Shunting

It's been a couple of weeks since I've been on the road, for various reasons, but I'm back with a vengeance. Ok, maybe just a whimper! Last week saw me doing some shunting work for Freightliner out of their Millbrook depot in Southampton. It's simply taking boxes off a train, shunting them to one of 3 places and then bringing loaded boxes back from the quay to go onto another train. Not really riveting stuff but the guys working there were a good bunch and it's not really taxing work, so you could almost run on auto-pilot. 

Millbrook Depot

As you can see, it's a simple case of parking next to the train and the gantry crane will either load a box onto your trailer or remove one.

60's Crane

One interesting fact is the crane in these pictures is nearly 40 years old. 

They were first commissioned in the late 60's when the Millbrook depot was built. I say they, as there are 2 of them, still going strong although they both seem to require a lot of maintenance. Understandable after this long.

So the life of a shunter isn't too bad with an average of 11 hour days quite common, but you're not constantly rushed off your feet. Having said that, I'm not sure I would do this as a full time job as I'm guessing it becomes quite monotonous after a while.

So after having been away for a while, it transpires that I don't have much to say about the first week back. I'm hoping to get back on the road proper soon, so hopefully will have some more entertaining story's to tell. In the meantime be careful with whatever it is that you're doing.

Waiting to get loaded with a 40' box

As a quick addendum to this post. Today I was doing a quick bit of work in London and took the photograph below, which seems to sum up the industry of the East End. Old and Modern. Also note the line of wagons on the left waiting to get called forward into the yard to be tipped. All Eastern European and mostly double manned. A sign of the times for British hauliers and Lorry Drivers. :(

Old & New

Interesting Days with Man Flu

It's been an interesting few days this past week. I felt rough as a badgers arse which didn't help with a nightmare of a sore throat, from Tough Mudder I think, followed by a bad bout of man flu, which is still giving me gyp nearly a week after contracting this vicious disease.
From a driving point of view, even though I have nearly been at death's door on a few occasions, I refused to give in and have been at work every single day. which, I have to say, has had it's interesting moments.

I was doing some general haulage work for a local firm the first few days last week, mostly local work around the Eastleigh area collecting pallets for night trunks and next day groupage but on the Wednesday I was sent down to deepest Dorset, Wimborne, to load some plants for Hilliers. It was one of their suppliers I had to collect from and on finding their large green houses down some un-named country lane, I was told that they were still waiting for the plants and it would be a couple of hours yet. Did that mean they were still waiting for them to grow!!

3 hours later and the smallest tractor you've ever seen, almost like one of those airport tugs that they use for pulling the baggage trolleys, pitched up with a couple of geezers. On the front of the tractor was a huge radio tuned to Radio 6 that was turned all the way up to 11 and on the trailer, I use that term loosely, were a few plants. Now after having sat bored out of my tiny mind for 3 hours this I thought was going to be quite interesting as it turned out that I'd parked next to a potting type shed. However, it wasn't. In fact, the activities that followed turned out to be even more boring that sitting doing nothing, that's how boring they were. And to top it off, on Radio 6 was one of the most pretentious music interviews I've ever heard. 

Anyway, after this flurry of activity in the huge horticultural space located in the middle of nowhere, I decided to go and ask chief potting shed geezer how much longer it would be before the plants I was loading would have finished growing and I could begin to load. He informed me that my load had just turned up on the back of the tractor.

6 Trolleys

Yup, the load that I had patiently waited 3 hours for consisted of 6 trolleys, which could have easily fitted into the back of a transit van. 

The rest of the week was a little bit more entertaining. I was back on boxes (containers) and the first day involved going through Dunkirk, the one in South Gloucestershire, to make a delivery and the second day proved to be another tight squeeze at a house move.

Dunkirk

 

Told you it was tight.

And.........unload

Students and Flitting and Stuff

It's been a bit of a slow week as far as driving goes with Monday and Tuesday dedicated to other parts of my working life. Wednesday saw me doing some multi-drop work for a paper company, something I haven't done in a very long time and it's still as rubbish as I remember it used to be. Thursday was some general haulage work in the local area and today see's me back on boxes in Bristol with a load of bananas and the usual parking carnage as there's only 3 bays but about 10 wagons waiting to tip.

A packed mini

Can we fit anymore in?

Anyway, what did happen this week was my daughter moving out, albeit into student digs so I suppose that doesn't really count as permanent, and onto the next stage of her life. She'll be studying Media at Brighton, so it was packing the car on Sunday morning and setting off for the hour or so drive to Brighton. And when I say packing the car, I mean packing the car. I suppose a mini is not the best vehicle but we managed to get it all in. By the way, that's where the flitting part comes in, an old Scottish word for moving house.

Yes, we did put the roof up, but it was pretty cramped in there. Anyway, 1 child down, 2 to go.

The other thing that's happening this week is the build up to my first Tough Mudder. I'm actually quite excited and will be taking part in the London South event. We're trying to raise money for our eldest, all donations welcome, in order to buy a new tricycle for him and his buddies at Stuarts House Care.

Take care and drive safe.

Sliding in Ampthill

First of all I'd like to apologise for the photo's in this post as they're not really that interesting to look at. However, as you read on, you'll hopefully realise that I was a bit busy trying to stop a 44 tonne artic from jack knifing and/or crashing into a large skip full of waste metal, so taking photographs wasn't exactly my number 1 priority.

I had a 20' box for a customer in the Ampthill Business Park. On arrival, the customer told me that the delivery would be at their storage place, which was just around the corner; however, as they were digging up the road in the front, I'd have to go the back yard. He said he would show me the way and I was to follow him in his car. First mistake was following the customer blindly without checking the complete situation myself.

After a tricky manoeuvre through a car dealership car park and past several workshops with various types of vehicles abandoned out the front, we came to the entrance to the yard. it was pretty tight and I was just getting out of the cab to have a look when a chap on a forklift turned up and said for me to jump on and he'd show me where to position the lorry. As we ran down, with me hanging on to the side of the forklift like a man possessed, I saw that the yard was a mix between a scarp yard and builders yard. So lots of mud and old skips and things abandoned everywhere, however, there did appear to be a concrete surface that would take the weight. It was down a slight slope and then a sharp right back up the side of the units where the box would be tipped. Rather than drive up the last slope, the idea was to turn left at the bottom of the first slope and then reverse up the second. Ok, this is achievable. Second mistake was to shorten the trailer at this point, as the corners at the bottom of the yard were tight so I thought it'd be easier to turn and reverse.

After shortening the trailer, I trundled down the first slope and went to turn left. Except that the unit turned left but the trailer kept on going. I'd lost traction on the mud and the drive wheels on the tractor unit just spun up. 

Slippin' and slidin'

I came from the left of the picture, with the intention of turning left and then reversing back towards the camera position.

Lovely concrete

The idea was to reverse back up this slope with the back of the trailer roughly where the green forklift is.

Unfortunately none of this happened. I had to unhitch the unit after the first slide, bring it round and re-couple to try and reverse back up the first slope. It wasn't having any of it. Because I'd shortened the trailer, there was too much weight, which believe it or not, went against me in trying to get traction. Even the diff lock didn't work. Thankfully, the chap who gave me a lift on the forklift and his buddy, turned out to be the guys who owned the whole industrial estate and they'd been doing some work in that particular yard. They couldn't have been more helpful and understanding. As for the customer............. less said about him the better.

After about an hour, we managed to get the wagon towed out of the yard the way we'd come in, turned around and back up to come down the road at the front of the delivery unit.

More than enough room

As you can see, there was more than enough room to reverse into the front of the delivery unit in the first place. Also, the road digging on the left of the picture wasn't exactly huge. The corner of the green forklift from the previous picture can just be seen, so you get an idea of what we were trying to achieve.

Lesson learned were, don't always blindly follow your customer, they don't always know best. Check the ground before driving on it and don't shorten your trailer until the last minute.

Take care.

Dull Croydon????

Well after the exiting delivery to Ann Summers, it was actually a very boring 70's distribution centre but full of scantily dressed lady's working in the warehouse. Yeah, I made the last bit up, my dreams didn't materialise unfortunately. Instead it was your normal warehouseman who couldn't give a flying monkeys what was in the brown boxes that were being unloaded. 

Ann Summers Warehouse

Anyway, back to today. I'm in Croydon. I know, not the most glamorous of places, or dull as my better half puts it, but it was certainly challenging. Having said that, Croydon Airport has a fantastic terminal and hotel, both of which are Grade II listed buildings, so maybe not that dull. Made doubly so by me being late to start, which therefore, made me hit all the rush hour traffic coming up the A23. So when I got to Factory Lane, eventually, I was none too impressed when I came across another one of our wagons parked on the side of the road. He'd made the same mistake that I had and sailed passed the tiny entrance which was our delivery point. Now conjure up in your mind a picture of old style London industrial areas that are all twisty, tight and not designed for modern 44 tonne artics and you're probably not a million miles away from what Factory Lane is like. 

Croydon Airport Terminal

Factory Lane with a tight reverse

After some questioning of the locals we discovered that the delivery point was behind us and there was nowhere ahead of us to turn around. Cue some rather tight blind side reversing into a waste disposal site with lots of irate commuters, who obviously use this road as a rat run, queued up behind me. Bad enough with one wagon, but there were two of us, so doubly annoyed commuters. Secretly I did have a slight smile inside at their frustration.

Tight squeeze

So, we about turned and set off around the corner to where we'd been told the gate was. And we sailed right passed it again. Screaming to a halt as we realised our mistake, the other driver jumped out to investigate and discovered that their "yard" was only big enough for one vehicle to reverse into at a time. So, another about turn and we lined up for the assault into the yard. My problem was that the other chap had go in front of me, so my tip time of 0730, it was now 0900, was going to be well and truly missed. Oh well, nothing to do but wait, which is why you find me typing this whilst parked on double yellows in a very dodgy and tight London industrial estate.

Double Yellows ready for a parked artic

If anything, it has taught me one thing though, maybe it's time to invest in a truck sat nav. I've always resisted them before, relying on my trusty map and a lorry drivers instinct, with the odd bit of help from google maps on my phone, to get where I need to go. But today I went the long way round to get to Factory Lane, while the young chap in the other wagon who was behind me coming up the A23, followed his sat nav and got her before I did. So if I invest in one, maybe it'll be sat getting tipped first next time instead of taking angry looks and car horn beeps because of my parking.

Sex Toys???????

Today was a brief run from the yard up to Swindon, although the timing couldn't have been worse with the usual M27 / M3 morning traffic becoming a real headache after 10 minutes. By the way, you can check the traffic situation on any English motorway here, Traffic England and for North of the border, Traffic Scotland. 

Anyway, the 40' box was full of musical instruments and once they'd been hand-balled off it was an easy run back to Pentalvers in Southampton to have the empty box off loaded. 

Pentalver's Yard, Southampton

A quick call to the office to get them to send me through a VBS number so that I could load a box for tomorrow and then off to Transfer Area 3. 

Now, we all had to learn how to drive at some point and we all struggled with reversing an artic with a 40' trailer, but I have to say I saw the worst attempt at reversing in nearly 20 years. Reversing into a slot in one of the three transfer areas in Southampton is pretty easy, but this chap was making such a mess of it that drivers on either side were stood agog and dumb struck at the sheer incompetence. I can only say I was so aghast at how bad his reversing was that I completely forgot to get a photograph. I really hope I was never that bad!!!

Anyway, I digress. The new box was duly loaded and I trundled back to the yard, it was only when I got into the office that I looked at the paperwork for where I was going. Ann Summers. Does that mean that I'll be a hauling a 40' High Cube container full of sex toys tomorrow? The mind boggles. I'll leave that thought in your minds and I'll certainly be updating on more detail later. Take care.

Great Yarmouth

Doing a days work for a well known metal stockholder involved a single journey from Southampton to Great Yarmouth. By the time I got to the yard in Nursling Industrial Estate, the wagon had been loaded and strapped down. It was an old Y reg Daf rigid flatbed with a day cab. Well this is going to be fun was my initial thought, and how little did I know. I've never been to Great Yarmouth before, so after a quick check on the map and a run around to make sure that there were wheels at every corner and the lights were working, I set off out of the gate with a full fuel tank and an eagerness to get on and get the job done. 

As I fought to get to grips with the slackest 6 speed box I'd ever come across, the Sat Nav finally gave me an ETA. 4 hours and 40 minutes journey time. Well that's just bloody fantastic, I was going to have to use my 10 hours of driving today in order to get there and back and that's if the traffic was kind.
Once onto the motorway network it was quite painless sat at 56 with the cruise control engaged, even the West section of the M25 was reasonably easy. 

4 hours and 20 minutes later I found a lay-by on the A47 that had the usual ubiquitous burger van and stopped for my 45 minutes break. One cup of tea and a very nice sausage sarnie later I got back onto the road and hit the first bit of single carriageway since leaving Southampton. It was a beautiful run in to Great Yarmouth along the A47, the views were quite spectacular and I had a real sense of wanting to come back to this part of the world and spend a bit of proper time having a look around.
Into Great Yarmouth itself and entering the last roundabout before getting to my destination when it happened. The brakes slammed on and my air gauges dropped to zero. 

A few choice words later and with my foot slammed to the floor on the accelerator to try and build up air pressure, I realised that the air wasn't building up and this particular lorry wasn't going to go anywhere anytime soon. A phone call to the depot ensured that a recovery van was on it's way and I set about standing behind the lorry in order to try and direct traffic in my lane around rather than up the backside of the broken down lorry. It was in interesting hour spent waiting for the recovery van, it included 2 visits from the local constabulary, a break in attempt from local youths, complete ignorance from other lorry drivers, only one offer of help from a very kind lady car driver and an altercation with a very large lady on her mobility scooter who was trying to cross over the pedestrian crossing that an 18 tonne broken down Daf was blocking. I'm very sorry but I just couldn't push it out of the way, which is what she was expecting me to do.

Eventually a vey helpful fitter by the name of Scott from a nearby Daf Dealership, Ford and Slater, turned up, put out some basic traffic management and set about trying to fix the problem.

Not the best place to break down.

After raising the cab and prodding around in the engine gubbins, Scott pronounced that the compressor head had packed in. So, after several phone calls to check for spare parts, we decided to try and move it to a safer location and carry out the repairs at the roadside rather than recover the lorry with a tow truck. 

Knackered compressor was the cause

4 hours after the breakdown and I was back on the road. 5 minutes later, I was pulling into my delivery yard, Alicat Workboats, and getting unloaded. 

The next challenge was getting back to Southampton within my hours or finding a hotel to stay in, but that escapade is for another time. All said and done though, I actually enjoyed my day trip to Great Yarmouth and met some wonderful people.

Hedgehogs.

A lazy 9 am start was shifted to an 0445 start with a box collection from the quay. On the plus side it was an easy run up to a place near Tetbury rather than Park Royal in North London, so swings and roundabouts I suppose. I was working for KRP today out of Marchwood. They're a pretty decent bunch and the units tend to be high spec, today it was an FH13 Globetrotter. The way KRP work is that the units and trailers are kept in a separate yard from the office, so you have to access a nearby building where there are lockers with the paperwork and keys. This morning my paperwork was there but no keys. Great, let's start buggering about looking for a set of keys. Walk back to the yard, look around the unit for any likely hiding place. Nothing. Back to the locker to double check that I hadn't missed anything. Nothing. Feeling a bit hacked of now I started to ring the office number when I noticed one of the other packs had the same registration. Ta dah! Sat in the pack from a previous driver were the unit keys. What a waste of time that was and now I was getting close to missing my VBS booking time. Hey ho, tacho card in, vehicle checks completed and I'm on my way.

Early mornings at Southampton docks can be a bit crazy sometimes and this morning wasn't any different, plus, because of the delay in finding the unit keys, I'd timed it just right so that I got to my slot allocation just at the shift change. So another half hour waiting for the box handlers to change.

FH 13 Globetrotter

40' box loaded and I'm on my way. Once I got out of Southampton and hit cruise control I began to wonder about the customer. Wildlife world sounded like some kind of zoo or safari park but I'd never heard of it. I began to wonder what was in the box, maybe some special gorilla food, or antelope shampoo. Ooooh, what about zebra saddles! I know, Lion combs. My mind went on like this all the way up the A34 and M4 until it was time to turn off Northbound on the A46. 

The notes said I had to turn off the A46 onto Chavenage Lane via the old grain store. Well Chavenage Lane wasn't on my map so thank goodness for Google maps on my phone. Hang on a minute, this is a single track lane and when I say single track I mean the width of the wagon and no more. One mistake with the steering wheel and I'm stuck in a field. Oh well, fortune favours the brave, what's the worst that could happen!!!! I only met the car on the 2 mile journey to my destination, thankfully there was a passing place as we met. A couple of cars were following me but they'd just have to wait, sorry but a 44 tonne lorry takes it time down this kind of road. Passed a grain silo, hmmmm, maybe that's the old grain store but it looks quite newish. Eventually reach the destination with a big sign, well quite small actually, saying Wildlife World. It was a farm and not a very big one at that. Oh well, no Lion combs being delivered here. I pull in and there's just enough room either side, I really hope there's somewhere to turnaround. At that point a chap jumps out of one of the cars that had been following me and tells me that this is the head office, I should've turned off at the old, new, grain store. Great I thought, this is going to be lots of fun. And then it turns out that the only space to turn around is already occupied by another artic delivering plastic piping. So a blindside reverse out of the farm onto the worlds smallest single track is required. 

You know I mentioned about being fortunate and brave and all that bollocks, well that all went out of the window when I realised what I had to accomplish. The nice chap offered to watch me back and then I'd follow him to the correct delivery place. All I can say is that I nailed it in a oner, no shunts required and we tootled off to the correct delivery place, which wasn't much bigger but at least I had a new found friend who was in much admiration of my driving skills, if only he knew, and was happy to help in anyway he could. Once we get where we'd going the box is opened and guess what? It wasn't any kind of special wild animal feed or grooming material or cleaning product, it was hedgehog houses.

Hedgehog House

Fantastic, an hour and half handball later and I was back on the road heading home for tea and medals. I wish I'd bought one now but on second thoughts, with 4 cats and a dog I don't think any hedgehog would get peace in our garden. Until next time, be safe and have a look at www.wildlifeworld.co.uk they were really nice people.