The Coast Road site Newcastle, Regards Larry, Photo with the courtesey Les Douglas.
Tunnels:
Sorry Fergie,I missed the photo of the Knocker, see attached.
Tunnels.
That’s a cracker Tunnels, how things got loaded years ago, 3 D Series, then bang a Capri on top, some payload…keep both the stories, which go to show, that no matter what country you work in, the transport industry is always the same, and more photo’s mate, and if if they’re not all Traders, start a new thread about your company…Well done… 
It’s been great to share a few memories of the mighty Ford (Thames)Thermadyne. And although I don’t recognise the names of the trucking companies and places the operated in it was still good to read about two matched trucks trying their best to get to the top of the hill first. It doesn’t matter what country you operate in you see something similar ahead and it’s like the greyhound chasing the rabbit, you’ve just got to chase. The trick of course has always been as you slowly inch by the other truck is to just casually give the other driver a small nod or a wave as if you’re not even trying. Behind the calm stare you’re watching the tacho needle trying to make sure your next gear change, or half a gear on the two speed rear end, is quick and crisp and you can pull a bit more on your rival. And a Thames with 20 ton all up needed ‘driving’. You weren’t listening to the CD, talking to your mate on his iPhone, or adjusting the air-conditioning controls, unless of course you were referring to winding down the window a notch or two.
Sure we carried cars, 4 large ones or 6 smaller ones. And a lot of Ford trucks and CKD panel parts. But we also carted fruit, vegies, bulk grain, and general freight back from Queensland, Victoria and Sth Australia.
Someone had posted earlier that the Thames was easy to work on. They were a relatively simple engine. The main trouble we had was injector pumps and pipes, gearboxes and clutches. We always kept a couple of spare pumps and gearboxes in the workshop. To change a gearbox one bloke would stand with one foot on each chassis rail, a rope around his neck and around the gearbox. His able bodied assistant would lie under the truck and when the weight was taken would use his feet to push the gearbox free of the clutch housing and then help it to the ground. Slide the new one into position both lifting it up into about the right spot and then gliding it back in. Easy enough to do on the side of the road.
Each of our trucks usually had a supply of spare injector pipes in the toolbox but the one that had cracked near the connecting nut was never one of the ones you had. But they were all the same length so you just had to carefully bend it back into the shape you wanted. Your main trouble was when you were trying to match the one you pulled out with the ones in the toolbox you finally realized that someone else had bent it into that shape last time it broke and that’s why it didn’t match any of the ones you had. Luckily many of the Fordson Tractors had the same pipes so that even in the more remote rural areas you could normally source a spare, even if it was slightly longer or shorter. Injectors would give up and you’d have to start from the front of the engine with the motor running disconnecting one injector pipe at a time until you found the one not working. We usually carried a spare of them too wrapped in an rag under the passengers seat.
One of our mighty Thames whilst coming down Cunninghams Gap, just west of Brisbane, broke the small shaft that drove the exhauster for the vacuum brakes. He wasn’t that far from the bottom but away the Thames went faster and faster until the driver couldn’t hold it in gear. He tells the story that he went past the Aratula Pub at the bottom of the Pass so quick in the Thames that it’s now 2 feet closer to Brisbane. But you all know what stories truck drivers tell. The Thames was renown for it’s speed in ‘Angel gear’ (neutral) coming off big hills. It was the fastest gear in the box…and so quiet too.
I’ve got a couple more photos. But I’ve got to say that some of the ones on this site are the prettiest Thames I’ve seen, beautifully presented, with both paintwork and bodies in excellent condition. Ours were never pretty trucks, they had to earn a living, and it was a tough life for a Thames doing, on average, about 1500 miles a week. I hope you’ve enjoyed my Dad’s Ford Thames Trader stories.
I’ve got a question for you though. You might note on the Thames with the Chrysler Royals that we had to have our trucks fitted with a mechanical ‘hand’ for indicating both stop and right hand turns. Was this the case in England? I know that eventually ‘blinkers’ took over completely and the need was removed from the road regs. When did it happen over there, if ever?
Tunnels.
When i worked at Richard Reads he owned a Trader tipper delivering his quarry products.The driver came in to the garage complaining about the brakes.When i jacked up the rear axle I could turn the wheel with the handbrake ON! The brake drum was held but the drum had sheared where it was mounted on the hub 
hi Tunnels how did you load the cars on the top deck ? cheers mark
Or better still how in Hell did he get them down ■■?, There must be a logical answer to this, come on tell us , & put us out of our missery, Everbody wants to know the end result, so come on & spill the beans, before I get ■■■■■■ & go to my bed, Regards Larry PS Not ■■■■■■ yet but getting there.
G’day Lads,
The bottom deck we just drove on from a ramp in our yard. The top deck were all craned on. Ford in Sydney had a Coles Crane, a big square box on big wheels. Do you remember them? They were, for their time, very smooth and efficient. The cars would just have a hard-wood bearer covered in rubber placed under the front and back, behind the wheels, and up they’d go. The crane would then roll forward until you could slowly lower the cars back down into the buckets. The Anglia photo shows best how they were carried.
The photo with the 3 D Models and the Capri shows that we just drove the first on, backed the second, craned the third on and chained them all down. We found that putting the drive axle tyres directly on top of the lower trucks tyres was a good way to move them. They never moved with the tyres doing a good job of holding them in place. The Capri was simply craned up and slowly lowered onto hardwood bearers that were placed across the chassis rails of the D Model. The Capri was them secured to the D Model, and not the trailer, with ropes. Same in reverse at the other end. They traveled like that with little movement over 500 miles. You just needed to get them down tight as you loaded them. A long bit of old steam pipe over the handle of the “dog” on the chain helped ensure that. To protect the chassis rails from damage we had light commercial truck tyres cut up into segments that we just fitted over the rails. You’ll see an example of the two F Series trucks (you’ll note that one actually being a Ford Motor Co prime mover)and the tilted one having the rubber protectors over the rails to stop chain damage. Likewise the front axle of the D Model, balanced with the Capri on it’s back, sat on the same rubber protectors.
We got pretty good at stacking them on. Dad had been doing it for years as a lot of Ford products came out from England in only partly assembled form as car bodies only, like shells. I’ll find an old photo for you. You’ll recognise the late 40’s and early 50’s Prefects, Anglias and Consuls. Sometimes with the trucks you’d also have to remove all the light fittings and brackets at the rear so you could overlap the chassis rails to save a bit of space. To achieve that you just backed the second truck on and up onto blocks of wood, or lifted the first truck with a crane and then lowered it down onto the second truck when you had it in place. Overhangs at the front and rear of the trailer was very commonplace. A lot of miles were done at night-time to avoid too much attention.
Hope this helps.
Tunnels - and like Lawrence, enjoying a beer - Sydney was about 30c with alight breeze today. Beautiful.
Tunnels thanks for that very interesting …mark
Them frames dont look that sturdy tunnels, steady as she gos round corners I would think.
Seen quite a few Tranporters last time I was in aus don`t think they have moved on that much 
Quite a bit different to the 12 car ones in UK
Any more pics & stories be of interest its geat to see how its done in other parts of the world
Hi, All
I liked Tunnels story about inching past the truck you was passing and waitlng for just the right time for the next gear. It reminded of talking to a Hanson’s of Wakefield ( remember that lovely fleet of Atkinson 8 wheelers)driver. They would pass anybody anywhere and the Woodhead road was a good example, he said if they were following you and you were both running in Paddies Overdrive , they would watch for the puff of smoke from your exhaust ,which told them you had gone back into gear and if they had got room they would count to 10 go back into gear and come round you . It was rare to see one of Hanson’s at the back of a line of traffic.
Cheers Bassman
Smiles for Miles operated a lot of these Thames Trader 6 Wheeler tippers both double & single drive, The were hard worked motors in those days & stood up to some rough terrain jobs, Some were problems some were not But Owl Tommy (The Bull) Smiles allways reckoned they were good motors, & earned their keep, Regards Larry , Photo with the courtesy of my Cousin Diane Smiles.
Lawrence Dunbar:
0Smiles for Miles operated a lot of these Thames Trader 6 Wheeler tippers both double & single drive, The were hard worked motors in those days & stood up to some rough terrain jobs, Some were problems some were not But Owl Tommy (The Bull) Smiles allways reckoned they were good motors, & earned their keep, Regards Larry , Photo with the courtesy of my Cousin Diane Smiles.
What a great shot Larry,basking in the sunlight,I could just climb into the cab,“where am I loading” ? and I would treat it with “kid gloves” just let it gan canny eh!,we’ll dee the same wark as any Atky or ERF I’ll gaurantee !! Cheers Dennis.
You’re right Greek,
Things in Oz are still pretty restricted, mainly because of State regulations re length of the vehicle. Road Trains have of course existed out here for many years but mainly aimed at moving large numbers of minerals, cattle and stock, not so much cars. The other issue of course is the size of the average ‘family car’ in Oz. Until the last two or three years it has been a Holden Commodore (your Vauxhall SS ■■) or a Ford Falcon, both vehicles bigger all round, than say, a Ford Mondeo. And of course the car carriers have had to be designed to carry these bigger cars rather than smaller ones. These days the biggest selling car is the Holden Cruze, the Mazda 3 or Toyota Corolla. But the car carriers have still needed to be built to carry the larger numbers of existing bigger vehicles. Between Syd, Melb and Brisbane we’ve had B Doubles (an A and B combination of trailers — basically, and to put it into simple terms - the first trailer can carry a 20 foot container, the second 2 x 20 foot containers)running as car carriers and they are about to trial B triples, but of course you’ve got to get someone to invest in the engineering. And once you get off the main roads or freeways in Oz it’s pretty much single lane each way highways, many not suitable for longer vehicles.
In the late 40’s my Dad started carrying cars interstate across Australia. He bought an ex army Ford Hercules, with a 4 cylinder Perkins. He took the first load of double decker cars to Perth in about 1950, a 10 week return trip. (It was about the same time I was born and my family has always been of the opinion that the two things happening is more than just coincidence!) The road from western NSW all the way to Perth was dirt in those days. He even had to cart his own fuel to make it between towns. Then he moved up to a Leyland Comet 90, and then into Ford F600 series (the F600 in the photo was taken just outside Melb in about 1956 and the road is the Hume Highway, the BEST interstate road at the time - you can imagine what the worst looked like) before buying into the Thames Traders. I’ve attached a couple of photos of those trucks. You’ll recognise the old Ford Prefects and Anglias, sedans, utes and convertibles car bodies. Very classy. The photo shows Dad and his mate Les Howell making like ‘bush-rangers’. On the back of one you’ll probably recognise a Leyland Comet bus chassis. The running gear was fitted to the car bodies at the other Ford plants. And a little bit of overhang didn’t matter all that much. Dad even got pulled up by the Police in the very early fifties because his truck… “was lit up like a circus”- yes, he had three side clearance lights down each side of the trailer and two at the back.
And with the loads we also had our share of accidents. A new driver decided he could make it under the Parramatta railway bridge with a load of car panels. The truck was one of our K Models. He almost made it — after he had squashed all the top crates.
Anyway, a couple of more historic photos for your interest/enjoyment.
Tunnels.
Evening all, what a superb thread, and great pictures,and Tunnells contributions top it all nicely!!
I shall sit here with a nice chilled Bollinger,and start reading, and enjoying the whole lot again!!
Thank you all, it is superb, Cheerio for now.
Another Smiles for Miles Trader, The foreman fitter Harry Pearson, & Smiler himself Tommy (The Bull) Smiles , In te depot at Blucher, Photo with the courtesey of my cousin Diane Smiles, Regards Larry.
Great story Sydney to Perth ,Tunnels, could imagine the drivers of today doing it , no sleeper , no aircon, nobody to fix it, no tyre man,
You mentioned the roads last time in oz did Cairns to Sydney wih a camper still not a lot of Freeway little bit Brisbane & another few miles before dropping down to Sydney, me doing 60mph & double bs steaming past on the Bruce highway frightened the life out of the wife :laughing: Seeing a pic of a Trader as a double b would prob be the 8th wonder of the world dont suppose youve got one :laughing: Great stories mate keep em coming ,with the pics. Company I am with at the minute trialing new length semi trailers, at the minute the length limit for normal semi trailers haulage in UK & europe is 13.6 metre, but with permisions from the traffic authoritiess we and a few other firms using 14.6 & 15.6, overall lengths atric & wagon & drags roundabout 18 mtres. There is a firm being trying to introduce db,s over here but ministry wont touch it
Greek, your trip to Oz sounds great. Yeah, you don’t get used to the B Doubles easily as they can do 110 kph, which is the speed limit on the freeways, and 100 kph on ordinary country highways. But owners are coming up with new combinations of an extended rigid truck, pulling a dolly with an A and B combinations. Road Trains are worse, particularly on outback dirt roads, or roads that have bitumen, but only wide enough for two cars to pass. They just stay in the centre and on the tar and you have to get off in the dirt and hang on until they go past. The alternative is not good. If they’re forced to go off in the dirt and if they’ve got say a triple tri-axle trailer set up plus two dolly’s that’s 14 to 16 axles of 4 tyres each = about 60+ tyres, throwing rocks and dust at you at 90-110 kph. And until the dust settles you can’t see what else there might be out there already coming at you. You give them the road, willingly. Size is might out there in the bush.
The road to Adelaide in the early fifties was mainly dirt. Dad took Mum once on a trip in the Leyland Comet and of course the Hay Plain flooded. For 5 days they were stopped with several other trucks on the slightly higher ground, up out of the mud. They quickly ran out of food they had on them so they had to eat their loads, eating fruit and veggies mainly. Plates were made up of hub caps off the old KB6 Internationals. Dad had a load of wool so that didn’t help much. And being the only woman things were tough for Mum, but she still reckons that she was treated very well by all the other drivers. But as the photo below shows there wasn’t much cover for a bit of privacy for anyone on the Hay Plain.
I don’t think you realise what a great reaction you and your mates have given to me, and my family. Many of these photos have sat in an old album unseen by anybody for probably 30 years and it’s been great to share them with you. I didn’t mean to make an epic out of a simple post. I came across your site by accident when my brother mentioned he’d seen an old Trader in a paddock and had started to ask the farmer how much he wanted for it. I Googled “Thames Trader” and found you lot. It’s been great. I’ll spoil you with a couple more.
Tunnels.
Great pics Tunnels keep em coming, lots of Comets & Traders been restored over here . I do quite a few vintage Truck & steam rallies & show an old Ford Transit Camper I restored. Anglia`s bring back memories passed my car test in one 1967 good pic of the zepher a car I always liked.
Wool brings back memories used to do quite a bit out of southern Uk ports up to lancashire & Yorkshire what we call Handball no bloody forklifts 
Hi Greek are you going to the BRUNTON Show this Oct, 20/21st, I taking Colin Hoggs 4 Wheeler Austin drop sider K2. Im going on the Sunday & I hope to see a lot of my old driving pals there, Crowbar may be going too, Regards Larry.