early 80’s 5am monday morning me and my mate in the yard avin a chat and a coffee. usual crap footie ,birds etc anyhow i said i’m gonna hook up yes he say’s your trl is next to mine ok say i trustingly hook up and trap on… about 3hours later i arrive at cadburys perevale with a full load of mars easter eggs and he arrives at mars (harris’s) heywood…well done youve guessed it a full load of cadburys eggs…after 31 years in the game still the biggest b@ll@cking i have ever had.
Two blunders for the price of one, Loaded Coalite Chesterfield, the place you could smell as you passed between J28 & J29 M1
run down to Felixstowe for night boat went to book in & got the message to ring the office, when I was told they had loaded the wrong product, turned round went back got back in Coalite 1am connected up for them to pump off the load the operator opened the wrong valve switched on the pump & it came over the top down the tank on to the chassis of the 5 week old unit, washed it off immediately but still had to have a repaint.
i love this thread, cause we know when we ■■■■ up…%of drivers ■■■■ ups =1%/mile. office ■■■■ ups=69%/mile. need I say more?
in the mid 80’s i was about 21/22 and just got my first class 1 job with a Volvo F7 and a 30ft trailer which had a atlas block grab crane on it which ran along the bed. I got back to the yard for the old yard man to load me and raised the crane verticle so I could be loaded quickly by a fork-lift.
I was sat in the cab waiting when another artic came in and needed to get past, instead of pulling forward and to one side I thought I’d pull under the fitters canopy as I only had a ‘flat’ and completely forgot my now verticle crane!!! I could’nt work out why all this corrogated sheeting was falling all around me. I had to come in the following saturday and help the fitters repair the roof.
On another occasion I dropped a trailer and forgot to take the lines off, sadly this was on a more modern unit which was tapless resulting in me snapping the lines and having to call out the fitters. Dropped a few on there knee’s but I no I’m not alone in this.
I HAVE GOT BETTER WITH TIME, I think?
back in 1989 I drove a 6 leg volvo f7 with high tipping body with hiab we used to empty bottle banks and would tip in a glass bottle factory in harlow at xmas time the place was overloaded with bottles and we had to tip in another area this place had a lot of high metal chimneys with guy cables keeping them up well I tipped and pulled away with the body up and I was stopped it was like I was being held back so I gave the old girl (it was a very old girl) some welly and heard a sound like a big crack and I shot forward I had been caught on one of the guy cables and it had snapped luckily no one got hurt but it could have been nasty if the cable had hit someone where was the H&S guy, cheers fred
I had a good one,I was on the pumps with the gun in the tank,I went to the front of the ERF I had at the time to shove a pint of oil in her,while I had the front grille up Graham our yardman come up to me and said I had to go to Newport and fetch a load .Ok I said and as he walked away I remembered he always carried the severn bridge tickets in his pocket,we’re going back a few years I must hasten to add,I chased after him and he gave me one…a ticket I mean,so up into Sandbach Skoda and away we go…dragging the fuel pumps right out of the ground.Out I leap to see a gusher of deisel riseing up into the air,so clever me thinks I’ll put my foot over the flow…bad move…covered head to foot in deisel
.after Graham got off the floor laughing he turned the feed off.
Result…written warning for Bubbs.
brilliant bubble man. we need of of this cause we all love it, been there and done it
Not another of mine, but Bullitt, who gets on here when he’s not to busy playing snooker or putting fires out, worked on a firm that had a couple of blokes who forgot to put their handbrakes on when they got on a ferry, I saw the aftermath of one in Boulogne, The unbraked 2800 Daf had the front caved right in & the poor bloke behind in what looked like a brand new F10/12 (it was when the square headlights first came out on the F series, although this didn’t have headlights by now) was smashed to bits, there were a lot of uniforms around them & harsh words were being exchanged.
Another bloke on that same firm was part of a 3 driver 1 truck team that ran from Daventry to Cologne, 1 bloke did Erith-Daventry-Erith, the next did Erith-Bruxelles then slept in a caravan in the shipping company’s yard while the 3rd man did Bruxelles-Cologne-Bruxelles, this particular time the bloke having his time off in the caravan wasn’t sleeping when the Belgian shipping clerk went into the caravan to wake him up, he had his pants around his ankles, a ■■■■ mag in one hand & his todger in the other, ever since he has been known as Barry the [zb]er
ha ha what an emmbarresment getting caught spanking the monkey
last time was when i was about 13
Got told today by my mate ( i will name no names he is suffering enough) but he failed his test when he managed to hit a POLICE CAR parked up at the test centre. If anybody remembers the old Heywood site near manchester they will remember it was always full of police pulling in to get a butty at the van.
My mate Mike Sargent writes… in 1972 my first trip abroad on my own was with a 110 Scania non-sleeper taking a 20ft tank container to Dow Chemicals, Holland. It was the first time I had driven with a tank and all the way to Holland on my own I was as wound up as a clock spring. When I arrived at Dows the cloggies directed me to a gantry to load. You have to come up and open the lid shouted the guy up on the gantry. Why, when you’re already up there I thought but up I went and opened it. “When we load you must stay in your cab” he said, “and when it is loaded a hooter will sound and you then come up and close the lid” So I went and sat in the cab and started to read a book. After about 5 minutes the hooter went and the guy up top started shouting at me. I thought that was quick but no need to shout. I jumped out of the cab and SPLASH, straight into a bloomin’ great puddle of anti-freeze. The guy was jumping up and down and pointing to the back. So round I went and YES, the anti-freeze was coming out the discharge pipe as fast as it went in through the top. Due to my inexperience I didn’t realise that the outlet tap could have been left open when empty but also the cap hadn’t been put on. I lost about a 1,000 litres of anti-freeze and after the Dow fire brigade finished cleaning up I was told very firmly never to darken the doorstep of Dows again.
Hi my bigest blunder was when I was loading Trailers at Shepphards of Manchester I coupled up the trailer and when I pulled forward The pin couldn’t have been in and the trailer fell on the floor I almost ■■■■ my self !! Luckly it was empty and one of the lads got his excavators and lifted it up ! I can tell this becase Joint Motorways are no more !! Sorry Mr Jones lol
Tony
i had to take a load of peat to garden centre between m25 and hackbridge. right on that wee roundobout as you head up from couldsdon, wallington■■? cant remember. anyway pulls up on road and farmer tells me to pull it in gate and hed tip it. alarm bells did start to ring as it was wet and on grass and on a slope, but no, me pulls in and he tips it. motor wouldnt go back, was spinning and there was no way I was going forward further down the slope. phone call to office. rigid in the area. greame comes out and we put a strap onto his reno-no-no-no and it just sat and span and grunted and ■■■■■■ and caused even more mess. he went. another phone call. an hour later out own wrecker came out. even old bettsie couldnt pull her out and when the farmer suggested he pull off the hard standing onto the grass to pull it from the front, the fitter told him where to put his ■■■■■. now we are going nowhere. at the bottom of the slope where the farmers house and farm shop were/are, was a gate where all the cars come in. there were lovely bushes and small trees, benches and the ■■■■■■■■ basically. so john the fitter says to the farmer, if you take that gate off we should be able to get through there. ohhhh NOOOOO!!! says farmer giles that will bugger up my house/farm. so john says to me, “there is only one way out of here jimmy, and im getting ■■■■■■ off cause its now after 5 oclock and I want to go home to kent” so i asks him how we get out and he says, drive the fukcer right through the hedge!! I thought he was joking
i said i couldnt do it as id probably get the sack, so he said no problem mate I’ll do it. so hes got into cab, put it into gear, gave it some revs and headed downhill in a straight line for the hedge. farmer giles asks me what fitter is doing and when i tell him he ■■■■■ himself and starts waving his arms and screaming in a very high pitched voice.
so john stops and farmer agrees to take off gate. christ it was tight. john said as soon as you get out dont stop just keep going. so i got onto main london road, threw a left at the last minute, and heard a bang and a few crashes. saw john the next day and when i asked him how it went he told me the arse end of the trailer wrecked the gatepost, flattened all his flower beds and trimmed all his bushes to the extent they were no longer there. when i asked him if he would really have took it out through the hedge he said, fukcing right jimmy, i was on a promise last night
rondavis told of his mate loading antifreeze straight through a tanker onto the floor. When I started on tanks in 1965 we had one old 1952 Scammell Highwayman with Scammells own chassisless tank. This was always being loaded with the valves open but I seem to remember that the internal valve operated by a wheel on the top opened and closed the opposite way to all the other tanks we had which were the same as a domestic tap.
Does anyone with greater knowledge know if this was a Scammell quirk.
On the same job we used to load crude tar at Weston s Mare gasworks and this was loaded by an old steam pump which took ages. In the summer we used to get the pump going and then borrow the old push bike of one of the workers and go for a ten minute ride to the seafront and have a cup of tea at the shack on the beach. The obvious happened one day when Ron (r.i.p.) must have had two cups of tea or spent to long ogling the beach babes
and he got back to find it had come over the top.
It was awful stuff to clean up and the pick up truck had to take bags of sawdust to the gasworks that could be mixed with the tar to make a sort of dough that could be shoveled up.
The same thing happened at Bridgwater gasworks when the driver fell asleep in the cab. He could not get out of the cab until a walkway of old wood had been laid down. ( are you out here John)
All the ex BRS boys have been quiet on this thread, did they all travel with a bible in the cab, or wear a halo.
44 years on tankers what is a rope.
That brought some memories back numbum
I was tipping crude tar into a road well at Orgreave,Sheffield one boxing Day.It was my second load from Scunthorpe and the foreman came out and said no more in the road well after you’ve done and put a notice board out.One of Tanker Hire (CLS) came in and was told to blow the load off into a storage down the yard but he ignored that and backed up to the road well,piped up,valves open and sat in the cab… What a mess,the foreman gave him a barrow and shovel,showed him where the sand pit was and left him to it,leaving instructions at the weighbridge not to let him out until he’d cleaned it up.
From being a kid I used to pack up all Wrights transport trators and trailers up.
Anyway start there full time, in the workshop and still parked them up on sat morning because drivers just come in friday night/sat morn so the yard was a right mess.
The story now gets better lol.
There was a railway embankment. So we would back tractors onto that then x 2 trators and trailer would face th gate back onto the tractors on the embankment.
So I come sat morning the trators were back up agains the embackment so that was a job lets I thought. I then parked my van at the side off the last trator and thought that was a good place to park, you know out of the was so to speak NO.
So I got the 1 artic of the pump backed round to the right then headed left to the gate so I could then back along side the embankment so you can gess what happened.
I bak up niice and slow, done this a 1000 times from being a kid but my van got in the way this time.
Hit the n/s full on and then push the van into the o/s of one off our F88s. I must say it was about 1/2 foot narrower with a big V in the roof Lol. Not even the o/s or n/s doors open so back on the bike for me.
Cheers Peter
Next one form lol.
Working on 401 and 411 Seddons.I used to work on them our laycock 8 ton ramp but sadly there was no stops on the end of the ramp.
Anyway I had the cab up one setting the vavles and injectors like you do. just finished then brew was called so job stopped but only had to run the engine then put the cover back on.
So had brew, nipped out on a brake down got back, now were was I?
Ho just need to run it up and put the cover back so I thought. WRONG.
Opened the cab door turn the key but it started in 1st gear with the hand brake off then slammed the door shut on the ramp post and drove of the end of the ramp and ran in the bench lol. It was just sat there when it hit the bench with its back wheels still turning with the engine on tick over, but at least I could open the door to turn it off
What had happend. When I was working from the engine from the o/s I lent againt the gear lever on pushed it into 1 gear and dident know
Cheers Peter
I backed a 112 Scania off the ramp in the garage - “she’s done tek her away” was the shout from messroom.
Aye,they’d left the cab jacking bar in the pump…
“She’s done now” I shouted and buggered off
I know this dosent look good. This is my last blunder
One of our 112 scanias come in the the o/s/r spring hanger gone so no problems. WELL I THOUGHT.
So I told him to drop is trailer and bring it in. Put a jack under the chassis let the 5th wheel handle in to give me a bit more space, just to stop me banging my head on it.
So all fine, hanger off new one on what can go wrong. Steve you done mate.
Steve was allways in a rush, even when he had nothing to to do you would think the place was on fire.
Out the workshop he went, under the trailer lines on legs up and off up north, well thats what he thought.
God knows how he got were he got due to him setting of like he was late. He got about 100 foot before the trailer fell off and just think what the boss said to him, it fell off right in front of the office.
Did you make sure you had hold off the trailor shouting his head off at Steve. Yes look the dog clip in LOOK.
It was only days afte beforer I worked out what happened. Guss it was realy my fault. Rember I let the fifth wheel handle in LOL
Never told Steve
Cheers Peter