, he had to go up to Sandbach with the night trunker or somewhere and swap to a southbound trunk motor as there was no way he could have travelled on the train. I’m sorry if I have bored you all but just some stories from times past…Tony.
Spot on Tony I think the thread could be up and running !! Your spiel has certainly put a differen’t spin on the term “shunter” going by train to S’ampton & Newport ect. to catch up with last nights trunk !! Alf was some taskmaster wasn’t he just !! Thats really tickled me -------did you have an " awayday " or a "runaround " ticket ? One of the first jobs I used to do when I ran my first motor was loading ex covent garden to Barrow ( sub off J&W Watt Carlisle) and I would load it as you describe hard boxes on the outside and softs/ flowers ect in the middle . Mind you it was like doing a jig-saw with the differnt porters comming at you in not the order you wanted ! But all the times I did the job I never had any damages( the fruit merchant in Barrow loved me doing the load ) but oh dear when Watts loaded it their shunters just fired it in Heavy on soft ect. I somtimes used to load barytes powder from a London wharf for the Dolly Blue works at Backbarrow now that was a " dead weight " it was in little cloth bags and they wern’t half awkward little B******s to handle !! anyway we’ll have to wait and see who else pops up with further “Tales of a Shunter” Cheers Bewick.
Hi all yes the shunters had the crap lorries and usually the worse jobs.I loaded trailers for Joint Motorways In 1994. I was lucky I only had too load scap bails on flat trailers only put ■■■■ sheets on the back and a bit of rope on them lol. Mind you I had too unload at Blackburn, Widnes etc before I went and load the trailers for the night blokes from Shrewsbury. The worse thing about my job was the lorry I had was a daf 2300 day cab. It was as flat as a pancake it was an ex Tesco lorry only plated up too 36 tonnes it should have stayed at Tesco’s !! I once had an old Merc 1628 with a mid cab that was great. The Daf you had too trash the f**k out it too go round the scap yard where the Merc went round on tick over ! I also had a 1834 once and that was no good because it had no back windows. So yes I feel the shunters are definatly the unsung heroes !!
tony
Three of the best R & S I knew was Pete Wass & Gilbert Of A&E Transport & A guy called Lenny of Armitage Transport,
all three worked for years in TWIL where every load was different in size, shape & weight, many of them were multi drops but they were all very neatly done every time, Five star ratings from me, Cheers Mel
Hy, as a trailer mate shunting I took my driving test on one of Suttons old Atky 8 wheelers which was a lot older than I was, this was after delivering 4 drops of windows for tube trains around the London Transport Maintance Depots from Pilkingtons, to take the test the waggon had to be empty, anyway after arriving at Wood Green Test Centre the Tester said to me “I’ve never taken a test in one of these before” and I answered “nor have I” LOL. Within a week I was a Driver shunter and within 3 months I had shunted four wheelers, eight wheelers, artics including tankers, and waggon and trailers including eight wheeler and trailers. One of the worst loads I usede to get on the BRS was Timber which until you got back to the Depot was only held on by rope, once in the Depot you could put on chains tightened down with Sylvesters which made it slightly safer for the night trunker but needed to be kept a close eye on…Tony.
mercman123:
Hi all yes the shunters had the crap lorries and usually the worse jobs.I loaded trailers for Joint Motorways In 1994. I was lucky I only had too load scap bails on flat trailers only put [zb] sheets on the back and a bit of rope on them lol. Mind you I had too unload at Blackburn, Widnes etc before I went and load the trailers for the night blokes from Shrewsbury. The worse thing about my job was the lorry I had was a daf 2300 day cab. It was as flat as a pancake it was an ex Tesco lorry only plated up too 36 tonnes it should have stayed at Tesco’s !! I once had an old Merc 1628 with a mid cab that was great. The Daf you had too trash the f**k out it too go round the scap yard where the Merc went round on tick over ! I also had a 1834 once and that was no good because it had no back windows. So yes I feel the shunters are definatly the unsung heroes !!
tony
From what I’ve seen of Joints they were all crap so you must have had a good one Mercman !! How did they let you out scrap yard without weighing the whole tractor and trailer in with the load !! The 1834 didn’t have windows in so that all the coils they threw off at Joints didn’t come into the cab to join you Only having a wind up Andrew ! Cheers Dennis.