The easiest way in from jct 25 M1 is head along the A52 towards Derby. Whilst still on the A52 your sat-nav will want to take you through Ockbrook, but they arn’t very keen on HGV going through their village, So I go another mile/mile and a half to Spondon. Just as the A52 takes a tight left hand bend, there is a slip, take that slip road, down to the round-about and come right back on yourself on the A52 heading for Nottingham.
Stay in the slip road as you come off the round-about, its another tight left hander with a church on the corner. Follow the road up the hill and you’ll come to a tight right hander, with a 7.5t weight limit in front of you. Follow the road around the right hander(be careful you wont get an artic around this corner if there is anything comming the other way) then you’ll come up to a small round-about, take the first exit and now your on the A6096.
Still going up through the town(Spondon) there is another small, tight, round-about that you want to take the 2nd exit. Keep following the road ahead, careful though as the next stretch has a few cameras on it, 30mph limit. Once your out of Spondon keep following the road ahead, you’ll pass the junction for the top side of Ockbrook, next juction is for Dale Abbey, both on your right, then the next junction on your left is Cat and Fiddle lane. There is a big white signpost that has Storage Depot marked on it on your left.
Time from jct 25 M1 to Cat and Fiddle lane going my way is 15 to 20 mins. If you go through Ocbrook that will knock 5 mins off that.
Hope this helps any one looking for it in the future.
Ha Ha call yourself a professional!!!
When you pass your test for trucks it should be automatic that you know where EVERYWHERE is!!!
Did you not know this,bloody amateur
bigsidney:
Ha Ha call yourself a professional!!!
When you pass your test for trucks it should be automatic that you know where EVERYWHERE is!!!
Did you not know this,bloody amateur
ooh ooh, I’ve been there! first place I ever went in an artic infact!
Cant help apart from that really, except get some means of getting the internet in the cab (I use iphone) and see for yourself - I know the old and wise brigade dont like all this technology but it’s served me better than directions from people who’ve never driven a truck.
I bought a TomTom a while back as buying map books regularly was jsut as expensive and much heavier to carry. They certainly have their uses but a recent job showed them to be not entirely perfect. It was a two man job to Northwich via Birmingham. I had a look at the big atlas to see what junction to come off. We dropped off the M6 at J19 and took a left towards Northwich and almost immediately it wanted to throw us right down a B road when we needed to head for the High St. We decided to ignore that and carry on a bit as we had a bit of overhang on the offside and our instincts told us it didn’t feel right. This was at night BTW when things can be that wee bit trickier. To cut a long story short we soon ended up where we both knew we didn’t want to be at which point my co-driver got his TomTom out to try that although I couldn’t see the point as we’d treble checked the address and made sure it was entered correctly ! His took us right to the job! So how does that work■■? Anyway as I said to my mate if neither of us had the TomTom we’d have driven straight into the job without even a map just by following our noses and he agreed!
Yeah, the point I was trying to make was, as drivers we are constantly under pressure to save fuel, and get there on time. If we are late or get bad MPG, we get the spanish inquisition. With modern technology and communications, there is no reason why we shouldn;t have all the information we need to achive these targets, but it always seems that it is easier for managers to chew the ears off of drivers rather than make sure we have the full details. the days of “your a driver, you should know where your going” have passed, it’s time that managers started to kick the right a*s.
today i went passed one drop to get to another, had to double back for the second drop, then pass the first drop to get to my depot, where if the planners had loaded it the other way round, i would have saved fuel and time.
another example from my days at asda, full load of Beers, wines and spirits out of didcot, 20 pallets for Yeovil, 4 for Plymouth. so They plan plymouth first drop with no time slot,yeovil as second drop yeovil with a timed delivery, I drag 20 pallets up and down the A38 to plymouth and back to Yeovil, where is the sense in that? simply be reversing the load, i could have saved a huge amount in fuel.
It’s time that companies started looking at thier planners for fuel savings, and giving us a break!
I had to deliver to a cold store in Radstock (near Bath) last week and I came in from Chippenham. Could I find a road without a weight limit? Could I hell. Once I’d backtracked all the way to Bath and found the correct road into Radstock the fun really began. Every road that would take me to the cold store had weight and width limits on them, I ended up driving down a narrow street with two wheels on the footpath with all the old retired Brigadiers waving their fists and walking sticks at me!
Once I actually got into the place the correct way in and out became clear (hindsight is a wonderful thing).
To make matters worse I reloaded out of Warminster for Staines but because I was real low on fuel and our lot in their wisdom haven’t given me a fuel card I was told to run to our Gloucester depot to refuel before carrying on to Staines! How much did that debacle cost then?
Wheel Nut:
Aye Pinnacle Storage can confuse, much easier to come in off Spondon to Trowell road and turn up Cat and Fiddle lane. I learnt this when I lived in Banbury and was running Vauxhall cars in there from Purfleet and Luton. It is West Hallam that confuses the job
about 18 yrs ago i used to do 2 shunts from ashby into there every sunday,but only between midday and 2 oclock,if you turned up before or after these times a certain county counciler that lived in cat&fiddle lane would be on the phone before you got back to ashby,also the same would happen if you took a shortcut via ockbrook back to the a52.this was before the a42 opened so you used to have to crack on using the old a453 past donington park ,which was a pig if the sunday market was on,still it made me some good money while it lasted.
truckerjon:
Yeah, the point I was trying to make was, as drivers we are constantly under pressure to save fuel, and get there on time. If we are late or get bad MPG, we get the spanish inquisition. With modern technology and communications, there is no reason why we shouldn;t have all the information we need to achive these targets, but it always seems that it is easier for managers to chew the ears off of drivers rather than make sure we have the full details. the days of “your a driver, you should know where your going” have passed, it’s time that managers started to kick the right a*s.
today i went passed one drop to get to another, had to double back for the second drop, then pass the first drop to get to my depot, where if the planners had loaded it the other way round, i would have saved fuel and time.
another example from my days at asda, full load of Beers, wines and spirits out of didcot, 20 pallets for Yeovil, 4 for Plymouth. so They plan plymouth first drop with no time slot,yeovil as second drop yeovil with a timed delivery, I drag 20 pallets up and down the A38 to plymouth and back to Yeovil, where is the sense in that? simply be reversing the load, i could have saved a huge amount in fuel.
It’s time that companies started looking at thier planners for fuel savings, and giving us a break!
they like to do that in didcot, sent one driver to wycombe with 6 pallets of bog roll, then over to us in wheatley with the rest■■? baring in mind that the planners know that one of our guys will ring in advance for returns to the ADC
Whenever I sent a driver to make a delivery to a new customer or one that he hadn’t been to before, I would print out a section of OS map using Fugawi software that I had to pay for myself (the company wouldn’t buy it!). The places that we deliver to are nearly always in rural areas along narrow country roads, so a little bit of my time helping the driver to identify the exact locations was far better than having the driver spend 30 minutes or more looking for the drop.
One thing I would like to complain about is that weight limits seem difficult to identify in advance. When I last looked, not many local authorities published details about where their weight limits were. This make it more difficult to pre-plan a route to avoid them.
I even phoned one county council to ask them for the information. I was told they didn’t know where all their weight restrictions were and to tell the driver that unless it was specifically for a weak bridge, don’t worry about it!
Kevy:
Whenever I sent a driver to make a delivery to a new customer or one that he hadn’t been to before, I would print out a section of OS map using Fugawi software that I had to pay for myself (the company wouldn’t buy it!). The places that we deliver to are nearly always in rural areas along narrow country roads, so a little bit of my time helping the driver to identify the exact locations was far better than having the driver spend 30 minutes or more looking for the drop.
One thing I would like to complain about is that weight limits seem difficult to identify in advance. When I last looked, not many local authorities published details about where their weight limits were. This make it more difficult to pre-plan a route to avoid them.
I even phoned one county council to ask them for the information. I was told they didn’t know where all their weight restrictions were and to tell the driver that unless it was specifically for a weak bridge, don’t worry about it!
Excellent work ethic Kevy. Well done that man. If only all planners worked like that.
Driver wasting time looking for drop =
Inefficient use of time.
Stressed out driver (will I get round them all & get back in the day?)
Possibility of getting stuck in a tight spot & expensive recovery.
Wasted diesel.
Unneccessary mileage/wear & tear on the truck.
Why can’t planners/companies see this? Are they blind?
Hiya… years ago the traffic office always had a ex driver as a transport clark or manager.then the govenment
came up with the idea of people in these positions should have a university degree. the old school tsp manager
wolud have said, have you been here before, answer no. well its easier to enter from such and such street
or village. when you said where the drop was i knew straight away where it was. i retired 8 years ago but its
still hanging around in the grey matter, whats more i live about 90 miles away in North Wales.
John
Thanks Driveroneuk for your comments. It will probably come as no surprise to 3300John that I used to be out driving before taking the transport/routing job for my area, hence my effort to do everything I could to assist the other drivers. I understand how much better it is to have drivers who know where they’re going and how to get there, just as any old-school transport manager would.
Some years ago the company I work for decided to outsource its logistics to one of the major UK transport companies. Much more efficient, of course. Routing is now primarily done by university graduates in an office several hundred miles away from my area. Anyone care to guess how much the routing has improved as a result and how much easier it is for the drivers? The customers are equally impressed, well, those that haven’t gone elsewhere.
i cant even be bothered to read all this … i dont mean to be rude but how do you youngsters think old chaps like what i is managed before satnav …■■?
i’m sorry but i will never trust satnav ever , just go buy a good map and a pencil and you’ll be fine , i realy dont mean to be rude but jeeeeesh …
Bowser, it makes no odds what map you have, even a LandRanger for the specific area, still not much help if you’ve been given an iffy address to start with.
Driveroneuk:
Bowser, it makes no odds what map you have, even a LandRanger for the specific area, still not much help if you’ve been given an iffy address to start with.
they may be giving incomplete addresses because they assume you have satnav… that dont work …
bowser:
i’m sorry but i will never trust satnav ever , just go buy a good map and a pencil and you’ll be fine , i realy dont mean to be rude but jeeeeesh …
I don’t think you’re being rude, in fact, you’ve made a good point. I’ve got a satnav, albeit a bit old by today’s standards, but I don’t trust it for HGV use, even though it’s got a ‘Truck’ mode. It’s tried to send me down some unsuitable roads for a lorry. It even tried to send me along a country footpath, and that’s in so-called ‘Truck’ mode (I should add that I didn’t follow it’s suggested route!). I expect there are thousands of similar experiences out there. I used to carry every Landranger map for the East of the country, and a Philips Navigator and the AA Trucker’s Atlas with bridge heights (quite expensive when you add it all up, but probably still cheaper than a top-end satnav). Mind you, I was always getting lost (not really, only joking).
Satnavs, however, can be useful in certain circumstances, but they’re not the be all and end all. I expect they will improve though, and probably already have since I got mine. The trouble with maps is you need more than one type and that can mean a lot of maps to carry around.
The customers are equally impressed, well, those that haven’t gone elsewhere.