was following a lorry and the company was founded in 1954 and as i was double manning the conversation terned to what whoud they have been driving?
redear:
was following a lorry and the company was founded in 1954 and as i was double manning the conversation terned to what whoud they have been driving?
Brand new AEC Mammoth Major if they were lucky.
Carryfast:
redear:
was following a lorry and the company was founded in 1954 and as i was double manning the conversation terned to what whoud they have been driving?Brand new AEC Mammoth Major if they were lucky.
Hiya…very lucky is the word carryfast ,more likly Ex MOD leylands, many of the tanker firms seemed to run Scammell highwayman
and as said plenty of 20/30 year old AEC,s.somthing like these … 32/35mph and no motorways these 8 legger AEC,s was still
in use up untill the mid 60,s
John
It depends on what type of work the firm was doing.In 1954 there were a lot of British lorry builders,as well as the American owned Bedford and Ford,which were built in the UK.Also as 3300John says a lot of ex MOD lorries around.
I remember the firm my Dad drove for having a new A type Bedford in 1953,followed by three S type Bedfords in 1954 with the Perkins R6 engine in them,which if I remember correctly were the first diesel engined vehicles they bought.
Cheers Dave.
Dave the Renegade:
It depends on what type of work the firm was doing.In 1954 there were a lot of British lorry builders,as well as the American owned Bedford and Ford,which were built in the UK.Also as 3300John says a lot of ex MOD lorries around.
I remember the firm my Dad drove for having a new A type Bedford in 1953,followed by three S type Bedfords in 1954 with the Perkins R6 engine in them,which if I remember correctly were the first diesel engined vehicles they bought.
Cheers Dave.
you are right there dave I spent a lot of time as a kid with my dad this was late 50s early 60s in Otype A type Stype bedfords , thames 4d kew dodge a seddon artic with scammel coupling , there certainly were a lot of ex military stuff about the army version of the O type called I think an OM with the big square bonnet and all these bedford variants I recall were in artic form again with scammel coupling these bedfords were mainly petrol engined in fact our local coal man had an A type artic and two O type flats and these would be full of cwt sacks which would all be sold down my street in day when they came , and your right dave most tankers were scammels , then in 1960 a new tk bedford which to me seemed space age compared to the previous bedfords. fred
my dads lorrys early 50s-alan
hiya,
The LAD cabbed stuff started in the fifty’s everybody had Albions (a favourite of mine) and Leylands there was even pre-war stuff still knocking about, i kicked off as a civilian driver in 1957 and one of my earliest lorries was a 19 year old eight legged Maudslay after a good night’s kip you could walk faster there was plenty of Bedfords, Morris Commercial’s all sorts of Fords, still plenty of Thorneycroft, Atkinson, ERF, Scammell was still an individual identity, lots of the Foden marque and my favourite lorry of all time AEC, and Seddon plenty of them yes there was others but not so prolific as the above.
thanks harry long retired.
harry_gill:
hiya,
The LAD cabbed stuff started in the fifty’s everybody had Albions (a favourite of mine) and Leylands there was even pre-war stuff still knocking about, i kicked off as a civilian driver in 1957 and one of my earliest lorries was a 19 year old eight legged Maudslay after a good night’s kip you could walk faster there was plenty of Bedfords, Morris Commercial’s all sorts of Fords, still plenty of Thorneycroft, Atkinson, ERF, Scammell was still an individual identity, lots of the Foden marque and my favourite lorry of all time AEC, and Seddon plenty of them yes there was others but not so prolific as the above.
thanks harry long retired.
As you say Harry there was a lot of old lorries still working in the 50’s,and also in the 60’s,until the testind and plating law came in 1968.That put most of the older stuff off the road.I think that started the end of the British lorries as they were mostly outdated and the Scandinavian moters started to come in.
Cheers Dave.
Here is my 1954 fordson ET6
Lovely old truck oxo3 ! Is that the one with the starter lever on the floor that you pulled up ? Use to work on them as an apprentice !
oxo3:
thats a lovely little lorry mate credit to you, in the 60s when I was still at school I worked for a cousin of mine he had a big breakers yard in hendon opposite the dog track now long gone and we broke up loads of 4ds and we built a lot of breakdown trucks out of them I really learnt to drive in them around the yard they had the same type of drive train as the sit up and beg poplars and prefects with the prop shaft encased in a long tube , the original batteries on them was in between the two seats and was enormous twice the size of a normal battery most people put a piece of wood on it to make a 3rd seat my old man drove a tipper 4d in the 50s , the deisel engines all went for export they did a 4 pot petrol and a v8 flat head someone told me it was the ford pilot engine but I could not confirm that, nice to see one in that condition it has brought back lots of memories for me, cheers fred
Hi , Yes starter lever on floor and lift to start, Battery box inbetween seats with wooden lid to sit on.
Nev
1954 Would have been a lot of BRS stuff and early Scammel 8s Type 22/24 Leylands Parrot nosed comets with the Briggs type cabs Atkinsons Fodens
ERF and Stype Bedfords and Fordsons Morris Commercials The first continentals would have been the Mercs and Maggies
.
Removal van- Morris? Altho Commer would make more sense.
A lot more bonnetted vehicles around in 1950’s and starting handles were still in use. The Eight Wheeler was King of the Road as Artics were in their infancy, pre Motorways so the amount of roundabouts and cross roads from the North to South/East to West was uncountable but at the legal speed limit of 20 MPH (didn’t change to 30 until 1957 except rigid and trailer still at 20 mph and didn’t change to 30, 40 and 70 until 1967) plenty of Five Pound fines in those days then!
Weight Limits, 2 axle Rigid 14 Ton (proper weight, not this tonne stuff) 3 and 4 axle Rigids, 20 and 24 Ton. Drawbar jobs 4 Axles 32 Ton, Artics 3 and 4 Axles, 20 and 24 Ton, so you can see why the Wagon and Drag were popular then although limited to 10 mph slower. Vehicle lengths, in 1955 4 to 8 Wheelers, 30ft 0in, Drawbar Trailer, 22ft 0in.(that’s not including the drawbar itself) Rigid and Trailer, 60ft 0in and Artics 35ft 0in. Up to 1955 4 Wheelers had been 27ft 6in.
So when you look at the facts things are a whole lot different, not to mention ropes and sheets, clearing houses, handballing, calling from phone boxes, booking digs, travelling in convoy, HELPING EACH OTHER and lots of others no doubt you can think of that doesn’t happen today! Don’t mention wages! Cheers Franky.
These Dodges were popular during the 50s with quite a few tipper operators (know as the parrot nose) I served my apprenticeship on these models & the LADs.
JOHN
My long gone dad bought one of these Ford 4D’s new in 1956,the year I was born.My brother past his test in it in 1961 at Rochdale, I have only one memory of riding in it, to the old Manchester Abattoir on Water Street.I’m told it was marketed as a 3 tonner which could occasionally be extended to 5tons.Undoubtedly it would have been operating at the latter most of the time, especially already burdened with a wooden Cattle body.Brake fade was not unusual coming back down Blackstone Edge and the A62 and A59 Blubberhouses were also regular routes.It was supplied by Nunns at Lower Broughton who also fitted a nearside mirror after he had been stopped by the Police for not having one,it must have been legal when it was sold though.It had some major breakdowns no doubt due to the job it was on but must have been the limit of his budget at the time, nevertheless it did 5 years before he switched to Morris 7tonners which gave few problems.Ifound out just a few years back that the first wagon he had, which would be in 1950 when he went on his own, was an ex WD Morris or Austin 4x2 type.The local Bodybuilders were Warburtons and they built a cattle body up from the original dropside body,part of their premises still exists and the Nunns site does also though not selling vehicles.
We had a Thames 4D as a cattle truck, it came to us 2nd hand & I remember thinking it was big, when you look at them now you realise how things have moved on.
My late brother went on to drive a forward control Thames Trader for Troughtons Transport, they were cattle hauliers & ran two of them, for some reason I seem to remember one was quite a bit bigger than the other. Were there different models of the Thames Trader other than the 4D & 6D for engine size.
BB