HI NICE ONE GEOF nice to know your in good health .,yes the good old hand ball never killed anyone .cement from [rugby],…bricks from Stewartby .farm prodcucts fisons fertilizer.hull area. i think the more we grafted years ago kept us all going ■■■■ and beer greasy food.it was just a days work…dbp
____ This trip is from June 2010 when on for Big Freight Systems with the Kenworth T800 and a pre-loaded trailer of Quonsets; arched steel buildings previously known to me as Nissen Huts.
____DAY 1: C596 and I first went out together on November 5th 2007, now thirty-one months later, we celebrate our 500,000 kilometres ; 181862----682862. I’ve done half-a-million kilometres for several companies but this is the first time that I’ve put on so much in one truck; with just a few kays done by the fitters and Lenny from the wash bay. At Nipigon, I meet Russell, who announces that he stopped at Ignace and bought a 1972 Ford Cortina from a guy who has five acres of restoration projects for sale. Yet another project for Russell; to go with his fleet of aging Ford Econoline vans. How come I hardly have time to take the Mustang through the carwash between trips?
____DAY 2: From Nipigon to Val d’Or in Quebec Province. The Valley of Gold and quite a few Hard Rock Gold mines still operating along the road east of Kirkland Lake. Once the stomping ground of Sir Harry Oakes, who between 1911 and 1934, amassed a $20 million fortune; after which he decamped to the Bahamas to avoid paying income tax. He was shot dead in 1943, nobody was ever convicted of his murder. His old mansion in Kirkland Lake is now a museum.
____DAY 3: South along Hwy 117 into the topside of Montreal by way of the route known to all truck-drivers as “Through the Park”. Verendrye National Park, named after the 18th century explorer and map-maker who was responsible for opening up canoe routes west of Lake Superior and into the Prairies. I finish the day, lazing on my bunk in the warm evening sunshine at the Ange-Gardien Truckstop. Then, I have an almighty row with two morons on a quad-bike who did donuts in the dust, right under my open cab window. They soon pack-up and bugger off when the snipe bar comes out to tighten some straps.
____DAY 4: At 36.2 degrees C it was the hottest day in May that had ever been recorded in Quebec. Luckily, I had my first Quonset building delivered at St. Alexandre before 10 o’clock. The next was for another dairy farm, 500 kilometres away, near Riviere du Loup; much nearer the ocean and a lot cooler. Too far for another Tuesday delivery, so I stop at St.Jean-Port-Joli and the Petro-Canada truckstop, small and unremarkable except for the influence of the Bourgault brothers. Talented woodcarvers who started a tradition in the town during the 1960’s that still exists today. I have done some light relief wood carving myself but nothing of the quality and scale on this restaurant wall. Jaw-dropping, the waitress says I can take as many photographs as I want.
____DAY 5: The three Quonset buildings for three different farms around Riviere Du Loup are all being erected by the same construction company. They send Jacques and their small crane truck to unload me. I follow him from farm to farm and by the third drop on the banks of the St. Lawrence, we are working well as a team; we finish with a handshake and some vague directions on where to find my peat-moss reload address. Load peat-moss, Riviere Du Loup, Quebec, deliver peat-moss, Montreal, Quebec. Disappointing not to get a load out of the French speaking province.
____DAY 6: I wake-up at Ste.Julie still waiting to be advised of a delivery appointment time for the peat-moss at Reno Market-Centrale, Downtown Montreal. Eventually I’m told to take it round and see what I can do. Great! Amazingly they a really casual and start unloading straight away, then another truck-load of peat-moss arrives and the driver comes over saying what a hard time he had finding the place. Then it all falls into place; he’s the 11 o’clock delivery arriving late, Reno thought I was booked in at 11. To keep him away from the fork-lift driver, I suggest we go and pull off his straps; after that, I’m signed up and out of there pretty sharpish. From small acorns doth mighty oaks grow. A load of jet-skis from Valcourt all the way to Prince George, British Columbia. 2780 miles. Changing my 48 foot trailer for a 53 footer in the Montreal yard, I meet fellow Brit, Lee Atkinson; its great to chat in English again.
____DAY 7: For the fifth morning on the trot, I breakfast in the Province of Quebec. One egg will be OK. Un oeuf is enough. Thankfully, I’m soon loaded and underway, back into Ontario with hail-stones the size of golf balls battering away on the roof of the cab, so hard that I fear they may break through the canvas covered crates of my load. I check at North Bay and they’re still intact.
____DAY 8: Highway 11 through the Canadian Shield has had characters along it’s route over the years; one was Archie Belaney a.k.a. Grey Owl. From Hastings, England, he fought in the First World War and came to Northern Ontario to dig for gold but went native with the local Ojibwa. He learned their ways, becoming one of the world’s first conservationists; writing books and going on lecture tours around the globe. Archie, who liked a drink and did a lot of two-timing, burnt himself out and died in 1938, aged 50. His family still live in the Temagami Lake area, where you can retrace the tracks of a very interesting Brit.
____DAY 9: Rainstorms across the breadth of Canada have left ditches filled and fields flooded. From Ignace, it’s a short day back to base at Steinbach; where there is not enough time for a log-book reset of 36 hours but enough for time laundry and a visit to the bank’s ATM.
____DAY 10: First drop on this load is Regina, a regular delivery point as the shipper fills up the west-bound trailers with units for this big-selling dealer. He takes four jet-skis and says he has orders for 37. Next drop is in Alberta but I finish up in Saskatoon, at the Husky Truckstop on the North edge of town, probably the best in the Route Commander travel centre chain.
____DAY 11: West across country to Wetaskiwin, south of Edmonton, then north to St.Albert and the dealer sends me out to his warehouse on a farm. I’d been there before, two years ago and am amazed how the town has grown, with new houses now nearly all the way to the farm. Next, Acheson, four units and I’m left with the three for Prince George; they are stacked-up at the front and it would be better if they were all on the deck. But on watching the forklift driver’s performance, I decide not to ask him to move them; what if he drops it? Anyhow, it’s a tail-wind out to the days end at Hinton, Alberta.
____DAY 12: Across the Rocky Mountains by the route known to all truck-drivers as “Through the Park”. Jasper National Park, where the animals are not hunted so are a bit less wary of humans; even so I am amazed that they are all out and about as I pass by with my camera clicking. Elk, then the Big-Horn Sheep that are always hanging around, Caribou with their huge antler spread, a Moose which is quick, but not quick enough to escape unphotographed. I’m thinking; “All I need now is a bear”. When, there he is! The big five, all in one magical hour, seventy kilometres like nothing before. I always enjoy seeing wildlife; preferably with enough time to stop before I run them over. Unloaded at Grand Prairie, the reload comes through on the satellite; Hixon, BC. lumber to Winnipeg, Manitoba. An hour south on Hwy 97 and an hour to load, back-tracking to Prince George, I end the day at McBride, BC. looking forward to another early morning pass through the Jasper National Park.
____DAY 13: A load of lumber all the way ,1878 miles, from BC to Winnipeg doesn’t make sense; don’t they have trees in Manitoba? Yes, but not many big enough to cut into this size:-12 inches x 2 inches. Twenty foot lengths as well; not many sawmills in North America produce that size of lumber. Rain-storms are still lashing the continent as I make it through to North Battleford in Saskatchewan.
____DAY 14: The last day available before a compulsory break due to log hour regulations; so I need to get home tonight. With 11 hours driving, I make it back. The load is booked in for unloading on Monday morning; the truck is booked in for a service on Monday midday.
____Overall Distance: 10073 kilometres.
Well lots of stuff going on while I have been away doing other stuff, thanks to all of you for the belated entertainment. I am being pressed to do more dog transports lately, almost all by the Dobermann Associaton (PAD) but am severely hampered these days being the fulltime carer for my wife who has dementia and very limited mobility.
Nonetheless I did do a trip a couple of weeks ago, A Dobermann called Ramses from the pension (kennels) near me to meet a couple from the Alps near Clermont Ferrand. He was being adopted by them and at the same time were kindly collecting another Dobie (called Doby 
) from a fourriere at St. Etienne. This is a place where dogs without history (this one was found wandering with a non-EU ID chip) are held and thus had had 6 months quarantine before being released for re-homing.
Don’t be fooled by the barking, the 2 males were fine with each other being swapped over, the one on the left is Ramses, all the noise was coming from the other car and caused by Ramses’ prospective new friend, a female who was impatient at being left out of the fun.
Normally I take Fran with me, she might as well sit all day in the car as all day in a wheelchair, but this time it was more awkward. Having 2 dogs of my own now who will share the space alongside the one remaining cage (I used to have 2 in my really long distance days) which contains the ‘client’ but I prefer that to be only for an hour or two, no more, and this day with an outward bound and a backload they would be in there both ways. So I had a plan. It being Wednesday I thought it might be possible to leave Fran at home with the dogs as Christine, her morning ‘aide de toilette’ would be in from 9 to 10am when I would leave for Sharon’s (the pension) to collect the first dog, then 3 hours to the rdv and the same back to Sharon’s. On Wednesdays, in addition to the morning and evening aides, a tall French woman called Christelle comes in between 2 and 4 pm and as I reckoned to be back at 5 I thought, although I prefer not to leave Fran for more than 2 hours or so, we might just stretch a point. I didn’t reckon on Christelle having no work booked after Fran and her good nature in deciding to stay on till Gill, the loud Scottish aide with whom I have had some shouting matches, came to do her brief evening stint. Thus Gill got the wrong end of the stick and thought I was employing Christelle ‘on the black’ and at any rate shouldn’t have left Fran so long.
So I try to avoid things happening again like that. Apart from Gill, these aides are very good for me. Christine is English and in her 50s and we are on the same wavelength and have long discussions in which nothing at all is off limits. She is married to an ageing French rock star and lives in the big village nearby. Christelle is great too for me, but in another way, she speaks no English and as she is here for 2 hours simply for cleaning and there is nowhere near enough for her to do in that period, we also spend long times in discussion but of course all in French. Very good for me because as I have aged my command of the language has got worse over the last 20 years. My command of English has deteriorated too so with both ‘girls’ there is lots of laughter.
They both know of, and agree with my, and Fran’s, difficulty with Gill and it is not just a joke that my blood pressure, though normal, is not best served by her furious arguements. However, one thing Christine and I did have a laugh over regarding blood pressure was when I related to her an experience with Christelle the day before. She had thought that Fran might be in need of a vest under her shirt and cardigan (no way, this is a very warm house) and mentioned a ‘debardeur’, a word that I hadn’t come across so, seeing my confusion she pulled her top off the shoulder and fished out a black strap. 
Shocked rather than confused she misinterpreted my expression and immediately started pulling her top out of her jeans before lifting it right up to reveal a black loose knit vest/debardeur over her bra. ‘Comme ca’ (like this) she said before I almost collapsed in agreeing but not agreeing, and we left it at that, but as I said to Christine 'as if it isn’t enough Gill threatening my blood pressure I now have Christelle doing the same in a different way. 
’
But I will have to steel myself and be a strong little soldier because it will soon be summer and these 2 ladies, both of whom have great legs, insist on performing their arduous tasks wearing miniskirts. 
I think I’ll go and have a lie down now. 
SPARDO, what you are doing with the dogs is dedicated ,and appreciated no doubt.also that you find time in between being a full time carer at home you have my respect , you have some full on days ,that you probably need.
I myself do ALL household tasks and chores shopping, cooking ,all laundry,my wife has no got dementia however not in good health so i do sympathise with ,she does not qualify for NHS assistance or local council c.o.p.d.is the main culprit.
I understand the help you have however if it were me ,i would have to be kept in BARRACKS .DBP.
____ Remember the Top Gear episode when Clarkson and May in a pick-up raced Hammond and his dog sled to the magnetic North Pole? Well, the nearest permanently inhabited place to the North Pole is Resolute Bay with its airport, research station and Inuit community. I once had a load that was destined for Resolute Bay and wondered why anybody would choose to live there. The answer is quite disturbing. In a move to justify sovereignty over the Artic, the Canadian government needed people in the area as an excuse and forcibly relocated an Inuit community from Quebec Province, 2500 kilometres, to Cornwallis Island in the High Artic. With broken promises and threats to their way of life, they endured terrible conditions with a high rate of suicide but are still there today. It was 2010 when they received their arena/community centre; it was 1959 when they first arrived. Quite shocking that a country like Canada was treating it’s citizens in such an inhumane way in my life time. Here are my diary entries for that trip.
____DAY 1: Resolute Bay on Cornwallis Island in the Province of Nunavat is having it’s own arena. With an average daily high temperature of minus 13 degrees Centigrade, the second most northerly township in Canada; 350 miles from the Magnetic North Pole, is only ice-free and open for deliveries by ship for a few weeks from mid-July. The arena is loaded on five trailers at Brandon, Mb. and needs to be on the dock at Salaberry de Valleyfield, near Montreal, on Tuesday morning. Miss the boat and the air freight costs for BFS will be horrendous; either that or I’m going to be driving a dog-sled. I strap and tarp my load of steel beams with the Province of Manitoba under a severe storm warning. Then eastwards on the Trans-Canada Highway into Ontario and a Saturday night in Dryden.
____DAY 2: Steady progress in steady rain; the only interlude: finding a BFS truck stuck in the ditch just east of Nipigon. The driver had missed the turn-off for Highway 11, gone down a dirt road to turn round and sunk into a very soft shoulder. But my help is not needed as the owner of a nearby excavating company fires up his digger and comes to the rescue. One of many instances of Canadians being more than willing to help people in trouble that I have come across in the short time I’ve lived here. Sault Ste. Marie looms up as darkness falls, but not before I’m sure I caught sight of a huge wolf lurking at the road side; about to feast on some recent roadkill. It might have been a coyote but I’m sure it was my first wolf.
____DAY 3: Southern Ontario scorched over the long July 1st Canada Day weekend. In Western Canada, farmers are complaining that they are tired of watching the rain falling. An Ontario farmer comes on the radio and complains how tired he is after bringing in over 1500 bales of hay on each of the last three days. If that lot catches fire it will be his worst year ever! I run late into the evening, trying to get the cab cold enough for sleeping after the sun as gone down; but by then the Flying J Truckstop at Vaudreuil is packed out. The old Esso fuel station, one junction further on, makes a good alternative.
____DAY 4: Nunavat East Arctic Services operate the ships that deliver everything imaginable to the communities scattered around the Arctic coastline. Their wharf on the St Lawrence Seaway is a hive of industry as five green Kenworths un-tarp, un-strap and quickly get unloaded, that is, all except me; the trailer with the steel beams has to unload in a different area to the trailers with the big wooden crates; the beams have to be banded onto a container base for shipping. It’s 3 o’clock in the afternoon before the big fork lift truck that has been shuttling containers over to the ship has time to come and unload me. In that time I’ve missed a reload of cable reels to Alberta but a load of insulation to Winnipeg replaces it and the factory in Grande Ile is only five minutes away. With a third day of temperatures over 32 degrees C, it is now officially a heatwave in Quebec Province. Sweat pours out of me as I struggle to make a load-leveller out of my tarps for the polystyrene insulation going on the step-deck trailer.
____DAY 5: Leaving Pembroke, Ontario, I notice I’ve not received the usual load instructions from the office via the satellite, just the offer of the job. After asking what’s happened to them; they arrive. Critically, the load is to be fully tarped; I just smoke tarped it as I had done with previous loads from that factory and my tarps are holding up the two stacks of insulation straddling the step! Not that I have any way of getting them on top of a 13 foot high load. I carry on, with the plastic wrapping on the insulation getting in an ever increasing state of disrepair. Longlac puts me within striking distance of Steinbach for the next day.
____DAY 6: Winnipeg to the Montreal area is a good weeks work with a mileage of over 3000 and the choice of either Highway 11 or 17. Many drivers do this run week in week out, same drops, same pick-ups; these are called “dedicated runs”, done by “dedicated drivers”. Good miles and good home time, just what young family men entering the road transport industry are searching for. Not that they get it; it goes to loyal, long standing, hard working brown-noses. Back at Steinbach, I have a plan; jack up the insulation, slide in some heavy-duty lumber as a load leveller, pull out the tarps, put them on top and tarp the ■■■■ stuff [ for the final 45 kilometres]. Two hours of sweating and many thanks to Frank on the forklift for the help.
____DAY 7: At the delivery point, I explain that the problem with tarping step-deck loads is that the wind always gets under the tarp at the step and can cause more damage by flapping about than if it wasn’t tarped at all. The bill of lading is signed with four sheets damaged; I’d have bitten your hand off if you’d have offered me that the night before.
____Overall Distance:- 5270 kms.
I am really enjoying these stories and like a few others on here, I also keep looking on Google Earth to see what some of these places actually look like.
Sioux Falls, Moose Jaw and Gitche Gumee, which is a place that was mentioned years ago by Gordon Lightfoot but I had no idea where it was, until Chris mentioned it again in one his posts.
youtube.com/watch?v=9vST6hVRj2A
youtube.com/watch?v=U9jDNEtg8JY
Another place that has been mentioned was Cromwell Road in London and it took me a few minutes for me to realise why I should remember this place.
Back in the eighties, you needed a visa to visit most of the Communists countries behind the Iron Curtain. Sometimes, you could buy a visa at the borders but for some reason different countries wanted you to obtain a visa before you reached their borders.
I can’t remember exactly which country did what over forty years ago but I think that it was Hungary who allowed a three-month multi entry visa, which could be bought at any Hungarian Embassy outside Hungary.
Somebody might remember if it was Bulgaria or Czechoslovakia who allowed you to buy a six month multi entry visa. I am sure that Polish, Romanian, Yugoslavian and East German visas were all obtainable when you were entering their borders.
Most of the Communist countries embassies in the U.K. were around the Kensington area and after you had dropped your passport off, which was usually around 9.30 a.m. you were often told to come back in an hour or at 2 p.m. This enabled you to have a pleasant stroll around the area seeing a few of the London tourist attractions, like Kensington Gardens, The Albert Hall etc.
Some drivers used to have two passports which allowed their company to use an agency in London who would drive around to the various embassies, obtaining the different visas but their services were not cheap.
Looking back, I used to enjoy my little walks around the area on a warm summers morning and regret not visiting The Natural History Museum on Cromwell Road while I had the chance. 
Chris, as you mentioned about your dislocated shoulder a couple of days ago, I was going to ask you again, if you were the guy who dislocated his shoulder at the Turkish border at Kapikule on Christmas morning 1983.
I walked around with this driver who was in severe pain for some time, while we were trying to find a doctor. We eventually found one and after a few attempts and a few screams, the Turkish doctor successfully popped the shoulder back into place.
I remember that this driver was somewhere from East Anglia, he was on his way home, he wore a green combat jacket and said that his shoulder dislocation was because he had had an accident on his bike years ago. Although if it was you, then I don’t think that would have to check your passport to remember a thing like that. 
And here is another post from The Trucknet archives by Past Trucking.
My First middle East run July 1976, Kent to Iran
Postby PASTTRUCKING » Sun Dec 30, 2007 3:31 am
Its July 1976, It all happened as I was a diesel fitter, Working on Artics ect ect, How do you Fancy Driving a truck to Iran was the question from a mate of mine, How much said I ■■? £500 for a couple of weeks work Graham replied, drive out, fly back, all expences paid, as many as you want to do… At that time I was working for the C.E.G.B at the new construction site for Grain power station, a good job taking home around £100 a week, did I really want to give it up, but £500 seemed to good to be true, so I agreed but only if I could get the time off work, so I went ahead and booked my 2 weeks holiday.
On the appointed Saturday, we met at East Peckham, Kent to pick up the truck, I arrived and found we were to deliver 12 new Ford D1000s, 6 chassis cabs and 6 tippers, now the guy who arranged it was a smart man, he had the Tippers mounted on the chassis cabs, welded RSJs across the chassis and fitted bottle screws on chains, It was not going to fall off, We were due to ship out Sunday afternoon, so off I went home with my truck, 1st time with a left ■■■■■■.
Ford D1000 Turbo at Aosta terminal taken July 1976 reg NHX785P
Sunday morning said my goodbyes and off to the blue yonder, well I was only 23 at the time, this was going to be the an adventure of a lifetime, arrived at Dover to find only 1 other of my new found buddies there, we waited and waited until at last they arrived. Our leader explained that when they came to go in the morning one of the trucks had,had the gearbox “nicked” overnight, They were aware who did it and it was returned and refitted, this was when I realised that these fellows did not mess around. On the ferry we went and off to Calais, we arrived and camped down for the night just outside the docks by the chemical plant, ( I can still remember the awfull smell. )
Not a good nights sleep, but I was ready to go, a quick brew on the Gaz burner and were away early the next morning, we got about 2ks down the road and were stopped, the dreaded French police, they wanted, documents, paperwork, permits, this I never knew about, but our leader seemed to pave the way with a handfull of Francs.
Now I was used to working an 8 hour day, with a couple of breaks and a lunch hour, we seemed to drive for ever Trucking now seemed not so rosy, We had no Tachos, no log books, and it seemed we ran on a wing and a prayer, apart from fuel stops and a couple of rolls and crappie French coffee, our first meal was to be at the “Bakehouse”., now memory fades with the years but I do recall leaving the Bakehouse after being fed and watered, the reason I recall this so clearly is I pulled out and drove of into the night, headlights coming in the opposite direction, They were heading straight for me, Stupid Frenchman I thought before realising I was on the wrong side of the road, ( only ever did this the one time ), We arrived at the Blonc, and for some reason I got seperated from the rest, not enough Francs to get through. as I was the “fitter” I was tail end charlie, where were the others for help, half way up the tunnel. I cabbed it on the French side and got some francs in the Morning and drove off to Italy, Arrived in Aosta ( told to give the customs man a carton of B&H ) where the 5 others had cleared customs, First shower in 2 days, this felt better, a good lunch, Irecall at Aosta one of the drivers was eating some canned Tuna, he said it tasted strange, I looked and noticed it was , wait for it, Tuna cat food, he had bought about 10 cans of it with him.he had eaten 2 before Aosta.
Again I can only write as remembered, We drove through northern Italy arrived just before the Italian/Yugo border near Trieste at the end of the Autostrada, I remember the truck in front being reversed into, this cracked his windscreen, small cracks all over the place. Into Yugo we went, more problems with customs, I was given £500 running money I think, how much “our leader” had was never known but he was always paying off someone, All I had to get was fuel and tolls, off we went to Zagrab, and again we were stopped, this time for driving at the wrong time of day, fined the the police, and told to stay until, whatever time, I do remember when the law left, there was a little fire where there car was, we looked and it was the copies of the fines receipts being burnt, another profitable back pocket days work for the Yugo police.
Across Yugoslavia I recall meeting a fellow brit with a TM Bedford with a swan neck low lowder and huge machine load, the swan neck had snapped from the floor of the trailer, he was stuck in a lay-by , we stopped at a Motel just before the Bulgi border, and walked to the local town that night, strange place, lots of young couples hand in hand, with both sets of parents in tow behind, they walked about 500 metres up main street crossed over and returned, this went on for about 3 hours, we drank very cheap beer and has some sort of stew, .
Next morning off to the border, cannot recall much, so assume not a problem, away we went, we arrived at the Bulgarian/ Turkish border at Kapicule, This is where the fun started, queues, more queues, then more queues, then onto a dirt compound, baking hot day, the customs post, this is where we were most of the day, Our leader went off in the morning and came back hours later,The Turks wanted some kind of huge bond paid for the tippers, big problems, we did not have enough cash. A deal was struck, when transiting Turkey the vehicle regisration number was written in your passport, when exiting, it was cancelled as transited through, we had to have another driver each for the tippers, If I remember correctly they were Albanians, they stayed with us to the Arch at Ararat, the Iranian border.
Into Turkey we went, and off to Istanbul, the end of Europe the beginning of Asia, I remember the terrible road on the Bosbrus bridge, it was full of ruts and potholes, on the Asian side of Istanbul the tarmac ended and the dust dirt road began, off we went direction Ankara, Ersiram, & Eriskan, and the dreaded
Tahir mountains, well we bounced, bumped, and found our way eastwards, met fallen brit trucks, ERFs, Ackkies, and a Guy warrior,.#
July at the Tahir pass was a scenic place, as long as you discounted the smashed up wrecks of various trucks, most been robbed of wheels and various other parts, over the top no problem, and down to Ararat, then head south to the Border, Through the border no problem, Tarmac roads on the Iranian side, drove through, down a slope and parked up in large lorry park on the left, customs was a 40ft container, by the border was large building and modern cafe,Twinings tea was had by all, back to the truck for the last leg to the compound at Tabriz, Small problem, truck broken into, my shoes stolen, on the floor was a very tatty old pair of shoes, mine were put into instant use.
We arrived at the compound that night, next morning we parked up “the fleet” and hung around for the next and only bus to Tehran that day, it was a night service, we arrived sometime in the morning, after a day in the Miami hotel we flew back to the UK via Pan Am.
I arrived back home 13 days 23 hours after leaving the UK.
.
Last edited by PASTTRUCKING on Tue Jan 01, 2008 2:56 am, edited 2 times in total.
Trevor Taylor
“Motor Mouse” For those of you who remember the 70s AM CB, Anyone know where JLB505V F1017 IS OR WAS.
PASTTRUCKING
SENIOR MEMBER
Posts: 79
Joined: Fri Nov 09, 2007 10:30 am
Location: CHATHAM KENT
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Thanks for that MRM, but especially for the 2 YT links. Even though a sometime, if short lived, mariner I had never heard that account or the song. Funny that those of us that sail the oceans don’t realise the equal threats posed on inland waterways.
BTW I had heard the name Gitchee Gumie as a child but thought it was a fiction. Did it feature in the tale of Hiawatha perhaps? Just answered my own question, from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s ‘The Song of Hiawatha’ . Read it as a boy.
____ This is a trip from December 2018; after I had retired from long-haul truck driving and was having the Winter as a snowbird in the southern states of the US. It all started some months earlier when Cheryl’s Facebook friend, Jill, was looking for people to join her in a trans-America bicycle tour. Jill’s husband, Rick, was suffering with Parkinson’s and Jill was convinced that cycling would delay the onset of the disease. This trip across the Southern Tier cycle route would provide research into the activity aspect of Parkinson’s treatment and hopefully be therapeutic to Rick.
____ Rick Riewe was a retired biology professor at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg; although he had been far more than that in his younger years. He travelled widely in the High Artic, studying the plants and animals while living with the Inuit people. He became an expert survivalist in the extreme cold and a leading authority on life in the Canadian Artic Territories. In 1993, Rick was put in charge of the formation of Nunavut; a new self-governing territory for the Inuit. By all accounts, Rick did a good job as he had the respect of the locals and the split from the North West Territories went ahead in April 1999.
____ Fast forward to December 2018 and Cheryl and I are waiting for Rick and Jill to arrive in El Paso, Texas. They had started out on the Pacific coast at San Diego and with an ever-changing entourage of volunteers reached Rosa’s Cantina. It was now our turn to support Rick on the fourteen day section across Texas to Austin, the state capital, 600 miles East. SAG stands for Support and Gear; a term used for the vehicle that shadows a group of touring cyclists from one destination to another. I have done plenty of self-supported cycle tours but this was my first experience of a SAG Wagon; added to which, I was the driver of the support vehicle. Although not built with the SAG job in mind; the Mack turned out to be perfectly suited to the job which was more than could be said about me. A day of cycling would cover about 50 to 70 miles, the Mack would do that in about an hour and a half at most. This means there was a lot of sitting about and waiting; waiting at the lunch location, waiting at the afternoon tea location and waiting for the intrepid adventurers at the night halt. I would set-up a table with food and drink at a suitable picnic spot, rest area or lay-by and wait. Sometimes they were grateful for the service, sometimes they had gone into a restaurant along the way and didn’t need what I had prepared and sometimes they changed their route on a whim and didn’t come past their feeding station. You can imagine how annoying that could be.
____Day One was to Fort Hancock and the hospitality of the local community church, who let the group overnight on the premises. Due to constant rain on Day Two, this stop turned into two nights. After that it never rained again on the whole trip. The kindness and generosity of a local church featured again at Sanderson where the local preacher also ran a vehicle recovery company. He turned up at the church hall with boxes of frozen chips and beef patties; the contents of a fridge trailer that he was extracting from a ravine on US Hwy 90. Other nights were a mixture of hotel, motel and rental cabins. Some, good quality. Some expensive. Some dire. Some cozy and some were “Warm Showers”, which is a network of touring cyclists who offer hospitality to fellow touring cyclists on a reciprocal basis. But every night, Cheryl and I stayed in the truck; parked somewhere close by.
____ Daily training rides of up to 40 miles a day in the week before the tour let Cheryl keep-up with ease. The group consisted of some very capable riders but she was never dropped and often led the way. Main man was Rick with his specially built bike; in fact it was called “Ride with Rick for Parkinsons.” I didn’t have much time to judge for myself if it is an effective way of dealing with the mental and physical symptoms of Parkinson’s but it seemed to have advantages for his carers. Instead of wandering-off and needing constant watching; Rick rode on the front of his recumbent tandem, peddling away all day with a variety of helpers doing the riding on the back. Rick’s carers really cared and were a happy bunch often riding into the darkness as the early night-fall of December cut down the daylight riding time. It was in the evenings that I got to chat with Rick and listen to his stories, he even had us all doing the indoor games and stength tests that the Inuit would do on long Winter’s nights. Some times he would be too tired but often bright, alert and with a good sense of humour.
____ The route started out on flat desert terrain; following Interstate 10 eastwards. Fort Hancock, Van Horn and Kent before cutting through the Davis Mountains and visiting the MacDonald Observatory on route to Alpine and US Highway 90. The SAG Wagon was essential on the long stretches of service-less road and no country for old men; near-ghost towns and a dry un-forgiving climate but with a tail-wind and gradual descent, all the way to Del Rio. The first week of riding gave the crew the fitness that they needed for the second; traversing the Texas Hill Country through the towns of Uvalde, Leakey, Hunt, Fredericksburg and finally on to Austin in the week before Christmas.
____ I was constantly amazed with reception our little group received along the way. Jill always had time to explain who, what, where and why. The positive response of total strangers was staggering. One time; a guy stopped in a pick-up truck just to talk about the Mack; Jill came along and said Rick needed some more “Depends,” the adult nappies, and could I find some. This guy says he has just recovered from bowel cancer and has got plenty at home that he doesn’t need. Twenty minutes later he is back with enough for a month on the road. I followed Rick’s adventure on Facebook and he reached Florida and went on to do a whole lot more, riding through right into Covid and until he died in November 2020, aged 78.
ChrisArbon:
____ This is a trip from December 2018; after I had retired from long-haul truck driving and was having the Winter as a snowbird in the southern states of the US. It all started some months earlier when Cheryl’s Facebook friend, Jill, was looking for people to join her in a trans-America bicycle tour. Jill’s husband, Rick, was suffering with Parkinson’s and Jill was convinced that cycling would delay the onset of the disease. This trip across the Southern Tier cycle route would provide research into the activity aspect of Parkinson’s treatment and hopefully be therapeutic to Rick.
____ Rick Riewe was a retired biology professor at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg; although he had been far more than that in his younger years. He travelled widely in the High Artic, studying the plants and animals while living with the Inuit people. He became an expert survivalist in the extreme cold and a leading authority on life in the Canadian Artic Territories. In 1993, Rick was put in charge of the formation of Nunavut; a new self-governing territory for the Inuit. By all accounts, Rick did a good job as he had the respect of the locals and the split from the North West Territories went ahead in April 1999.
____ Fast forward to December 2018 and Cheryl and I are waiting for Rick and Jill to arrive in El Paso, Texas. They had started out on the Pacific coast at San Diego and with an ever-changing entourage of volunteers reached Rosa’s Cantina. It was now our turn to support Rick on the fourteen day section across Texas to Austin, the state capital, 600 miles East. SAG stands for Support and Gear; a term used for the vehicle that shadows a group of touring cyclists from one destination to another. I have done plenty of self-supported cycle tours but this was my first experience of a SAG Wagon; added to which, I was the driver of the support vehicle. Although not built with the SAG job in mind; the Mack turned out to be perfectly suited to the job which was more than could be said about me. A day of cycling would cover about 50 to 70 miles, the Mack would do that in about an hour and a half at most. This means there was a lot of sitting about and waiting; waiting at the lunch location, waiting at the afternoon tea location and waiting for the intrepid adventurers at the night halt. I would set-up a table with food and drink at a suitable picnic spot, rest area or lay-by and wait. Sometimes they were grateful for the service, sometimes they had gone into a restaurant along the way and didn’t need what I had prepared and sometimes they changed their route on a whim and didn’t come past their feeding station. You can imagine how annoying that could be.
____Day One was to Fort Hancock and the hospitality of the local community church, who let the group overnight on the premises. Due to constant rain on Day Two, this stop turned into two nights. After that it never rained again on the whole trip. The kindness and generosity of a local church featured again at Sanderson where the local preacher also ran a vehicle recovery company. He turned up at the church hall with boxes of frozen chips and beef patties; the contents of a fridge trailer that he was extracting from a ravine on US Hwy 90. Other nights were a mixture of hotel, motel and rental cabins. Some, good quality. Some expensive. Some dire. Some cozy and some were “Warm Showers”, which is a network of touring cyclists who offer hospitality to fellow touring cyclists on a reciprocal basis. But every night, Cheryl and I stayed in the truck; parked somewhere close by.
____ Daily training rides of up to 40 miles a day in the week before the tour let Cheryl keep-up with ease. The group consisted of some very capable riders but she was never dropped and often led the way. Main man was Rick with his specially built bike; in fact it was called “Ride with Rick for Parkinsons.” I didn’t have much time to judge for myself if it is an effective way of dealing with the mental and physical symptoms of Parkinson’s but it seemed to have advantages for his carers. Instead of wandering-off and needing constant watching; Rick rode on the front of his recumbent tandem, peddling away all day with a variety of helpers doing the riding on the back. Rick’s carers really cared and were a happy bunch often riding into the darkness as the early night-fall of December cut down the daylight riding time. It was in the evenings that I got to chat with Rick and listen to his stories, he even had us all doing the indoor games and stength tests that the Inuit would do on long Winter’s nights. Some times he would be too tired but often bright, alert and with a good sense of humour.
____ The route started out on flat desert terrain; following Interstate 10 eastwards. Fort Hancock, Van Horn and Kent before cutting through the Davis Mountains and visiting the MacDonald Observatory on route to Alpine and US Highway 90. The SAG Wagon was essential on the long stretches of service-less road and no country for old men; near-ghost towns and a dry un-forgiving climate but with a tail-wind and gradual descent, all the way to Del Rio. The first week of riding gave the crew the fitness that they needed for the second; traversing the Texas Hill Country through the towns of Uvalde, Leakey, Hunt, Fredericksburg and finally on to Austin in the week before Christmas.
____ I was constantly amazed with reception our little group received along the way. Jill always had time to explain who, what, where and why. The positive response of total strangers was staggering. One time; a guy stopped in a pick-up truck just to talk about the Mack; Jill came along and said Rick needed some more “Depends,” the adult nappies, and could I find some. This guy says he has just recovered from bowel cancer and has got plenty at home that he doesn’t need. Twenty minutes later he is back with enough for a month on the road. I followed Rick’s adventure on Facebook and he reached Florida and went on to do a whole lot more, riding through right into Covid and until he died in November 2020, aged 78.4
3
2
1
0
Bugger me! I thought Rosa’s Cantina was fictitious.
youtu.be/7UVVS5-9HvA
Thanks for that inspiring story Chris, and to SDU for the link. Years since I have heard that song, great to hear it again.
BTW
Bugger me! I thought Rosa’s Cantina was fictitious.
It probably was till Marty recorded that song.
Once when I drove for Schneider Transport I picked up a loaded trailer at a Schneider yard in Ohio that a team (double manned) had dropped from the state of Washington, about 2,334 miles away. It was packaging material going to Mcain foods in Easton Maine so a perfect load for me seeing as I live in the North East, another 1,055 miles.
I walked into Mcain’s on Monday morning with the paperwork and the receiver just put them on his desk then proceeded to unload the trailer. After the trailer was empty he went to sign the paperwork but didn’t and said “guess I should have looked at this first as we don’t use this packaging”.
Turned out the load should have gone to Macain’s plant in Othello WA, someone put the wrong address on. They ended up putting the load back on my trailer to go back to WA where it was supposed to go. That load went from one end of the US to the other then back again, about 6,000 miles extra, I think someone in the shipping office at the packaging company may have lost their job.
remy:
Once when I drove for Schneider Transport I picked up a loaded trailer at a Schneider yard in Ohio that a team (double manned) had dropped from the state of Washington, about 2,334 miles away. It was packaging material going to Mcain foods in Easton Maine so a perfect load for me seeing as I live in the North East, another 1,055 miles.I walked into Mcain’s on Monday morning with the paperwork and the receiver just put them on his desk then proceeded to unload the trailer. After the trailer was empty he went to sign the paperwork but didn’t and said “guess I should have looked at this first as we don’t use this packaging”.
Turned out the load should have gone to Macain’s plant in Othello WA, someone put the wrong address on. They ended up putting the load back on my trailer to go back to WA where it was supposed to go. That load went from one end of the US to the other then back again, about 6,000 miles extra, I think someone in the shipping office at the packaging company may have lost their job.
Nice profitable round trip for Schneider then, if it was the packaging company’s fault, not theirs. Did you get the trip for yourself then?
____ I’m thinking of the song lyrics I would have been humming on this trip from October 2014. “Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike, Theyv’e all come to look for America.” Interstate 95 and the Eastern Seaboard where truckstops charge for parking. Driving Flying Eagle’s Peterbilt 386 in the colours of Payne Transportation, there were five loads and it took three weeks from start to finish.
____ Load 1. Nine drops spread across a route spanning 2000 miles might be a daunting task if it wasn’t for cell-phones, GPS and good old Google maps. But I had done seven of the 9 before and could picture the whole trip in my head. It went very much as planned with the tactic of parking overnight at the next day’s first delivery paying good dividends. It was the high-end bespoke windows to warehouse/showrooms on industrial estates. Sunday night at Milwaukee followed by Chicago and Indianapolis, Monday night at Nashville, then Knoxville and Hendersonville. Tuesday night at Charlotte’s place. Empty, Wednesday mid-afternoon after Charlston and Savannah with only one mishap. Charlotte was one piece short and it didn’t turn up until the last drop was off.
____ Load 2. There was not enough time to get across from Savannah to Augusta, so I loaded in the morning before swinging by to see Charlotte and deliver their missing item. The load is John Deere tractors, the regular return load for any Payne truck in Georgia. Payne is contracted to deliver the medium size tractors to all of Canada and they loathe to give the work to third parties. Fear of the rates being undercut and losing the work means Winnipeg trucks are expected to deliver to the Maritime Provinces of Canada. I don’t mind this sort of tramping work but Payne would run you endlessly, up and down the East Coast if you wanted. I prefer just one rounder and then come home. There is not enough time to get back into Canada and do some deliveries by Friday night. But it’s harvest-time in Quebec and all the farm machinery dealers are open for business on Saturdays. Sherbrooke and Victoriaville get unloaded but not enough time to get to Halifax. I make it to the Blue Canoe Truckstop in Fredericton before the driving hours run out; not a bad place to spend a 36 hour reset. The last pieces get delivered on Monday but when the reload arrives there is not enough time to get it. How many “Not Enoughs” can one trip have?
____ Load 3. There are very few loads on the data boards that get a truck back to Winnipeg from Nova Scotia. I’m pretty sure it will be peat moss back down to somewhere on the Eastern Seaboard. It’s peat-moss out of Inkerman in New Brunswick and it makes me shudder with the thought of the last load that I hauled out of this place for Big Freight. A freezing cold February night when they loaded icy pallets onto an ice-covered flat-deck. By the time I got to Fredericton; the whole load had slid across the trailer and was hanging 12 inches over the side. I still remember the frantic two hours when I threaded straps through the bottom of the pallets and winched them back into place. I’m grateful to going back with a box-van trailer.
____ When the job came through, I thought I would be able to move the Saturday delivery time to Friday. But its not peat-moss for a plant nursery; its for Lowes, the home improvement chain, and I’m stuck with the appointment at a RDC. This trip has too much time on it but gives me the chance to go into New York City. At the north end of the New Jersey Turnpike is the Vince Lombardi Service Area with adjacent Park and Ride. I am always anxious about leaving the truck and disappearing for half a day but they do have security patrols and you are just as likely to get the cab robbed if you were just gone for meal. The regular bus service goes through the Lincoln Tunnel and drops you off at the multi-story Port Authority bus station on Manhattan. Only one block from Time Square but I went the other way, down to the quay and went on the harbour tour. Under Brooklyn Bridge to the United Nations building, round the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island with an old New Yorker giving an excellent laid-back commentary. Eventually; at 06.30 on Saturday morning I arrive at the brand new Regional Distribution Centre at Adairsville, Georgia. Here, I put my Bills of Lading in a plastic container and send it up a plastic pipe. The container comes back with a set of instructions: drop trailer in Bay 4001, park in the bob-tail parking area, wait for phone call to say empty trailer is ready for collection, leave premises. Three hours later, the phone rings and I leave. Obviously the idiots who thought up this system have no regard for the amount of truck-drivers time that they are wasting. I hate RDCs with a vengeance and at this one there isn’t even an opportunity to grab some lazy ■■■■ by the throat and pull them through a small hole in a re-enforced glass screen.
____Load 4. When the reload instructions came, I was expecting another load of JD tractors but they told of a loaded trailer at Janesville, Wisconsin. It may seem strange to load a truck from New Brunswick to Georgia and then run it empty back north. But Payne has a big contract, direct with the John Deere, to shift all of the smaller farm machinery to Canada and the ride-on mower factory is 750 miles away. Not like Payne to run uneconomically but I’m paid the same, empty and loaded, so after a Sunday morning trailer switch; I’m en route to Edmonton, Alberta. Straight past Winnipeg for a Wednesday morning unloading appointment.
____Load 5. With the trip running into its third week, I was looking forward to a quick turn-round, back to Manitoba. But Payne’s Fort Saskatchewan depot had other ideas. I spent the rest of the day shunting trailers across Edmonton; making six complete crossings before getting back my original trailer which was now loaded with castings for Caterpillar at Peoria, Illinois. I finish up back at the Sherwood Park Flying’J at the edge of Edmonton for a second night. Finally getting back to the yard at midday on Friday.
Spardo:
remy:
Once when I drove for Schneider Transport I picked up a loaded trailer at a Schneider yard in Ohio that a team (double manned) had dropped from the state of Washington, about 2,334 miles away. It was packaging material going to Mcain foods in Easton Maine so a perfect load for me seeing as I live in the North East, another 1,055 miles.I walked into Mcain’s on Monday morning with the paperwork and the receiver just put them on his desk then proceeded to unload the trailer. After the trailer was empty he went to sign the paperwork but didn’t and said “guess I should have looked at this first as we don’t use this packaging”.
Turned out the load should have gone to Macain’s plant in Othello WA, someone put the wrong address on. They ended up putting the load back on my trailer to go back to WA where it was supposed to go. That load went from one end of the US to the other then back again, about 6,000 miles extra, I think someone in the shipping office at the packaging company may have lost their job.
Nice profitable round trip for Schneider then, if it was the packaging company’s fault, not theirs. Did you get the trip for yourself then?
I took it back as far as Indianapolis Indiana where I dropped it for a team to take. I did make a copy of the bills to show it wasn’t driver error.
ChrisArbon:
____ I’m thinking of the song lyrics I would have been humming on this trip from October 2014. “Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike, Theyv’e all come to look for America.” Interstate 95 and the Eastern Seaboard where truckstops charge for parking. Driving Flying Eagle’s Peterbilt 386 in the colours of Payne Transportation, there were five loads and it took three weeks from start to finish.
I haven’t checked back to see if you have answered this question Chris, but do any Canadian wagons do cabotage in the US or is it forbidden to load and tip within the States? I think I know the answer but is it possible that some carriers do have cabotage licences, and others don’t?
Spardo:
Thanks for that MRM, but especially for the 2 YT links. Even though a sometime, if short lived, mariner I had never heard that account or the song. Funny that those of us that sail the oceans don’t realise the equal threats posed on inland waterways.BTW I had heard the name Gitchee Gumie as a child but thought it was a fiction. Did it feature in the tale of Hiawatha perhaps? Just answered my own question, from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s ‘The Song of Hiawatha’ . Read it as a boy.
Hi David, did you also have to learn poems that you thought that you would never use again, once you had left the classroom. I had forgotten all about Longfellow’s Hiawatha until you mentioned it and having read it again yesterday, I must admit that it finally did make a bit more sense to me, than it did over sixty years ago.
I never thought that twelve years later I would be pulling up Beattock in a Bedford T.K. trying to remember the words to ‘This Is The Night Mail’.
youtube.com/watch?v=zmciuKsBOi0
And I never thought that some twenty-four years later I would be passing a sign for Nineveh on my way to Baghdad and for the next four hundred kilometers trying to remember the words to that poem, ‘Cargoes’ by John Masefield. I never realised until yesterday that
Nineveh is now the town of Mosul in Iraq, where I had just stopped and had a plate of chicken and rice. 
mushroomman:
Spardo:
Thanks for that MRM, but especially for the 2 YT links. Even though a sometime, if short lived, mariner I had never heard that account or the song. Funny that those of us that sail the oceans don’t realise the equal threats posed on inland waterways.BTW I had heard the name Gitchee Gumie as a child but thought it was a fiction. Did it feature in the tale of Hiawatha perhaps? Just answered my own question, from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s ‘The Song of Hiawatha’ . Read it as a boy.
Hi David, did you also have to learn poems that you thought that you would never use again, once you had left the classroom. I had forgotten all about Longfellow’s Hiawatha until you mentioned it and having read it again yesterday, I must admit that it finally did make a bit more sense to me, than it did over sixty years ago.
I never thought that twelve years later I would be pulling up Beattock in a Bedford T.K. trying to remember the words to ‘This Is The Night Mail’.
youtube.com/watch?v=zmciuKsBOi0
And I never thought that some twenty-four years later I would be passing a sign for Nineveh on my way to Baghdad and for the next four hundred kilometers trying to remember the words to that poem, ‘Cargoes’ by John Masefield. I never realised until yesterday that
Nineveh is now the town of Mosul in Iraq, where I had just stopped and had a plate of chicken and rice.
Ha ha. thanks again for the memories. Must admit I had never thought of Auden before as a rapper though. I wonder if the modern exponents know of him.
And Masefield, a firm favourite of mine from many years ago, but Sea Fever rather than Cargoes, except for the last verse. Magic.
THIS IS MY FIRST TRIP TO THE PARIS MEAT MARKET CALLED RUNGIS it must have been around 1983/4 i had no idea what to expect if any of you drivers had the pleasure of unloading in RUNGIS the biggest market in FRANCE and inland clearance depot for all meat and fruit it is like a city of its own with its own police rows and rows of warehouses all with ramps you know what i mean, to be honest after a lot of times delivering there i actually like the "rush"of driving around the ring round [the pariphareqie]wrong spelling sorry.we were loaded with beef hind quarters and fore quarters20tons.
We looked at each other john said to me that is us both stuffed until tomorrow night ,we could not do anything about it what little did i know, John the other driver said i know what is going on here , the importer has got to much meat today and he cannot sell it he is holding us back for the price to rise he told me this has happened before ,they do it to regularly if we had been here earlier it would have been the same ,we just have to wait we can walk around to where the meat is un loaded at shed numbered V2P warehouse ,it is the cutting rooms where the meat carcass is cut up into joints to be sold to wholesale butchers.
V2P that is mostly for the Irish/ English meat it is the pitch for unloading, when we got there, there were 3 trucks waiting to get unloaded John ,knew one of the drivers he had been waiting for 2 hours and he was not next, we had no chance of getting unloaded tonight.
Back to the agent, i asked John what happens now he said he will ring the night number “the ■■■■ up number” whoever was on night duty from our office tell him what is going on once they are in the office they will get in touch with the exporter from the office, time go to bed.
The office will eventually ring the agent in Paris a complete waste of time, just park up and wait for the nights unloading to start again the French will all ready have their nights schedule worked out so it means that they will get to unload us when they can as we will be classed as extra loads as being custom cleared ,the meat we have in the trailer could have all ready been sold on to another buyer anywhere in France.
It could be one of us will unload in Paris and one will go to another town or city john told me, the most important piece of paper you will ever get from the French importer /customs is called “A BON-DE REMIE”a small pink form that allows us a foreign hauliers to deliver meat in to anywhere in France and it is not [CABOTAGE] that is another story ,the agent has all the power ,the company have no say .the only drawback is the company Rokold only quoted [money] for a delivery in or around Paris once we know, where it is going where we have to phone the night office [Rokolds] man again, and let them know where and who is going where. john and me
The only available phone we can use if the agents offices are closed is a phone from in a cafeteria, in the market the noise is horrendous, they are always full no matter what the time is.
As you know the French are very loud you pay the barman as the phone is on a meter. you get a hand written receipt which is normally altered to our advantage.
After sleeping it seemed for a short time there was knocking on my cab not the best way to be woken up it was John he said he had rang the office and it is all still the same as before you either unload in the market or go elsewhere and i must ring whatever time it is when I am empty back for another sleep ,what with the noise of our fridges roaring away i was soon awake again i decided to get up i found John also awake .
He decided we would take a walk around and get a coffee somewhere to kill the time, it was a good time for me to try to get all the information i needed for France after getting hyped up with their coffee he said we must go back and try to sleep as we both could or would be working all through the night and maybe the next day he said you must keep your tachographs in order even here in the market as the police have full power in here.as the French are the very worst at fining English drivers, as I was told before
Before we went back to bed again i asked John what to do about this envelope i had got and should i open it as i was not empty yet, he laughed and said what envelope, and i showed it to him ,and he opened it and laughed again and said you knob ,did no one tell you, i said what! and he replied it is a Spanish permit empty in and loaded out, meaning he said when you are empty from here or whever you are you are to drive down to Spain ,to a food factory, load up and come back ,i was supposed to do this when i have not even a map of France let alone Spain and he replied now is your chance.
He said when the agents come in to night he will photocopy the pages of his French map also Spanish map for me at least give me a chance
Also it gets better, they have been having problems on the FRENCH SPANISH border with the local Basque- Terrorists called ETA,where i have to go it has to be me to deliver out of the market and head for Spain after unloading
John has done it all before and gives me the rundown of what to do and what not to i try to write it down on the back of the envelope , he did tell me as much as he could he told me that i would not need much Spanish money, only for food if needed as the agents in IRUN are paid by the exporter .
I was supposed to go to sleep ,no chance i had to get this load out of the way the office knew and never said a word about the Spanish permit it was testing time again or they would not have given me a permit for Spain, although it was better this way to be thrown in the deep end and wait for the outcome. i expect some men would have said no to Spain
John did get me photocopies of the maps what he thought i would need, it gave the main roads he said wherever you unload, if it is more than one abattoir ,you must not on any account leave the last premises without using their trailer washing facilities you will never get a truck wash in Spain and the trailer must be spotless on no account leave without thoroughly washing the inside of the trailer out, as if no meat product as ever been in it then run the fridge cold to keep a chill in it but not all the time .as it is a waste of diesel
John was knocking on the cab door i was soon fully awake he said the customs and the veterinary are ready to look at the load to check the temperature and that it is beef etc .once their very brief inspection completed they told you to close the doors and wait for our papers.
About 1 hour later the agent appeared, i was to deliver in Tours ,and John had to deliver somewhere here in the market then elsewhere outside Good thing was it was a regular out of market delivery thankfully John knew where the delivery was he gave me directions.
I eventually found my way out of the market a sort of idea where to go the names of towns to follow, however hardly any traffic to worry about if i was to go the wrong way past the junction I needed to be at then that would be bad luck
TOURS direction was on the auto route signs, I just kept following it on to the dual track i was settling down, once you start to feel to comfortable i would guarantee something will go ■■■■ up .however this time i was wrong TOURS turn came into view it was light by now looking ahead for industrial signs. Large chimneys,or factories also the sign for Abattoir .in France it is nearly spelt the same as English, directions were very good
I found the Abattoir after a few about turns ,eventually pulled in to their yard ,it was very quiet.
I now had to wait and see what type of reception the side door was open I shouted and walked in with the C.M.R and the Bon- de-reme, from iwas looking for the boss i soon found him ,a half chewed cigar with ash ,hanging from his mouth sleeves rolled up a large man he seemed pleased to see me, he took the paper work then walked me to the loading bay at the rear, he made a sign for me to back up with doors open and switch the fridge off and the sign to go and sleep he patted his watch and he held 3 fingers up ,that was 3 hours to unload and sleep for me,
I must have slept as the rule of thumb it takes a while, however the fridge is turned off, it has been going nonstop since i left with the load from the abattoir in England it seemed a long time ago
After it seemed like 5 minutes the cab was being rocked, and the door knocked and shouts of French I assumed the load was off and i was needed to move off the bay clothes quickly on.the curtain pulled back and a large Frenchman hanging off the mirror arm ,and a foot on the step of the cab telling me to move off the bay just what you need when just woken up
I knew the best thing to do was start the engine ,pull the other curtain round ,so now a clear view in the mirrors, and pull away and that is what I did well away from the loading bay as other trucks were waiting to un -load…
All done C.M.R. Signed with a clear signature, and a company stamp, now i asked about the use of the wash for me to use, in the end the gesture i got was i was to pay for the hot wash and I gestured i would like a receipt, from the boss in the end it was all sorted nothing seems to be easy and straight forward it is a foreign country to me.
The hot wash was the only way to get the fridge clean and get all the fat and grunge off the sides of the fridge walls where all the meat carcasses have been swinging, for my first time i think i have done well i got my first unload without any major ■■■■ ups
I had to push all the meat hooks back to the front of the trailer as they were all at the back, after the meat had been taken off there is about a ton in weight in all them meat hooks, they are held in place by small clips that have to be clipped down on the meat rail or else they will be sliding up and down the trailer
Once finished i made a brew and had a jam and cheese sandwich i had not eaten much in the last 24 hours, was I ready for my first venture south it may not sound much to all the men who were already well established in European haulage for me going into Spain from France on my own i was quite pleased but all so a bit apprehensive of what could turn up
I headed for Poitiers then on to eventually Bordeaux .i was surprised on how flattish the country was around the area i was travelling, to be honest i had not got much idea on what to expect as far as the countryside would be like as i have never been bothered at all about areas of France, i will no doubt learn in time…
Sticking to the speed limit I think was 86 ks or 90k i tried to work out that when i got to the loading place, would i be in time to load in the day time i have had a break i will try to phone the office from a service station .
After getting lots of change i rang the office number got through they asked for the telephone and code box number and would ring me back.
They did ,they knew i was unloaded and told me that the cold store will load me when i get there the next day, one of our subcontractors all-ready there waiting to load, he will wait for you to take you back through the customs .that was the best news
After time I had driven up to Bordeaux and followed the signs i think the first time i was there i went the route around the city, you followed the river and went past a massive palace type buildings
after time a massive steel bridge was built, unless it was already there and I had taken the wrong road ,I went all around by the river and past lots of massive old buildings like I should not be here but there were green road signs with blue as well so I kept going as it said FRANCIA.
I just carried on, the area was so flat the fields stretched for miles there were large water sprayers moving on their own i had never seen anything so large ,god knows what crops they were watering.
I came up to a service area, i walked out of the service area up to the road and it was about ½ a mile away at least i had not been stopped by the French police today that was a bonus all i had to do now was have a good break on the tacograph card also I was ready for bed
I thought I would get up early after tea and toast [my last English bread the margarine had melted like water, i had my very first visit of Mosquitoes during the clammy night, like a novice, as I was, I left the tops of the windows open to get some air in ,Jesus all I remember is going slightly mad trying to kill the little devils what a waste of effort and time, I should have just laid in the sleeping bag head covered and tried to sleep another lesson learned ,get some thin sheets and close all windows and vents.
I was now ready to face my first border crossing, slightly nervous if the truth be told, I dropped down the big hill on the duel auto route a large piece of steel work that went right across the road with all kinds of different signs in FRENCH AND SPANISH I knew I was to drive over to the right side [French customs and imagination, ]it was just for the trucks that were empty also for Spanish trucks going wherever ,there was no order in parking nearly all Spanish, they were just left where they stopped ,you sort your self out.
I gathered my Permits one French [to be stamped as exit] and the Spanish as entry and of course passport. for a time i just stood and looked at all the windows within the building i could not read any of the signs, I just watched others and there seemed to be a sequence of going from one to another first thing they picked up was a yellow card that had boxes to fill in.
.After a time i went to the first French office and give him the lot, not the right move, i remember him saying CMR, over again and again, so it then clicked ,he wants to see my CMR, from my delivers, back to the truck got the stamped CMR, also i took the CMR with writing on telling me where the loading place was in Spain that was in the same envelope with the permit i was to use it when i had loaded in Spain .
Back to the office i had to give it to another officer not the one i had seen before, i pointed to the chap sat at the other desk and then pointed to the paper work, he said something to him he came to sort me out.
I did not what I was supposed to be doing, he said something else, what do not know, but next thing, he is out of the chair, the office told me to follow him with hand gestures, and gestated where is the truck ,is hands were flapping i pointed to it and went to the cab thinking he wanted to see in the cab, no wrong end, he wanted to look into the trailer to make sure ,empty it was.he then said to me “Vide” I had no idea what he meant, he then pointed up to the signs above the toll booths a picture of a lorry, with Vide in French ,and something else in Spanish. I understood what he had men
I went back in, he stamped the permit and the yellow card that I had picked up ,he passed it along to another uniformed man ,he stamped it ,looked at my Passport, gave it back to me ,and that was that .he pointed over to the Spanish the other side of the road i drove to the barrier gave the card to the man he lifted it he pointed to the Spanish that was that am sure they knew i was new to the procedure
Over by the Spanish block of office ,one little office looked around and it seemed to be deserted ,it looked run down bare concrete walls open doors, scruffy curtains hanging, different from the French.
After time two uniformed men appeared ■■■■ in the mouth ,stomachs bulging over the baggy trousers, they looked like well dressed bags of charity clothes in one, they took the permit and passport ,stamped the permit, not the passport ,and motioned me, with a flicker of the hand like the ■■■■ off gesture, to go to the truck they slouched along I knew they wanted to look in the back doors ,to check it was empty.
That done they gave me my passport and stamped permit back they turned around ,and glided off not a care in the world.
Now I was on my own in Spain not really knowing where to go, the traffic was flowing quite fast, not very many trucks at all ,I was thinking there is something not right where are all the trucks
That was just me ,I remembered John saying to me to come off the main road at the very first turn you come to just within the border area over a bridge it is a gravel type road ,a fence all crushed down but take the road ,and it leads to a t junction ,and remember to watch for massive heavy trucks overtaking near the junction and then follow the signs for Pamplona also you will never have been on a road like it before, and my god he was 100% right, this was the main road
It is a mass of sharp hairpin bends ,the gradient was nothing I had ever seen before, absolutely unbelievable ,the bends in the road were rutted where the weight of the trucks had lifted the road suffice in to gravel. The room when trucks were coming down at a snails pace was hardly any at all at lest if they hit you we as right hand drive were away from them…
I thought if I have to come back this way loaded, surly the brakes will not hold the truck unless you are creeping down at nothing miles a hour
Once I had got over the first hour I was starting to make progress, and the driving through villages on a main road was like driving on B class roads back home it was only single track so the passing of trucks coming the other way was quite twitching, how many times I said ,”■■■■ me ”I would not hazard a guess, I can tell you I never once took both hands of that wheel ,full of concentration, as I was getting further on ,it was time I had a brew ,there were no lay bys just massive open areas of rutted grass ,rocky ,pull off’s so the next one I pulled over ,it rocked the truck about as if it was a yacht at sea ,thank god I was empty, as I am sure if I had meat on it could have rolled the truck over
another lesson learned…
I was starting to think, this driving in Spain was no joke if all the roads were like this , later on as I got nearer Pamplona the roads were getting better, but do not hold your breath .in the distance once you topped a hill you could see the town/city in the foreground ,once I got closer road signs were coming up all the names unreadable, and pronounceable to me .so I just kept straight on and figured out that the trucks were coming the opposite way so it was the main road. ?
Time was moving faster than I was and I was starting to get slightly anxious about how was I doing as I had no yard stick I just wanted to pick up the sign for Madrid and I would know I was at not far away, about another hours driving and I was going around Pamplona a the hills were unreal it certainly gave the trucks a hammering with the gearboxes it was unrelenting, but I was moving on then at last [phew] the magic sign came up Madrid ,I must have been on the home straight as the factory was not that far away from the city.[but never believe all you are told]. After time I was beginning to doubt what I was told ,how close it should have been, had I got it wrong, right next place I can stop I will pull over and ask, [well point to the address I had written down].
Another mistake= it was a small type fuel stop, 2 pumps little shack, I thought these will know ,so typical of us English,[ I kept forgetting where I was] I bounced out of the cab, like always paper in hand ,rushed up to the door of the shack/ office pushed it open ,then ■■■■ myself ,I had not only pushed the door open and right behind it was this ■■■■■■■ massive Alsatian dog. It was just starting to rise and pounce, at whoever dared to push the door open on him, oh no I started to pull the door shut, the dog was going ballistic, the owner was in slow motion rising from his desk ,some type of words shouting there was me closing the door while waving my piece of paper c.m.r.
Thank god I closed the door, but the best yet ,it set another dog barking that was round the back, just what I needed , I only wanted directions, and all hell broke loose, I made it back to the cab in record time jumped up ,got in shut the door and then ■■■■ myself again[not really] but I think that must have been the start of my ,unknown to me then ,my high blood pressure. [that was not to be my only frighteing experience with dogs] ■■■■ the directions I fired the engine up ,with a massive cloud of dust I drove away and thought ,■■■■ that was close ,never go into a place again like that you ■■■■■
As I was now calmer I noticed in the distance, on the top of a hill it looked like a massive black bull ,I thought what the ■■■■ is that and as I got closer it was the biggest hoarding you have ever seen it was a big as a house, a outside wall size. Massive ,as I got closer it was held up by limited scaffold poles, advertising rum ,or brandy ,whatever, you could see it from miles away. After many other trips to Spain the [bull] was a main feature of the arrival and exit of many towns.
I was starting to get a bit worried ,where is this factory ,[so close to the road you cannot miss it]…have I missed it??
that was what I was told I was now thinking were there 2 roads to Madrid from Pamplona ohh -no .I was going to stop and ask someone just for that bit of reassuring that I was on the right road ,once you start thinking that you have gone wrong, although you do not know, you start looking for places to turn around if needed, and you start putting pressure on your self, but you do not realise it, what if…but once you are proved wrong you get this …yes i knew i was right…and it was not long before that happened out in the distance a factory started to come into view …yes thank ■■■■ for that …that was always the response to my self…
Yes it looked like a farm with massive greenhouses and the usual big venting pipes .the gate soon come into view and I caught sight of another trailer with Rokold in big letters but no tractor unit on the front. Any way I was so pleased that I had arrived… my first load from Spain well later.
Once in the yard it looked like a desert, so I slowly turned around and parked next to the Rokold trailer. First thing I noticed were that the back doors were open and the fridge was not going, strange
so I stopped the engine and walked back to have a look ,it was empty… the office had told me that the load was loaded and waiting for me so we would leave together strange. I walked over to the office it was empty ,so back to the cab ,no one around I put the kettle on after time I heard a lorry ,and it was the tractor unit ,who I did not know the driver but I was pleased to see someone, when he parked up he came round to me as I got out of the cab, we introduced ourselves s and he was Roger
He told me what was going to happen and when . Apparently the green beans are being picked to day from the fields ,processed tomorrow ,bagged up in paper sacks, and loaded whenever they are ready.
My first question was why would the office tell me you are loaded and waiting for me to get here,…
right he said, [1]they are the biggest liars that ever walked [the office] [2] they wanted you to get here so you would get enough break in on the Tacographs so as once loaded we are none stop to Kings Lynn cold store.[3] they did not know if you would get here or turn around and go home ,that was done with 2 other drivers ,so best to push you and see what happens…and you made it so I will phone the office to tell them you are here…when the office opens…?
I said what do you do now ,he said as he is a contractor and the unit is his [ OWNER DRIVER]he does small maintenance, changes fuel filters etc, ,because he does not get the truck serviced like a company does, which is fair also he said would I help him wind up the trailer brakes before we leave ,I did know how to do it ,but never bothered, as they are supposed to get serviced… but do they …no
That is what we did ,mine as well and I can tell you if we had not done it,i would have had problems going back down the mountain they were bad and needed attention and being empty on the way here I did not notice another lesson learned, ,get myself a good ring spanner and hammer…and some [Olives] not the eating kind, they go inside of the air lines to make a tight connection ,no Olives ,no air lines … you could be stranded just for the lack of not having one… also 2 open ended spanners to fit the ends.
When we had finished Roger told me a lot of what to expect when loading from [Pack houses farms] The produce is never ready on time just get used to sitting around maybe 2/3 days do not pester the office because they will know before you when you will load or so they say…
Make sure you have enough fridge diesel, also diesel for the truck as it could be late night or early morning when you have to leave ,no set rules… that you have enough food for you self ,water bottled ,or from home in a water container with a plastic tap on the bottom, on no account use any Spanish water for anything ,not even cleaning your teeth, ,you will be ill…
Bread ,tins food, whatever you like ,packets of dried pasta etc, and buy it from the supermarket back home, you will want ,sun cream .mosquito bite cream, soap powder ,a bucket, a hat, flip flops,- a camion leather , shorts, string ,pegs, headache tablets ,plasters, a sharp knife ,cooking pot ,frying pan toaster .you have to be 100%self sufficient as you are on you own. And sometimes it could stretch in to a week waiting ,especially in the south of Spain where most fruit, and vegetables are exported from …
If you buy cabbage ,carrots, to cook up wash them thoroughly with bottled or your uk water, French water is ok ,but not drinking. It seemed as if I was on a mission of survival, however if one man on all my driving career gave my the most sound advice and truth it was him he was spot on.
And I passed the same information to many young men starting out however ,most liked to just go to bars and eat out, to lazy to do it ,but if you offered them a meal from my cab cooking they would never refuse… in all the years I did European I do not think I had more than 5 meals in restaurants ,wherever I went ,and in the end it was everywhere…
It ended up we were 2 full days waiting and I was getting all kinds of information about procedures for all different borders that Roger had done and I was scribbling it all down, not ever thinking that in time ,I would be using the information all over Europe.
He was well travelled within Europe as a owner driver ,he went where the big money was supposed to be made …did they ever make money ,I do not know. Also it was not my worry…
Loading the beans in large thick paper sacks was a art in itself ,however you had to keep watch on the loaders they put very thin pallets on the floor ,then the sacks were laid long ways across the bed with a least a 2 inch gap between the sacks ,and the next row was reversed and so on and on so it had complete air flow from front to back of the trailer ,it was like a large honey comb, about 2 foot from the ceiling and the air flow -trunking that took the air to all of the trailer, and the hope was that by the time the truck got to England the whole load would be FROZEN down to -20 minimum
Once loaded the fridge thermostat was set at minus -25 the lowest it would go so it meant that the fridge engine was roaring away ,and it was non stop in the end for about 4/5 days but the product was frozen and down to temperature when we got to be unloaded. [back to getting out of Spain]
As I was told Roger waited for me ,that was good he said he was getting a little extra from the boss as it made sense for me to shown the procedures at the customs in “Irun” the customs clearance boarder control ,than make ■■■■ ups that would cost in the long run…
The drive down the mountain was very slow and ■■■■ clenching at times ,never before had I been subject to ,I expect fear, of ■■■■ me I hope these brakes do not fail if they did that would be it it is so steep ,when following Roger down behind him ,all you could see was the roof of the trailer, the engine is screaming, and there is only a Spanish trucks up your arse like trying to push you on faster. After a while Roger pulled into a lay-by type -shack -parking area one to let the engines cool down a bit and to let the traffic move on…
It was quite strange once we were stopped I sort of said to Roger I seem to have seen this place before , but I thought how come, on the way up and he said it is a popular stop for the UK drivers going this route to Madrid. Apparently the quickest but the hairiest ,he was not wrong there…once inside there are loads of photographs of English trucks On the wall and there are Rokolds trucks , then it clicked in my head, Pete, on my very first trip was showing me photographs of him in Spain and I can now remember him saying how dangerous the road was and he doubted I would get there …and here I was in the very place he had been Photographed… I must have made then…
I did not have anything to drink, brandy seemed to be the drink of the day everyone had a small glass with whatever else they had…not for me it was only dinner time after a while ,and a bit of broken -pigeon /Spanish ,well a grunt from me .
I have never liked trying to speak any foreign language at all, my English needs attention. even then, people say over the years …ohm ,they like it it if you try to speak their language, …who says so… as any foreigner ever said well done you, you tried ,but ■■■■■■ it up… no .but they think why bother… After years of driving in Europe I am still the same just got on with it… make people laugh with hand gestures… and you get on look at the Italians. they wave the arms around, the odd word …point made. To be honest I was never on any regular run like week in and out like a lot of drivers like maybe do swiss every week etc.
Once we had left the parking we were on the home run to get into the customs compound, Roger warned me in advance once parked that loads of men would come knocking on the cab doors looking official, saying [give me your papers] ignore them, they are only Agents runners, people touting for business to get your papers processed by the customs .hey will go once you say [carlos]
He is the man who will come to you and speak in perfect introduce himself and he will know you are new ,as he knows 100% all the drivers who work for Roklod and other well known refrigerated fridge firms running to Spain…and Roger was correct …also he will not forget your name and that was also correct over the years he would always greet you with the correct name, even if it had been months since you were there …good man to know… and I then realised that things were not that hard to do at boarders posts ,if you got the right person who knows a little English .if you have to have customs papers made up… also the price is the same if you use the same company…I found out over time…So when I used to hear men say -yes I got myself cleared at so and so boarder, now I know [■■■■■■■■]every where Agents do the business.
After about 5 hours we were clear to go so, so out with the old tacograph and in with the new one ,the one we had used from the factory to here was thrown away, so now it looked as if we have just started another days work “from a long rest ,who was to know, well I would but if we get stopped by the French police on our way back, it looked as if we have had a good long 3 days -ish rest … so long as I wrote down the mileage from where we were leaving from on the new tachograph and made sure that I put that mileage down on the one that I had finished ,when I first arrived, it looked as if we had been standing still.
The law then was you had to show a tachograph card with a complete 24 hours ,no movement on at all, that was it …so long as the written mileage corresponded with the card you were starting with it was ok . There were no electronic methods of checking cards then it was really a free for all …now 2014 completely different for the better…
I just followed the back of Rogers truck ,what he did I did, I knew he would not be legal ,but hey-ho needs must I just hung behind .I can now see why are paid a Monthly Salary??
No way could you be paid hourly on this job ,we get a daily tax cash allowance ie [night out money] but the company’s do not look it as that ,it is just a perk ,so they think ,however that is what makes the difference ,is it worth it. So in theory we now had a 10 hour drive with one 45 minutes break to do , then park up for 9 hours rest.[sleep] Roger said we will be just south from Paris when we finish.
I just kept up with him all the way, at times we were going over the FRENCH speed limit at that moment it did not bother me, because I was green at the job to be honest ,however I would learn another lesson.[not this trip]
Where we got to I could not tell you but I was glad to be finished, god new what time it was, it was getting light .so we checked our fridges ,[diesel and our trucks] and Roger said that we had enough to get into, and around Paris and fill up at a service station on the home run, apparently once the fridges had settled down and the temperature was getting colder inside they went into a slower ,mode and the fuel consumption was slower,[how I do not know ,it turned out to be ■■■■■■■■]
However then !I would believe anything…I found out that later on that after ANY trip that owner drivers like to run the fridges on low fuel, [not fill them up as the company will not pay them the correct rate as they cannot prove how much fuel is left in a fridge ] for example they could pick a fridge trailer up left by another owner driver and the fuel tank would ,or could be empty. But if it was left by a company man like me the fridge would have plenty of fuel in the fridge tank. So then they would not need to buy any [[The term used in something like that is called SWINGS -AND-ROUNDABOUTS. You win some or loose some…
It all worked out, after some tinned food [Rogers beans again] and good sleep even though the fridges are roaring way not 3 foot from the cab, you are so knackered ,you sleep. It was afternoon when we were ready to leave, Roger rang the office and gave a progress report, it looked as if we would be in Calais early morning 2/3 am.
Why the office want to know where you are, and try to work out when you will be back in the UK is so as they can book loads in to factory cold stores for unloading, they already have preliminary bookings [but do not tell you] they let you get on with it as they know you will want to go home for a couple of days and that you will go all out for it to get back to the ferry…so long as you have had 9 hours rest once you get on a ferry the English Ministry of Transport were ok. What you had done abroad was not there problem… and the Europeans really did not give a ■■■■ so we were on a hiding for nothing However I was completely unaware of that…then.
We arrived at the fuel stop after a hair raising trip around the Paris ring road about 4/5 hours from Calais I think it was going towards Beauvais or Compiegne however there were the two ways that I got used to going back to Calais before the motorways we had French sticks and some ■■■■■■ coffee, I could not be bothered to brew up , last time I did that!! I brew up whenever now…
and off we went , heading for Calais ,what is so unusual I was seeing names of places that were membranous during both world wars , and not really bothered, as I had not time to sort of reflect on how many lives were lost for such a ■■■■■■ bit of country, but over time I did look around some of the places however we had to do the job we were given.
Arrived in Calais ,no police stops, customs exit procedures had to be done ,then on to the ferry ,well to park up and wait, you had to be booked on by the company, not like now any ferry any time.
Waiting at Calais was not long this time [only sea link and p,and o ] were running then from Dover to Calais.
At the booking office we had asked for electrical plug ins they told us they have all been taken by other trucks, if we wanted we could wait for another ferry or switch them off, as the goods were frozen not fresh ,Roger said it would be all right so that is what we did , a meal on the ferry then down to the duty free shop, it was time to get ready to get off.
After lots off procedures, the ramp is put down ,then you are told when to move towards driving off, all the lorries were already started up so lots of lovely diesel fumes for the ships crew, directing when to move [hand signals] once off the ramp you have a drive towards the immigration, and formal customs proceed ,when completed you are told to go the parking, most of the fridges all try to park together as the noise is horrendous .if the c and you are told where to park, near some unloading bays and wait to be directed, [it is all done by walkie-talkie hand held radios] you are not privy to it
so it is a bummer because your papers can not be handed in to the Agents to start getting the customs clearance until you have been cleared once the inspection is over,
and there is no guarantee when they will get to you sometimes it takes hours, you are put on to a unloading bay and if they want the whole load taken off so they can look at the very front pallets, that is what is done.
However the unloading is done by the port dockworkers [shift work] so if you are unlucky you just as well go to bed and forget it day or night…believe me …this time on my first from Spain we were both lucky and not inspected but numerous times in my driving job Dover was a pain in the ■■■■.
Especially if you have loaded in Spain or Portugal and come back into the country via Calais ,it is the long way back [road …] to England from Spain ,the most used route is from Cherbourg to POOLE, or ST -malo to Portsmouth or even Le- harv,e to Portsmouth so the customs would quiz you why you come back the long way round it was all -so special branch ,and the usual answer was we were doing as we were told, however it was a smuggling route so they treated every one the same.
After loosing track of days let alone time we were customs cleared and drove on up to Kings Lynn to the Frigoscania -cold store one of many in England, I think it was Thursday night ,we had a delivery time for 12 noon Friday ,we made good time and arrived early ,booked in and told to park up, they would get us when they were ready, the local in house customs man broke the seals on the doors and the quality control took bags out of both trucks to check the temperature of the goods and the quality of the beans [French] it did not bother me, straight in to the bunk…After a time the door had the unwelcome raps, and shouts, “come on you lazy ■■■■■■ normal…once semi awake curtain threw back a fork lift driver [fat ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ bay number 2, …yea, ok Mr., knob… they used to love waking drivers up ,so I made a mental note I will never ever sell him any duty free ,ever.
Roger had the same treatment he was on the next bay , it was after dinner ,so he said as it is Friday this would be a long job,=a good few hours ,
How they unload is they have a elevator.[a revolving track] pushed up to the open back doors ,and the bags/boxes are put on the track, sending them out of the truck to people loading them on pallets
on the ground, then they are taken away when the forklift has “time” This Roger told me this where the selling of the duty free comes into its own, no ■■■■ =slow unload…oh ■■■■ another lesson, this time Roger had sold him is ,so it was o k, next time I will know, apparently most cold store and unloading ware- houses work on the same principle with import loads, they know you will want to make some money , as some men had a good business going ,as I was to find out much later on in my career .
I never had the money to do the initial outlay to buy the cigarettes , spirits , beer, etc to have spare duty free so I never ever got a quick unload…but did I care ,no, ■■■■- emm.
After a fare amount of time, we were both unloaded ,and the next instruction was to go home, yippee… for how long only time would tell. ,after a while doing the job permanently ,I used to find out it was not worth going home just for 1 night, it put my wife out of her routine no sooner were you home you had to leave again it caused more trouble, than the night at home was worth. After time the driving laws changed and we had to have 36 hours off in one go ,so we did used to get home ,sometimes in the middle of the week however it was home also I had room to park not to far from my house…
I have always thought Trucknet should have a poetry thread. My all time favorite is by a bloke called Rudyard Kipling and his epic " IF…I was a lorry driver."
If you can keep you head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you
If you know all there is about an air brake
And can pass the test that you must take
If you can endure days of desperation
Brought on by a week of orientation
If you just need a map to find your way
To drive a thousand kays a day.
If you can handle any rig that anyone’s made
And run the back roads so you don’t get weighed
If you can sidestep every speeding fine
And still make deliveries just in time
If you can sit overnight at a lonely border
While customs gets its house in order
If you can drive all night and have no fear
Of the eventual strike of a moose or deer.
If you have the patience not to explode
When it takes all day just to load
If you know the way to say it with flowers
When you go again in thirty-six hours
If you can throw on chains when needs be
Or drive across a desert with no a/c
If you can make a log look correct
To fool all of those who need to check
If you can change a filter at minus thirty
With no second thought of getting dirty
If you can ignore despatchers’ games
And smile at the idiots just the same
If you can survive the stabs in the back
And con yourself " It’s just for the craic "
If you can take all this in and think for a minute
Yours is Canada and everything that’s in it
Fly on over and join in the fun
And - which is more - you’ll be a trucker my son.
THANK YOU CHRIS very well written ,or do you say rhyme ,i have no knowledge of poems or rhymes, the only dttie i knew and it was written on a IDS fuel pump at ST dizer.
MURUFITTS MEN CAME OVER THE HILL
JUST LIKE THE BENGAL LANCERS
HALF THE ■■■…ERS WERE ■■■■ HEADS
AND THE REST WERE CHANCERS . That is all, dbp