I am pretty sure the M6 past Shap opened late 1970.
I used it often when I was driving a Scammell Highwayman tanker delivering acid for ICI Runcorn to Scotland and in winter is was a hair raising experience although I never got stuck there.
One thing I do remember was the little waterfall which poured down into a gully by the side of the road going down the south side.
There was always a bucket there for any driver who’s lorry had overheated.
I had a trip over a few weeks ago for old times sake after a day out at Kendal, I returned south via the M6.
The old clock is now in the Museum at Kendal but another landmark, The Plough Pub, is boarded up. The Jungle is a caravan park.
They would only let lorry drivers in one section of the Jungle and one Sunday I pulled in for my dinner wearing jeans and sweater. I had been loaded on the Friday for AM delivery Monday at Motherwell and was only running up to my digs. I had to convince the cafe owner I was a lorry driver, she though I was in a car until I pointed at the Highwayman and asked her if she had ever seen a car like it with a 5000 gallon tank behind.
I think the Jungle closed down the week the M6 opened. I have the DVD called The Story Of Shap and it’s well worth a look at if you can get hold of a copy.
None of the construction but I have some photos of Tebay railway complex before steam finished. A mate of mine was a fireman on the Shap bankers and he gave them to me. The Lorry park is somewhere near where the photo was taken but it came many years later.
Any memories of winters up on Shap before the M6 was built? I thinks Suttons drivers were among the first to do the treacherous night run out of St Helens to Glasgow? I remember stories from the 50’s when lorries were snowed in for days, my dad told me of one episode when a bunch drivers had to burn cut up sheets in buckets of diesel to keep warm, loads were opened for tins of corned beef, biscuits and… Whisky! It was a long time before the snowploughs finally got through…the imagination serves to fill in the details of the the scene that greeted them.
Now that’s initiative!They could have turned cannibal otherwise!.
But seriously,my old uncle who passed on a few years ago,it was he who got me started in transport,started off as second man on a model T Ford and drove everything on wheels up till when he died about 20 years ago.
On a night out,after a few jars,he would tell tales of driving Sentinel steamers and chain drive Scammells,and tales of Shap.
When he was doing Cornwall in the '50’s,before the motorways were built,it was a weeks work to go to Cornwall and back.He used to load China clay back from St,Austell,20 tons on a sided flat trailer,(not a tipper),and have to shovel it off on a Saturday morning!
He’s told me of being on his way back having to stop at the traffic lights in the middle of Stone town in the early hours,and being woken up by a motorist because he’s fallen asleep waiting for the lights to change.
My firm now does round trip Launceton trunk from Stoke every night.
My,how things have changed.
Yep bestbooties, I gotta smile too, 70’s a long time ago? I think my cats older than that! I saw the M1being Built, must have been 58 or 59? In fact if anyone would like to know the story I think that somewhere on the web there is old BBC radio documentry made way back that interviews the Dozer and Euclid men and drivers of the tippers.
I think you’ll find it was a bit later than that Tom because I used to go over the old shap in the 60’s. Yes it was naughty in the winter but you had the good old “Jungle Cafe” for a bit of warmth and sustinense. Old Charlie remembers the old road over shap because we were discussing it the other day over a lunch. You could see the British Leyland clock and hours later you would reach it because in those days you would certainly be in crawler gear. It wasn’t the climb that was the worry, it was the going down the other side on servo brakes or in some cases rod brakes on the trailer. I certainly remember the hump backed bridge at the bottom. Any more memories from anyone ?
