Sand storms were uncommon at KKMC as we were in the middle of the desert. Best place to be was inside it was terrible if you got caught out the sand would get every where,in your eyes, ears, you would have to cover your mouth to breath with your t-shirt. It could last for hours.
Roundabout in Dammam if I remember it was by the port. Jona
Me sitting on the Gulf.Jona
Jona, that is one serious roundabout! How often were they that large?
Sent from my Hol-U19 using Tapatalk
The improvement that I see from Jona,s photos is remarkable , the photo of that island ? The area is not familiar to me , but reminds me of the football stadium !! In Jeddah , the right turn at the traffic lights , for Dammam , and Left for Al Kohbar at the end of the port road will have certainly benefited the Trucks, if that is where the island is? I remember a 60 ft 2x2 car transporter that had tipped over with a load of Mini buses on I had never seen so much glass on the road ,we could just get round it ,this was because of the driver turning to tight on this right turn . The chanty town cardboard city was a terrible sight on the left side coming back from the docks, about 2miles by 1/2 mile deep !!! they built a 8ft high wall of concrete blocks in double quick time for a good Mile or so to hide it from the Queen when she docked at Dammam with the Royal Yacht Britannia , I think it was in 79 - 80 and then traveling along this road with the King. East side of Saudi was at this time still iffy ? But 100times better than Jeddah , Ron ,
Jona:
Roundabout in Dammam if I remember it was by the port. Jona
I think that this roundabout must have been after my time. I left in '87, and although I hadn’t driven a truck for a long time then I still often visited the port.
In my day when you left the port there was a causeway, at least a couple of miles long before you got to the Dammam - Khobar road. There were traffic lights there. Also the railway from the port to Riyadh crossed both highways around that point. I don’t remember the exact layout. I don’t think there were any actual crossing gates for the railway. There may have been red flashing lights. I seem to remember the loco had endlessly jangling bells and a moaning hooter, but I could be wrong. The trains were so long , 5 or 10 minutes of wagons, that many drivers risked death to pass in front of it! Now I’ve posted the photo below, maybe there were barriers! Perhaps the jangling bells were the crossing and the low moan was the loco?
I know Merlin has said on here about his efforts to get a grossly overloaded ERF A series shunter with no windscreen to stop at those lights.
There were always two queues by the time you got to the lights, whichever direction you were taking, no self respecting Arab would ever miss an opportunity to overtake! Our yard was through the lights, turn right down a bumpy untarmacced road. Unfortunately, this was seen as a shortcut to the other Dammam Khobar Highway, so was to say the least, popular!
I remember waiting at those lights and revving the engine slightly. The Arab next to me set off without realising that the lights were still red! He only just stopped in time to avoid being wiped out by the stream of Dammam bound traffic. Not a happy man. I struggled not to laugh while he told me what he thought of me with his hands and facial expressions. Then the lights changed and I was forgotten as he moved into ‘Me First’ gear!
Happy days, John.
That train ! disappeared into a clouds of dust as it gathered speed down the track ,the level crossing on the Dammam road was the only one that I saw ,I can’t remember it crossing another road in The East of Saudi ? May be one in Hufuf ? I don’t think the train got to Riyhad , the dunes coverd the roads in parts of the East so how troublesome would it be to the train ? The sand was continuance ,And the wear on the rolling stock must be tremendous, Ron
Those Trans Arabia photos that Jona has put on are great and fresh ,look how clean the street looks , even with out stories I went straight back to those years I spent with all the lads, it’s good to see Jerry in 111 ,Gogi,s name on the ERF and Nelson with his pride & joy 116 ,also Hamid looking out of the doorway he was just a kid , now he’s a man , we use to sit him in a chair and make him watch some raunchy movies on the TV , he held his hands over his eyes and would not look ? But gradually he squinted through and started to enjoy the film ,he took some magazines on his first leave !! To the Yeman , And when he got back he said they burnt them Ha Har , this was T/A Ron ,
ronhawk:
That train ! disappeared into a clouds of dust as it gathered speed down the track ,the level crossing on the Dammam road was the only one that I saw ,I can’t remember it crossing another road in The East of Saudi ? May be one in Hufuf ? I don’t think the train got to Riyhad , the dunes coverd the roads in parts of the East so how troublesome would it be to the train ? The sand was continuance ,And the wear on the rolling stock must be tremendous, Ron
Made me think there Ron. The train definitely went to Riyadh. I googled mapped it to see where it went, and there’s a station in Dammam and one in Riyadh. There were passenger trains too, American aluminium corrugated sides, shiny silver. Allegedly air conditioned too. Pulled as I remember by the same locos as the freight trains.
However, having said that I can raise no memory of either the Dammam or the Riyadh stations. Maybe we never went near them.
I knew the rail line went well south of the old Riyadh road - it went through Hofuf, and then well down before cutting across north of Al Kharj. There’s a branch line to Al Kharj.
Which makes me wonder. You remember the Behring containers we used to sell. These were 'last journey ’ 20 foots mostly. They contained supplies for the Saudi military. They went on the train directly from the port to either Riyadh or Al Kharj. I always thought Riyadh, but seeing the branch line to Al Kharj, I’m not so sure. I think there was a military base there. When they were empty, they were shipped back to Dammam and I can see on the map the spur on the track where we used to unload them almost next door to our yard.
John.
John … that DAF looks familiar was it an Owner driver working internal (UK plates)…I remember camping up a few times with one similar from memory I think he was a Welshman ■■
Mah salahm
backsplice:
John … that DAF looks familiar was it an Owner driver working internal (UK plates)…I remember camping up a few times with one similar from memory I think he was a Welshman ■■Mah salahm
Salaam Aleikuum Backsplice.
The Daf was an overland vehicle. It belonged to ‘G&G Transporters’ otherwise known as Geoff and Ginger. They were (and still are) from South Bank, Middlesbrough, and the stories of their impoverished childhood would tear at your heart. ‘Sugar sandwiches’ to stave off hunger. However, Geoff’s now a multimillionaire - night clubs, property. Gingers ok too, he’s in his seventies but still sells cars.
They had travelled overland in Ginger’s Daf, to await their driver, who had Geoff’s truck, with a large quantity of whisky and other alcohol at the front off his trailer. They had devised a plan for getting it through customs into Saudi. Unfortunately, the driver changed some counterfeit Deutschmarks in Germany and was caught and went to prison for 2 years. The truck was impounded, but eventually returned to them with the alcohol - and now rotting crisps, the covering load, intact.
So Geoff and Ginger started doing internals in Jeddah. This went well until Ginger borrowed a ‘cherry picker’ and bent it rather badly!
They decided to quickly head for Dammam, having heard that Peter Best and Trevor Cooper, whom they knew from overland, were pulling out of Sealand. They arrived just as the job was winding down, Sealand had shipped Dodges and Autocars from New York and Philippinos to drive them.
This was where I first met them. They (and I) were lucky, Tom Crumrine, operations manager at Sealand, had met Alan Newhouse, The owner of Behring shipping, in the Rezayat Motel. Behring had a ship full of containers and trailers coming into Dammam. He had a joint venture with Ali Al Ghoson, called Caravan trading and had done a deal with Simon International to provide trucking - but only about two Simon trucks had arrived at that point.
Ali and Alan arrived at our rag tag and bobtail camp, just outside the Sealand gates and asked if we were interested in pulling their freight - just until Simon International got into gear…
They never did, I’ve told the story on the Simon thread.
That was the start of a nine year career with Caravan for me. Geoff and Ginger left after a couple of years. The Daf was sold to Caravan and repainted in their colours. It was originally Daf grey, as per this photo, taken by Simon’s driver ‘Skipvitesse’. I hope he won’t mind me pinching it from the ‘Middle East, not Astran’ thread.
John.
Thanks John … now ,m pretty sure i caught up with Ginger a couple of times and passed him heading in the opposite direction a few times too …one time in particular the first time in fact it was mid 78 …there were a couple of us SARAMAT lads parked up we were having a cuppa when a Cunard ERF pulled up to join us not long after that this DAF pulled up and the driver baled out at high speed run up to the back of his trailer only to squat between the bogies with a sigh of relief…suffering from “King Fisals Revenge” from drinking local water ■■? although I,m not 100% sure I can picture it quite vividly …sounds like it could have been Ginger ■■? … don,t know where the Welshman came from !!! it was a long time ago now but still remains on the hard drive !!! whats left !!
Mah Salahm
The rail link from Dammam to Riyadh was built by ARAMCO in 1950 a Length of 357 miles , it was found that the train rolling stock had excess wear on the wheels shoulders caused by the sand storm that it created when picking up speed ,this is still a problem to this day, the tracks now cover 865 miles , I have watched this train disappear Into it own storm ,and wandered how did it combat the sand ? The photo shows the machines used to hoover the tracks ,the natural sand storms are that fine it was like talcum powder in Khobar , and the visibility was Zero at its worst , aparantly the trains do have problems and a number of passengers have been injured and killed , they say it’s safer to travel by Road ? I can’t belive that , Ron
Fascinating. Thanks Ron.
Sent from my Hol-U19 using Tapatalk