And i thought it was T.I.R…this is ridiculous…Hi Dave, long time no hear…or see…anyway, as you know ran many times on the Carnet De Passage…T.I.R. Carnet, and of course the A.T.A. carnet which was used for goods that were going to be re-imported/exported back to its original home…such as exhibition goods etc.
I also ran on an Open T.I.R., when i was carrying coils of steel, and had to be chained around the chassis, which meant that the side doors couldnt be fitted…this was ok as the inspections at the borders were easier.
On my way home from Teheran one trip, got as far as the Yugo/Austrian border, ( spielefeld ) and they were giving me some grief, well i just lost it. In the road outside were some beautiful flowerbeds, with daffodils and tulips spellingt out some silly name, ( hitler was a super german ) ha ha …anyway…i`d had enough, so promptly told them that if they didnt stamp my permit/carnet, i would drive through their wonderful display. The problem was, on the way home i ran into jeff ruggins, who had broken down, so he wanted to get to the londra, and i gave him a lift, so he also wanted to drive, so i let him, and a tonka decided he would take my n/s mirror off, and then drive along the trailer, snapping the tir cord in about 5 places.
After reaching istanbul, and getting Aydin to repair the mirror arm/mirror, and door/glass, after i left stanbul. got the customs to re-seal all of the broken bits, that was good, for Turkey/Bulgaria/Yugo…but no good for the austrians, who insisted i would have to get a new one…that when i lost it…and sure enough, i drove the truck and trailer straight across the pretty garden. I was of course arrested, and told to pay loads of dosh…which i eventualy never did, cos we had an agent on the border, and he sorted it, so it was just another hiccup, on another journey east…But on reflection, it wasnt the only hiccup, for i ran into Johnny Spiller, ( the Baron ) at the national belgrade, but thats another story, theres guns involved in that.
Hullo All,
I’ve just had a mesage from Dave Mackie. He wants to know, because none of us ( you know who you are ), are not contributing, should he shut his site down. My answer to him was NO., don’t be a prat, don’t shut the site down, it was a great idea, and we are arter all becoming an extinct species. We do need to comunicate with each other. If you read the news there is one of us popping off every week or so, so let’s keep in touch with each other. Come on men, those of you that came onto it. PLEASE CONTRIBUTE.or it will dissapear.
Do you know I’m half ■■■■■■■ just got in from work, up early tomorrow again, and I’ve just reread this, and I still think it makes sense. Sense, ? 73 years old and completely sripped a trailer down today, loaded it and took it back to ship out. I am Knackered.
Cheers, Archie.
Well if any help, I worked fro F.Short & Sons Ltd.in the 60s70s, The did Tilts from Immingham for Needley Fields Ltd. I was involved quite a bit in this opperation , had good days & some realley bad ones stripping Tilts etc, the newish ones were not to bad , but old ones were a nightmare sometimes, I remember going to Paisley, to load, & the crates were sticking out the back 6 foot, no bloody marker boards, sweet FA. I took a chance & went Immingham non stop, I made it without any hassle, thank the lord, I did this sort of work for about three years, then it seemed to drop off a bit, but there was plenty to goe at in those days , Rgards Larry
TIR ?
Why did drivers who had some romantic notion of fitting TIR plates to the truck made people think they were international drivers ?
TIR stood for ‘Trailer insurance route’ it meant the trailers had to stick to a specially set route to be insured by a company, if you found a dropped trailer un-attended with TIR plates you could call a numberand if the trailer had been lost you could get a salvage reward.
TIR only applied to trailers and mostly ‘tilt’ trailers, fitting TIR plates to trucks meat nothing but a for of showing off.
Sorry to disapoint ya all
Pat Hasler:
TIR ?
Why did drivers who had some romantic notion of fitting TIR plates to the truck made people think they were international drivers ?
TIR stood for ‘Trailer insurance route’ it meant the trailers had to stick to a specially set route to be insured by a company, if you found a dropped trailer un-attended with TIR plates you could call a numberand if the trailer had been lost you could get a salvage reward.
TIR only applied to trailers and mostly ‘tilt’ trailers, fitting TIR plates to trucks meat nothing but a for of showing off.
Sorry to disapoint ya all
Hi Pat,
Sorry mate, but unless there are two uses for the same set of initials, I think your answer is slightly off-beam.
TIR stands for Transports Internationaux Routiers and is mostly to do with customs rather than insurance companies.
Hi Pat, as Dieseldave correctly states TIR stands for Transports Internationaux Routiers and when the aforementioned TIR plates were officially attached to the tractor and trailer one of the securing bolts had to have a hole drilled through it so that a lead seal could be attached to it from the country of origin which showed that the vehicle was travelling under international customs regulations outside of the european union and on an international carnet to cover the goods, the truck would also have to have separate booklets called a Carnet de Passage for the tractor and trailer in which stamped pages would be removed when going in and out of a country so that the vehicle did not incurr any import duty.
Chazzer
Lucky Pat was not on the Million Pound Drop. There was a vacant young couple on last night that thought Romeo & Juliet was set in Vienna & lost a bomb. I thought everyone knew TIR & Verona.
When doing the m/e in the '70’s and 80’s,we got into the habit of putting the seals on the front and back plates of the trailer and not the tractor.The tractor still had TIR plates on,but only to show that as a unit it was travelling under the TIR convention.Only the trailer number went on the TIR carnet.
In the possible event of a problem with the tractor,breakdown or accident,you could quite easily swap tractor unit with no problem.FACT.
We still had the Carnet de Passage for tractor and trailer for the temporary import of both.
Another regulation stated that the plate could not be directly attached to the load compartment, there had to be space between the plate & the body.
Dave.
Keep the site going, although I don’t qualify as I never ran under TIR regs (I was a “blue book” Europe only permit boy) many did and lots more have a genuine interest in it. Don’t let it fade away, this was the pioneering days of road haulage and needs documenting to share with the drivers of the future. I did spend enough time queing on “The Stairs” with t-forms and I ran with an ATA carnet once or twice! I’ve put a few more pics from Del Martin on the “70’s pics” thread I’ve done, so feel free to add them to the site. Don’t be disheartened, there is loads of interest.
I used this type of carnet when I first went to Spain, cos at that time, Spain wasn’t in the EU and so “T” forms were only of any use to/from the Spanish border.
TIR was the best way to go when the Spanish consignee required a forward (inland) customs clearance.
(For the purists, there was a system whereby you could get a ‘clear forward’ document, but it was a pain to organise.)
Just to make the let’s go “outside of the EU” job interesting, I used to work for an Italian company who didn’t have the Italian equivalent of a GV60 for the trailers, so using the TIR system wasn’t an option. Instead, I had to use the “T” form system from Milan to Rudolphstein (West Germany.) At that time, Austria wasn’t in the EU, but “T” form transit from Italy through Austria and into West Germany wasn’t problem. However, My “T” forms ended and were taken from me when I went out of the EU at the northbound Rudolphstein/Hirschberg border (West Germany to East Germany [DDR.])
Crossing from there into the DDR at Hirschberg with an Italian registered truck and a UK passport for transit to catch the Sassnitz - Trelleborg ferry required the use of “open TIR,” and with no customs agents on the DDR side of the border a driver had to write and be fully responsible for a self-declaration for customs which was required to be written in German on official (yellow with green print) DDR paperwork, which could get quite interesting.
After the ferry crossing and because I was transiting Sweden into Norway, a slight variation on the idea of open TIR was needed, but that wasn’t so bad cos the Scandinavian countries had their own internal customs transit system, and there were plenty of customs agents to sort it out… for a fee of course.
I used this type of carnet when I first went to Spain, cos at that time, Spain wasn’t in the EU and so “T” forms were only of any use to/from the Spanish border.
TIR was the best way to go when the Spanish consignee required a forward (inland) customs clearance.
(For the purists, there was a system whereby you could get a ‘clear forward’ document, but it was a pain to organise.)
Just to make the let’s go “outside of the EU” job interesting, I used to work for an Italian company who didn’t have the Italian equivalent of a GV60 for the trailers, so using the TIR system wasn’t an option. Instead, I had to use the “T” form system from Milan to Rudolphstein (West Germany.) At that time, Austria wasn’t in the EU, but “T” form transit from Italy through Austria and into West Germany wasn’t problem. However, My “T” forms ended and were taken from me when I went out of the EU at the northbound Rudolphstein/Hirschberg border (West Germany to East Germany [DDR.])
Crossing from there into the DDR at Hirschberg with an Italian registered truck and a UK passport for transit to catch the Sassnitz - Trelleborg ferry required the use of “open TIR,” and with no customs agents on the DDR side of the border a driver had to write and be fully responsible for a self-declaration for customs which was required to be written in German on official (yellow with green print) DDR paperwork, which could get quite interesting.
After the ferry crossing and because I was transiting Sweden into Norway, a slight variation on the idea of open TIR was needed, but that wasn’t so bad cos the Scandinavian countries had their own internal customs transit system, and there were plenty of customs agents to sort it out… for a fee of course.
Those were the days!!
Dave what a good post, thats exactly how it was Thinking on your feet, ducking and diving, The lads today don’t know there born
Nearly got myself bolted up in a French jail once, I had got to the Swiss border at Vallorbe late on a Friday evening the Swiss quickly done their part of the Carnet TIR, moved over to the French side and the French custom man had gone home early leaving just a border guard on duty, I managed to persuade him to let me use the French customs stamp and do the carnet TIR myself, I timed and dated it and filled it all in correctly gave him his part of the carnet TIR which he checked and said was good and let me go, so far so good, gave It big legs back to Calais for a Saturday morning boat got a booking and pulled in the old shed at Calais (Any pictures of the old shed at Calais out there) and took my Carnet TIR into the customs room here the fun started they looked at the carnet from all angles then looked at me then the carnet then me now I’m starting to worry a bit, asked what the problem was and was asked where I had been for the past 11 days and was told I had a big problem, they showed me the carnet with the French customs stamp out of date by 11 days, I hadn’t checked the date on the stamp at Vallorbe, couldn’t tell them I’d run through the night or I’d get nicked for that as well took a lot of coffee cognacs’ and a few back handers to get out of that one. In them days the French took TIR carnets very seriously, It was a good earner for them, God bless them, the little tinkers.
O what a lovely sound the words “your carnet is discharged, you may go”
Pat Hasler:
TIR ?
Why did drivers who had some romantic notion of fitting TIR plates to the truck made people think they were international drivers ?
TIR stood for ‘Trailer insurance route’ it meant the trailers had to stick to a specially set route to be insured by a company, if you found a dropped trailer un-attended with TIR plates you could call a numberand if the trailer had been lost you could get a salvage reward.
TIR only applied to trailers and mostly ‘tilt’ trailers, fitting TIR plates to trucks meat nothing but a for of showing off.
Sorry to disapoint ya all
Pat
You are wrong there mate TIR stands for Transport International Routes and all motors not running under TIR and displaying a TIR plate had to have a red band across it. All MATs motors displayed TIR plates and I can assure you they were not showing off.
Cliff
dessert driver:
Dave what a good post, thats exactly how it was Thinking on your feet, ducking and diving, The lads today don’t know there born
Regards Keith
Hi Keith,
Here’s one just for those who swore that the only way through Switzerland was in a sealed condition…
It’s another kind of “open” transit job, this time I’m in Switzerland, and there’s not a single seal on the trailer.
This sort of operation was called Kolliverschluss, and the idea was that the individual items of freight were sealed.
In this case, there was customs twine tying the digger cab doors together, then the twine was sealed for transit.
I’ve also had large wooden packing crates drilled through the sides and tops at the corners to pass customs wire through, then the seals were applied to the wire. The number of seals was recorded on the paperwork, then as long as it all tallied at the other end, there were no ‘coffees’ needed and the job was a good 'un.
I remember the time when myself and Alan Jones,(Mr.Magoo) were working for SI from Stoke and Alan had a mixed load of gas cylinders for the UAE.
It was accepted that it was a hazardous load,but who was into ADR in those days.
The bottles were chained lying down in pyramids down the tilt bed.
One thing about Alan,there’s never any drama,I asked him how he’d got on when he landed back here.
He said there was no real problem,just loaded the truck on the ramp of the ferry so it could be dropped overboard if there was a problem.When he was driving down around the Hoffuf area at night he said he heard something go with a “whoof” and thought it was a low flying plane.
He pulled onto the desert to kip for the night and it wasn’t until he got up in the morning and walked round the trailer to find there was no trace of a tilt cover! To quote Alan,“I completed the job as open TIR!”
We could only guess that there must have been some leakage from the cylinders and a bit of friction between the chains and the bottles must have ignited it and blown the tilt sheet off.
Looking back you’ve just got to laugh,but it could have been much worse.
I’ve put a few more pics from Del Martin on the “70’s pics” thread I’ve done, so feel free to add them to the site. Don’t be disheartened, there is loads of interest.
