biffo:
I worked for them for several years all over east and western europe it was an excellent company to work for you had the best of everything and total backup should you have needed it
apart from some of the traffic managers eh hughie? you decamped as soon as i got there anyway
biffo:
I remember Mark Murfitt had all the trucks fitted out with satellite communication he was well ahead of his time.
shame it was that crappy BT system - I tried unsucessfully to pursuade him to swap to euteltracs, but it was “twice the price”, I did point out that it could be a quarter of the price but if it didn’t work half the time what was the point? it didn’t even convince him when a drawbar full of washing machines got stolen; the euteltracs hardware was fitted to the truck but not commissioned. However alcatel quickly booted up the system remotely, and tracked the wagon to a farm in essex iirc, where plod made arrests and recovered load and truck - quite impressive i though, not impressive enough obviously
when i started we had fl7 volvos on the fridges then we got the 420 seddons which were a very good motor,then scanias and eurostars our pay was a different stucture to the tilts/drawbars etc thats why you rarely saw the fridges parked on nights out with the others, not because there was animosity, it paid us to cover as many miles a day as possible.even when in europe, like simon said there were some idiots there but they never stayed long, i can’t believe its over 10 years since they packed up
biffo:
I worked for them for several years all over east and western europe it was an excellent company to work for you had the best of everything and total backup should you have needed it
apart from some of the traffic managers eh hughie? you decamped as soon as i got there anyway
biffo:
I remember Mark Murfitt had all the trucks fitted out with satellite communication he was well ahead of his time.
shame it was that crappy BT system - I tried unsucessfully to pursuade him to swap to euteltracs, but it was “twice the price”, I did point out that it could be a quarter of the price but if it didn’t work half the time what was the point? it didn’t even convince him when a drawbar full of washing machines got stolen; the euteltracs hardware was fitted to the truck but not commissioned. However alcatel quickly booted up the system remotely, and tracked the wagon to a farm in essex iirc, where plod made arrests and recovered load and truck - quite impressive i though, not impressive enough obviously
You got me at a disadvantage there jj who are you? yes I got an offer to go to Turners Soham to help set up their European work with another old Murfitt driver whose name escapes me, got it ,Dave Ballard! couple of years there with Jo di ##### an Italien from Bedford as Ops Manager who couldn’t understand a tacho good money no home life
pierrot 14:
Who was the English Murfitt driver that lived around Bourg en Bresse area, he was shacked up with some French woman, was always at Macon at week-ends ?
That would have been craig he was shacked up with one of the girls outta bourg
i dare say, never had a lot to do with him really - of course in keeping with the usual myths, even the traffic managers on different desks used to have fist fights right there between the desks, in lieu of not being able to come to bourg every weekend just ask trubrit if here ever reappears, you wouldn’t want a bunch of fives off him neither
enit?:
What’s it like on Norfolk Line then, anyone know?
I take it you mean the fleet not the boat??
if the boat, well. the minimun 2hr crossing. the food was good. the showers were clean,(thats if you get on first). but if the sailing is rough, then the 2hrs can stretch to sevreal hrs, and all the eastern bloc drivers not used to boats, going green. (womens toilets were the best place for a crap, didnt smell of sick).
if the fleet. it was great. never spoke to the manager, unless you need something, like money to pay a fine cause miantence problems. i always spoke to a guy in Belgium, name lost in my mind now. money was good, well i thought so. me and a guy called Alister from south wales, great guy he was, he was on SEO. we set off on a monday morning, and both got back to dover on a saturday night. I was on NEO. and the next week we got paid, i was about 15 shorter than Al was. i think i got 670 for the week.
Yeah, would work for them if they were still going.
being as im younger generation, people saying there was no chasing, was that the case and was it the case with everyone else at the time? if they were to restart now would it not be all gps and trackers etc? just wondering thats all
it didn’t even convince him when a drawbar full of washing machines got stolen; the euteltracs hardware was fitted to the truck but not commissioned. However alcatel quickly booted up the system remotely, and tracked the wagon to a farm in essex iirc, where plod made arrests and recovered load and truck - quite impressive i though, not impressive enough obviously 
