They then of course insisted on returning the favour.
Normally I prefer to remain anonymous when on the internet, but, as I reckon you are a trustworthy bunch, here is the picture they took of me, seen here beside TA Kenworth 137. So finally properly introduced and for anyone who has not yet guessed dhtriyadh is in fact David Taylor, TA Riyadh Manager from 1982 to 1986.
Ronnie … nice to see someone new here …I thought you and me were the last of the Mohicans , popping on some info that was passed on to me but can,t remember who or where and a couple of SARAMAT pics from the beginning …I must be the kast survivor of my tribe no more have surfaced and there was a big crew there ■■?
Massive ME link-up
SARAMAT, said to be the largest haulage fleet in Saudi Arabia, has gone into action with 400 12m trailers and 80 Volvo F89 tractice units to deliver exports from Europe.
The company, Saudi Arabian Road and Maritime Transport — Saramat — is already operating two ro-ro ships into Jeddah with a throughput of 240 trailers a month, soon to be increased.
Vehicles are employed taking loads arriving on the ships from Venice via Piraeus at Jeddah, and on to destinations in the Middle East.
The company employs British and Greek drivers with some Muslims who have access to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, otherwise denied to Christians.
Saramat is offering guaranteed delivery dates with penalty clauses for lateness, and the company says that it is the first to give such guarantees for desert routes.
A spokesman for Saramat said that having both ships and vehicles under one control made for a systematic and controlled flow of cargo from the Jeddah port terminal, which has quarters for 250 personnel including 90 drivers based there.
dhtriyadh:
They then of course insisted on returning the favour.Normally I prefer to remain anonymous when on the internet, but, as I reckon you are a trustworthy bunch, here is the picture they took of me, seen here beside TA Kenworth 137. So finally properly introduced and for anyone who has not yet guessed dhtriyadh is in fact David Taylor, TA Riyadh Manager from 1982 to 1986.
0
So Mr Taylor you have finally broke cover - welcome.
I’m ken Broster the guy who set up TA in 76. I guess you took over from Charles Fussell who set up Riyadh depot and that you would have been working for Michael Carmichael? Did you enjoy your time in Saudi?
Thanks for the new pictures, nice to see photos of the Kenworths - interestingly they were £10k cheaper each than the equivalent ERF - purely exchange rates. How did the Kenworths perform?
Kind regards
Ken b
backsplice:
Ronnie … nice to see someone new here …I thought you and me were the last of the Mohicans , popping on some info that was passed on to me but can,t remember who or where and a couple of SARAMAT pics from the beginning …I must be the kast survivor of my tribe no more have surfaced and there was a big crew there ■■?Massive ME link-up
SARAMAT, said to be the largest haulage fleet in Saudi Arabia, has gone into action with 400 12m trailers and 80 Volvo F89 tractice units to deliver exports from Europe.
The company, Saudi Arabian Road and Maritime Transport — Saramat — is already operating two ro-ro ships into Jeddah with a throughput of 240 trailers a month, soon to be increased.
Vehicles are employed taking loads arriving on the ships from Venice via Piraeus at Jeddah, and on to destinations in the Middle East.
The company employs British and Greek drivers with some Muslims who have access to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, otherwise denied to Christians.
Saramat is offering guaranteed delivery dates with penalty clauses for lateness, and the company says that it is the first to give such guarantees for desert routes.
A spokesman for Saramat said that having both ships and vehicles under one control made for a systematic and controlled flow of cargo from the Jeddah port terminal, which has quarters for 250 personnel including 90 drivers based there.
Interesting - I remember the yard being set up and the new Volvos arriving including 2 recover trunks and wondering who SARAMAT was! Who was the Saudi partner? Their was another company that set up about the same time with a large fleet of volvos called MATS - Grey Mackenzie in London were a partner.
SARAMAT operation was set up by an ex British Army chap - he lives in a local village close to me in Cheshire.
Ron’s comment about us only having the cloths we stood up in was very true - TA was set up with £100k in 1976, we were out there in the commercial market getting work although our Saudi partner gave a lot of local work ie pulling hundreds of loaded containers etc out of the port into there warehouses.
I guess it cost millions to set up SARAMAT - I wonder if they ever made any money.
Whilst I was there we never ran out of cash, paid our bills and the partners got a good dividend!!
Keep smiling
Ken b
There seems to have been a lot of Brit-based companies hauling cargo out of Jeddah port at that time! In addition to Trans Arabia and SARAMAT; there was CAMEL (Cunard Arabia Middle East Line) which ran blue & white ERF B-series and NGCs; and Falcon Freight which ran five ERF NGCs. There was also Caravan Trucking which ran ERFs out of Dammam but must have made trips in and out of Jeddah from what I remember of earlier discussions.
CAMEL ERFs
Well thats better ? You had me flummoxed ! ( dhtriyadh ) I looked up dare devil motor cyclist in Saudi to no avail ? But I would loved to have a chance to ride that 750 up and down Tief what a blast that could have been , its good to know you are one of us Ron
Hello Ken Broster,
Yours is a name I heard so often. For about the first year everyone I met asked “Do you know Ken Broster”. Looking back I don’t know why I should have jumped to this conclusion, but, at the time, I assumed you had left Saudi because you were retiring. The pictures of you gave me quite a shock. Charles Fussell is a name I do not remember ever hearing. I took over from Roger Norton, after all this time I cannot remember how long he had been in post. There was another manager with him (I never met this guy and only remember the nickname he was given, which I will keep to myself) he left in late 1982. Roger left during the spring of 1983, leaving just me in the office. Dante Ferrer covered my leave in Riyadh and I covered for Campbell in Jeddah. You are almost right, the General Manager for the company overall, as I am sure you knew, was Ian, not Michael, Carmichael, or Mr Iron as the locals called him. The Michael in your slip is perhaps Michael Jones, interestingly his son worked for me in Brentford as a NFC / BRS management trainee before himself going out to work with Trans Arabia as his first job after completing his training.
I did very much enjoy my time in Saudi and the travelling I was able to do whilst on leave. But, I was very aware of being very lucky with the role and lifestyle I had, I do not think I could have lasted 3 years of the very restricted compound based lifestyle that most other European expats lived. Also the life I have lived since leaving TA would have been very different without the experience and bank balance I gained whilst there. I would not have been able to be a mature student or have had the jobs or been able to live in the places I have since then.
I thought all the TA trucks performed amazingly and I was serious about miracle repairs being done in that “workshop”. I do not recall any trucks being scrapped in my time, though a number of ERF 6x4 B series joined the fleet, though not brand new. I think the fleet totalled around 35 trucks at that time as I seem to recall on one occaision TA having the first 35 trucks in the queue to enter the port when it reopened at 14:00 to take in empties. Regarding the Kenworths in particular, they looked fantastic and I do not recall having to deal with any major repairs or any breakdowns of the Kenworths in Riyadh over the 3 years. You mention somewhere Ian Carmichael being ex Dawsons and therefore probably favouring Volvo. This might have been true on arrival, but, I can tell you that Ian also had great respect for the performance of the ERF’S and the ■■■■■■■ engines in particular during the conversations I had with him. I wish I could say more, but, in 3 years I never got behind the wheel of any TA truck, in retrospect, I wish I had.
I have other photos of characters from the TA offices that may not have been relevant to the Brit drivers, but, as you are on here I will dig them out. Finally I note you mention Bunbury at one point and I would like to say that the Dysart Arms, as I knew it in the late 80’s early 90’s was one of my top ten pubs of all time, many a superb Sunday lunch and far too many pints had there.
These have been posted before… but way back so it won,t do any harm reviving them ,as ERF NGC mentioned CAMEL here are a couple as good as you,ll get
Mah Salahm
Nice one Backsplice , your photos are the every day life we lived in KSA , And they revive the our 5 senses in technicolor , Ron
Hello dhtriyadh, that’s some memory to have in your garage whatever you do don’t sell it , I have sold some gems but traveled the world on the proceeds so no regrets , but the memories of motor cycling is something that I loved and still do to this day Ron
Hello David Taylor. I can’t remember whether we met or not. I was running Caravan Trading in Dammam when you were in Riyadh. We certainly ran to Riyadh and Jeddah every day, plus Khamis etc. Before I took over as transport manager I ran my own truck and went all over the ‘Magic Kingdom’ , including Khamis and even Sharourah. As well as the port work generated by Behring International, the American partner, we had a contract with Arabian Fibreglass and cut the tops off 40’ containers, then sheeted them to get extra height, as in this picture of our yard, taken maybe 1984. The Scania in the background was one of Duncan McCrae’s, who I understand has died recently. Martin Mears ran Dammam TA, but maybe that was slightly before your time? Our trailers weren’t heavy duty like yours, but it didn’t stop Martin from borrowing them when you had a shipment of drums in from BP - I used to cringe at the weights he put on them. Plus your old A series ERF had a job stopping at the lights at the end of the port causeway!
Did you know Antony Garnham-Wilkinson, SAM Riyadh? His brother ran the traffic office and there was also a guy called David who took over at Caravan, sometime after I left in 1987. Tony had a contract with a concrete pipe making firm and we used to subcontract them back to Dammam sometimes. I hated them, they were 8’ diameter. Unless you chained them down they wanted to roll off, but if you made them safe it tended to chafe the pipe edges, which they didn’t like. Definitely no win!
Hello John West,
I couldn’t say for certain if we met or not, but, it could only have been in Riyadh, I only passed through Dammam very briefly, a picture might help jog my memory. If you were with Caravan perhaps you knew Abdullah, who was with me as cook in Riyadh and had been with Caravan, he was quite a character.
Of the names you mention I know I never met Martin Mears or Tony Garnham-Wilkinson, but, I did know the brother you mention, who if I remember correctly, was Tim Garnham Wilkinson. We spoke fairly regularly but did not work together and perhaps were bidding for the same work. The other British expats I knew, working in transport in Riyadh at the time, were Ronnie Callan, a big scottish guy who was manager at Crescent and a welshman Idris Evans who managed Sparrows crane hire. Ronnie used to let me get repairs done in the Crescent workshop.
Good to hear from you.
DT
Now then Ron,
An electric Honda in 2000. Sounds like you were ahead of the game there. The photo looks like the original bike would have been in the K0 to K7 SOHC models from about 1970 to 1978 although the drilled ventilated discs do not look original. I assume you used a starter motor for the motor (but at 12 or 24 volt?) and a single speed gearing direct onto that massive rear sprocket. Was the trial and error with the sprocket in order to get the right speed range or to enable the motor to move the weight? Four lead acids are not light. But, the big question is, how did you control the flow of juice to the motor to regulate the motor revs?
Back in the early 1970’s when I was in my mid teens I was part of a group that restored old vehicles, including trucks buses and even trolleybuses. We also tried to build an electric car using welded box section chassis, and Morris Minor running gear. We used the motor from a milk float. I cannot remember if the batteries were starter batteries or proper traction batteries from the float. We never got around to any bodywork. The biggest problem was controlling the power. We had several attempts to devise a foot operated control similar to a tram hand control lever, but, it was always very crude and the car would leap away from standstill, the acceleration came in big chunks and was pretty scary. We were experimenting with thyristors when we all went our separate ways.
About 2011 Ford launched an electric Transit Connect in partnership with Azure Dynamics. The UK government funded a trial and bought about 15 of these, vans, but with rear seats and windows, for families to use and evaluate. We had one for 6 months and thought it was great. The success of the vehicle overstretched Azures finances and they folded the company. I have often tried to find out what happened to the vehicles.
DT
ERF-NGC-European:
Welcome to the forum dhtryadh! I held back in the hopes that Ron would give you a proper welcome first; and he didn’t disappoint!Your contributions will be valued by all on here.
Ro
Hi Ro,
Thanks for your welcome and comments. I am gradually finding my feet on this site and getting to know some of the characters. I noticed your comment to Ron about your writing books. Am I correct in assuming you are the author of the 2 Lorries of Arabia series of books. Excellent play on words by the way and I must be getting really dense as it completely went over my head until my wife pointed it out to me. Are the books still available anywhere, I would love to read them.
All the best
DT
dhtriyadh:
ERF-NGC-European:
Welcome to the forum dhtryadh! I held back in the hopes that Ron would give you a proper welcome first; and he didn’t disappoint!Your contributions will be valued by all on here.
Ro
Hi Ro,
Thanks for your welcome and comments. I am gradually finding my feet on this site and getting to know some of the characters. I noticed your comment to Ron about your writing books. Am I correct in assuming you are the author of the 2 Lorries of Arabia series of books. Excellent play on words by the way and I must be getting really dense as it completely went over my head until my wife pointed it out to me. Are the books still available anywhere, I would love to read them.
All the best
DT
Hello DT. Yes, all 3 ‘Lorries of Arabia’ books are available direct from the publisher at Old Pond. Second-hand ones appear on Amazon and ebay from time to time. Enjoy!
Ro
Hello dhtriyadh, although we are a generation apart ! I only wish that you lived next door ? We seem to have a lot in comen . My aprentership was with the Walsall bus comp which covered diesel & trolly buses ! Now all those years ago Mr Cox MD in the 50s filled the lower saloon of a trolly bus with 12volt batteries and taking the polls off the overhead power lines .We all got on board and drove this D/decker round the yard , that left me with a ember that must have glinted buried in my mind . Who knows ? Now how can one commemorate the year 2000 ■■ Searching for an electric motor ! I went to the co op milk factory !! there motors where as big as a dustbin Then a Mate of mine had a 24vol electric motor from a road sweeper the drove the brushes ! That was the catalyst for my electric bike It was strong and heavy , buying the rolling chassis of the Honda from a dealer in Tamworth I got to grips with the challenge !! I could go on forever !! But in the end the bike was ready for its test , with the control through the twist grip the power was controlled very smoothly connected to a posentator etc etc round and round the block I drove it felt good but like you said heavy .Then venturing out onto the Chester road I went to Browhills tuning left through to Rushall and back through Aldridge to Streetly it was really good but coming to the traffic light on red I only had enough power to pull away and got home safely some 12miles in all top speed at 38 mph and up Shireocks hill at 30 mph , Thank for your interest dhtriyadh, you are the first t to inquire
Hi Ron,
I suspect we have taken a sharp left turn off topic here, but, lets hope the other guys don’t mind too much.
Getting your bike on the road was a fantastic achievement, you must have felt like the Clive Sinclair of Walsall. I realise your electric motorbike project was a hobby and you were not intending to go into mass production but I will ask you these questions anyway. Your method of using a potentiometer connecting to a twist grip would give you the smooth control of the power, but, then begs these questions. Where did you get a sufficiently heavy duty one to carry that sort of current and have a decent service life, many are only designed as volume controls for radios etc. Secondly, did this arrangement not generate a lot of heat and so consume much of your battery capacity and so reduce the range. The old tramcar solution was to use a sequence of separate circuits, rather than one continuous rheostat, each having progressively less resistance and finally a parallel circuit with virtually no resistance for cruising speed. From the 1960’s onward this type of controller was replaced by solid state circuitry using thyristors.
I mentioned a preservation group I was involved with in the early 1970’s. We were given a donation by the heavy haulage firm Elliots of York. The donation was a 1944 Scammell Highwayman tractor unit that had a special place in the preservation world having brought several trams, on a low loader, to the Tramway Museum at Crich. Elliots wanted to keep its Gardner 6LXB engine so our first task was to exchange it for a lower powered Gardner 6LW. The Highwayman had an optional power take off on the back of the gearbox and hand throttle control. This feature made it popular with fairground operators and a variant was marketed as the Showtrac aimed at such showmen. We fitted the power take off and used v belts to drive a trolleybus motor mounted where the 5th wheel normally sits, wired in reverse to generate 500 volts DC. This was output through switch gear on a heavy duty insulated control panel positioned above the towing bracket. Next we fabricated a swan neck towbar using 3 inch steel pipe, reinforced in the angles with steel gussets, with a hitch at one end and a prop shaft universal joint at the other. The universal joint had twin steel plates that were bolted to either side of the front beam axle of the vehicle to be towed. In 1972 Britains first, and last trolleybus operation closed in Bradford and a fledgling trolleybus museum was started at Sandtoft. During the course of 1972 to 1974 we used the Scammell to collect a number of trolleybuses from locations across Britain and deliver them into Sandtoft. We towed them on the road but powered them up using the generator for close manoeuvring into sheds or parking spaces. We also acted as official breakdown tender for a couple of the HCVC London to Brighton rallies and completed the HCVC Trans pennine Sheffield to Manchester rally whilst towing a Rotherham trolleybus. This was all voluntary effort on a non commercial basis.
Its not exactly Trans Arabia but I reckon there is a similar spirit of ingenuity at work here.
Hi dhtriyadh ime sure the other lads don’t mind the diversion? It as good as writing exmas cards !! The power was distributed in that box above the the motor ,when I opened the throttle this sent a currant to that box which sent a steady 24 volts to the motor , I had no problem with over heating see photo
