With everyone out there moaning about the cold weather,i was wondering if any of
you out there have stories/experiences of driving in the cold weather,be it way in
the past or recently?
My lad (orange jacket) on a call out in Huddersfield last Saturday, the Next driver had got it in a no hope position, no traction, PULLED THE PIN 
and couldn’t get the unit out to reset the pin. Lad pulled it out with the wrecker and ATTEMPTED (pillock missed first time) to get it back under at 90 degrees. All was well at the end.
Watch it all unfold…youtube.com/watch?v=aBfy1OTBeg0
Great stuff Brian and not a PC Plod anywhere to be seen 
Last Saturday (23rd march) I was loaded with 29tonnes of animal feed for a farmer in rugby ,anyway during the night it had snowed and about 4 inches had settled, I’d promised the farmer I’d deliver his feed so I cautiously set off, well the roads were not too bad and I got there, delivered the load got to a local quarry and reloaded for the following Monday all without incident,I made my way back to the yard, stopped on the main road outside and walked in to see my boss, because the ramp leading into our yard was covered in snow I wanted to check it was okay to try and get in to the yard ,or wait and help clear the snow, we’ll its fresh snow he said you should be alright it won’t be packed down to ice,ok I said and jumped in to my truck put my steer tyre’s on the ramp and gently eased on the power to get me into the yard, it then carried straight on into the wall and took my nearside mirror off as well as the front nearside corner and a nasty scrape on the bumper! All in front of my boss who stood and watched it all happen and all he could say was maybe we’ll clear the ramp off!
This was taken on Monday 25th and fell on the 22nd/23rd March.I remember driving a BMC FHK140 tipper on hire with
Radnorshire County Council highways in the winter of 1969/70 with two of their blokes stood on the back throwing salt onto the road with shovels.The salt spreader had packed up,as it was only small fertiliser spinner which had to be filled by shovel.No health & safety then or thought of how cold those blokes were stood on the back of a lorry.A different day and age.
Cheers Dave.
grumpy old man:
My lad (orange jacket) on a call out in Huddersfield last Saturday, the Next driver had got it in a no hope position, no traction, PULLED THE PIN
Watch it all unfold…youtube.com/watch?v=aBfy1OTBeg0
That’s a s**t drop at the Kingsgate, even in good weather, never done it personally but been plenty of times as a shopper watching peeps try and get in or out with car drivers not giving a ■■■■ even had them come round me when I’ve left room for a truck trying to get in/out.
One thing I’ve noticed with this and previous snow falls is that hardly anyone carries a shovel (preferably metal the adr plastic ones won’t chip the ice away). It has at times meant the difference between getting unstuck and calling recovery.
I have just (or still am as there’s more still to come) done a winter running in Western Canada, I’ve heard that this past winter has been the worst they’ve had since 1953 or something, so I certainly got the challenge I was looking for when I decided to stay north of the border 
I’ve only had to shut down a couple of times, both in total white out conditions. As well as that I’ve had road closures for snow clearance and a first for me, an avalanche, although it was a man made avalanche, they do this so that they can control when the snow comes crashing down and they do it by firing live rockets into the mountain and they don’t half make a bloody big bang Then they get the loading shovels out and clear it all away, only takes a few hours and the old bill kindly drive down the queue waking up sleeping drivers, so it’s no big drama really.
I also lost my snow chain virginity, not bad considering it’s my fifth winter up here. The circumstances that led up to that have been documented on any thread, so I won’t repeat myself, but I’ve had to throw the chains a few more times since, although unlike the first time I did it before I got stuck, so it’s no big deal, takes about ten minutes and you’re done. I carry four bits of 4x2 and drive up on them so that the outer tyres are clear of the ground, then get the chains on nice and tight and then bungee them even tighter, drop off the blocks of wood and away I go. An old boy I know taught me that little trick, he’s from Wales too, not Canada
As I run east/west or vice versa I’m always struggling with a side wind and on icy roads that’s a real danger, driving in the mountains in a snowstorm is no easy task, but running through the prairies with a 53’ trailer on a sheet of ice with a 40mph side wind trying to blow you in the ditch is something else. Saskatchewan has been very bad for that this year, the roads have been very icy and I’ve had a few scary moments when I’ve been cruising at 65mph on a road that was previously bone dry, but then becomes completely ice covered in the blink of an eye. I’ve had the old girl at some very peculiar angles I can tell you 
I’ve had a few days where I’ve just parked it, no point carrying on, far too dangerous and my firm are very good about that, if I feel it’s not safe, they back me up, no load is worth killing myself or smashing the lorry up for and I’ve done it a couple of times as I said before. Once was on ice, the wind was blowing real good and my unit was in the right lane, the trailer wheels were completely in the left lane. I was doing 20mph just waiting for it all to go horribly wrong, luckily it never and I parked at the first place I came too, unfortunately that was a couple of hours away on a good day, this day it took me 7hrs to do the same distance, it took me almost 7hrs to let go of the steering wheel once I stopped too
Another shut down was in a white out blizzard, as some of you know, I have a chrome rubber duck on the end of the bonnet and it was that bad that I couldn’t even see it, it really was like someone had windowlene’d my windows, I was out in the middle of nowhere, it was a single carriageway too, so there was no room for error, a foot too far over and I would be in the ditch. The only way I could keep it on the road was to straddle the centerline, which luckily had a rumble strip running down it, I would turn left slightly and once I felt the rumble I would go right, a kind of slalom through the lines, all the while I was in 2lo with my foot off the throttle pedal and hovering over the brakes. When it started snowing I had just passed a sign saying the next town was 15kms down the road, it took me almost three hours to get there and park it. I did consider just stopping on the road, but as I said, I was in the middle of nowhere and if that storm had lasted a couple of days, I would be stranded. I do carry proper winter survival gear and I have food and stuff with me, but out in a storm like that, a mechanical problem would mean that I would need to use it, so I carried on to the next town and waited it out there
Many of the winters during the 1980’s would have had drivers these days going into a blind panic. 
One of the worst runs that I can remember was a night trunk from Feltham to Harrietsham in Kent.I was told to take a four wheeler rigid loaded to it’s max instead of the artic because the guvnors had been told that conditions were getting ‘a bit bad’ there.I left at around 1 am and got back at around 7 am and the snow had covered the motorway barriers and was almost up to around the tops of the wheel arches before I’d even got there let alone during the run back.
I got snowed in at Sheerness in the mid 80s, just got off the Olau boat, as I wasn’t doing customs (clearing forward) I was straight out the dock, did a couple of miles up the road and it all got really messy, a wagon and drag car transporter got it all horribly wrong on the approach to the bridge and that was that. I sat there for a few hours and then the old bill parked us all in an industrial estate and mini bussed us to B&Bs, there was only a few of us, the rest had been kept in the dock. I remember the old girl in the B&B charging 7quid and that was for dinner, a room and a huge fry up the next day, I think she did the B&B thing for the company rather than the money
When I got back to the motor, the snow had drifted up one side of it and like you say CF, it was up to the top of the wheels
Stanfield:
Great stuff Brian and not a PC Plod anywhere to be seen
The intro for the Youtube clip says “ACE mechanic from Crossroads Commercials” etc. 
Oh, the portly fella is going to get some stick about the Ace mechanic bit from his dad. I feel it my duty to let all the lads up at Crossroads know that they have an ACE mechanic in their midst. 
Back roads somewhere in what used to be Yugoslavia.
If you look closely you can just make out the chain on the drive wheel of the unit.
Winter 1970
Those Kent boys weren’t the only ones who did the M/E few of us eastenders / Essex boys did to
Genrals. U.C.C
Lissenburg. Kestrel
Brad field. Coward to name a few
Simons
Cantrells
Hammonds
Beckinsondale
Bill Bailey
Johnny Dodge
Gerard
Sammys
Billy you have forgot Reece’s, Alfie Jones ,Grangewoods,Fred Taylor,
I remember having a few with Johnny Dodge somewhere, we were sitting in his motor and to keep it on topic, it was snowing and we had ice in our Brandy Anyway we were looking for somewhere on a map and he got his briefcase out and pullled out a bunch of maps, one of them was a Michelin or AA type map and it was for Pakistan, there were quite a few little x’s on it marking places he’d been too, pretty impressive for a scroat from Ilford
bullitt:
Back roads somewhere in what used to be Yugoslavia.
0
If you look closely you can just make out the chain on the drive wheel of the unit.1
Brave men (or very silly) taking those two outfits down those roads. I think I would have tried for an alternative route.
grumpy old man:
Brave men (or very silly) taking those two outfits down those roads. I think I would have tried for an alternative route.
Didn’t really have a lot of choice in the matter!!! 
There were four trucks in fact and we had to get to this little town in the back of beyond with out any choice of which route to take.
Mine is up front, you can just make out a chain on the rear trailer wheel as well! Helped stop little mishaps like this.
