The Start

Over the years I have driven many kinds of vehicles and unfortunately neglected to take photo´s of a lot of them and a few photo´s got mislaid while moving around europe.
One of the first vehicles that I drove in civvy street was this Volvo F717 on a trunk from Northampton to Eastleigh.



and a short stint on Edwin Shirley´s had me driving this around europe for various musical artists such as Michael Jackson, David Bowie and the Thompson Twins



another job was for a subby pulling out of TNT-IPEC´s in Northampton doing specials all over europe



this one was taken on the way to Holyhead to catch the boat to Ireland a bit of a tight fit.
Other trips took me to Sweden, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Italy, Spain and Portugal


Madrid in this was considered normal then.



a weekend in Madrid did have its better moments though



as did wandering around Lisbon

or viewing the cathedral in Milan


from the outside



from the inside



coping with the seaman´s stike in Dover wasn´t quite so much fun though
Upon leaving the home shores for the second time it was to start working for Jan De Rijk in Holland at first on the TNT-IPEC contract which was basically trunking from Northampton to Arnhem in Holland, Bornem in Belgium, Frankfurt, Helsinborg or Stockholm in Sweden or Paris getting stuck on the M25 like this caused chaos with the schedules.



Once a home had been found in Holland and the family had been moved I went on to other things such as moving airfreight from airport to airport or Phillips products all over europe



waiting to load at Phillips Medical Systems in Best and below is what was loaded a scanner for a hospital in Vigo Spain.



due to the high labour costs in the UK we sometimes had to load Jumbo Jet engines and take them to Madrid for servicing



the weight wasn´t much and they didn´t take up much space but they had to be well secured as any damage costs would have been astronomical



with Jan De Rijk you went anywhere from loading these sacks in a side street near Bari



to loading tiles in Castellon



if you were lucky sometimes you would get loaded from the rear as here in Ladenburg



Or get parked up for the weekend in Portugal


and enjoying the sun


and driving through Switzerland on a nice crisp sunny day



After approximately 5 years of Jan De Rijk I moved on to work for Transport Van Overveld a rogue if ever there was one
At the time he only had 5 motors and most of his work Spain with the occasional Italy thrown in and for a period we also went to places like Russia, Hungary, Czech but he always returned to doing Spain and Portugal.
Most of his loads were awkward ones with lots of side tips and roof strip outs.



At certain times of year the return load was oranges although sometimes it could be lemons



nice loads straight in through the back although there were often quite long waiting times both to load and unload



delivering the metal gratings that pigs stand on often led to going to remote pig farms in Cataluña



the Basque part of Spain where I now live was also a popular destination



when he decided to start doing Russia depending on which route was taken you went through places like Lithuania or Latvia where wierd and wonderful things could often be found on the roadside like this near Dagaupils in Latvia



Coffee beans that came in from South America via the Dutch port of Rotterdam was another frequent load to Spain



The Shell station in Luxembourg was a regular stop both on the outward journey as on the way back



Occasionally around the time of the Wimbledon tennis tournament strawberries would be loaded in Belgium for England and this one was taken in Calais waiting for the boat


Regular groupage runs were also a favourite



he tended to like low volume heavy loads so that he could load the groupage on top like these metal plates destined for Valencia


strip outs were the order of the of the day



often happening several times a week as trailers were changed at the Spanish border



here you can see me loading the pipes which were used to blow up sand from the seabed onto the beach to replace that which had been blown away by storms



note the neatly folded tilt sheet at the front of the trailer



eventually the Volvo went and I got a Scania the only vehicle ever to give me back pains

I suppose that it could be said that driving around europe for a few years you do get to see lots of things and go places that you may not have seen otherwise (or at least you´re being paid to see them and not paying to see them.
Some of the things that I have seen have been the cathedral in Milan.
Lots of snow in Russia



Illuminated fountains in small Spanish Villages



crossed the Alps passing over this thing on the way


to get to these



and afterwards you had to worm your way through the middle of Aosta (A motorway goes past it now).



got stuck in Aosta once for 10 days due to the Italians going on strike again but as you can see spirits were high amongst the drivers.



Canals in Amsterdam



the obligatory Dutch windmills



the French up to their favourite past time of blocking motorways and tipping loads all over the floor



and then setting fire to them



erecting stages for music concerts



seen Nice from above



sunsets in Palma de Mallorca



long weekends in places like Rapallo



on the Italian Riviera



where the locals hunt crabs for a living


stood on the top of mountains in the Pyrenees



Going to Russia most of my loads were chocolate from the Nestle factory just outside Arnhem with the occasional load from Phillips of washing machines or televisions thrown in for good measure and that is when you used to get prioroty treatment at the borders due to the high value of the load and the interest shown in them by the Russian mafia and we then had to go in convoy with either a military or police escort all the way, the greatest advantage with these loads is that you were through the border in under an hour instead of several days. Otherwise some of the border crossings could take days, as you got more experienced and if it was not a high value load then you tended to choose smaller borders hoping that the queue would be shorter like the border at Kukuryki from Poland to Bielorussia which was at the time no more than 2 wooden caravans placed on a small road between 2 fields with no toilets, restaurants, bars absolutely nothing and you could be there for a day or two (mind you it never took the prostitutes long to find out where the trucks were )



this is the queue at the German - Polish border



this was the border at Kukuryki between Poland and Bielorussia
Apart from the waiting times at the various borders another major obstacle apart from the winter weather was the condition of the roads which although on most of the major routes were in quite good condition once you got anywhere beyond Moscow tended to deteriorate quite rapidly and often were no more than tracks which upon the outbreak of winter as a result of the ground being frozen often accumulated an extra surface of ice resulting in road surface that often resembled a helter skelter as can be seen below



as you can imagine at times it could become interesting guiding 40 tons



Driving on snow and ice slowly but surely becomes second nature when you are confronted with such conditions on a daily basis for 6 months of the year



One of the main problems in Russia was security especially just after the communist state had fallen, even now there are still drivers, loads and vehicles missing from this period. Several tricks were employed at the time ranging from bogus police cars to ambushes, I remember once as I was going from Moscow down towards to L´viv when I received a large stone in the windscreen, fortunately it was on the passenger side and I was not hanging about to find out who had thrown it luckily the vehicle at the time was an unlimited F12 and I made good my escape at great speed on the snow bound roads. If you look at the foto below you can see the result of this attack



such attacks were a daily occurence. Upon arriving in this village near L´viv I had to load cows skins just take a look at the state of the yard



mud and crap upto the knees. After loading I was told that I had to get a veterinary certificate at the border post at Uhzgorod at the Czechoslowakian border after 3 days of queing they sent me back to L´viv to get it, after wards I had to get back in the queue at the border for another two days. It was at these border queues that you could appreciate the friendliness of the eastern european drivers who were always ready to try and communicate and were always pressing upon you to share their meals etc



Obviously one of the major problems in winter were the extremely low temperatures which could go down as far -45 to -50 degrees Celsius in some parts although the lucky ones amongst us had vehicles equipped with fuel line and tank heating most of us did not and therefore had to either resort to various substances supplied by manufacturers to prevent the diesel freezing or gelling up or add a certain amount of petrol to the diesel which also had the same preventitive qualities but could only be used on older vehicles like the F12 in the newer models like the FH you couldn´t use petrol because the engine would not accept it. The cold in Russia was easier to accept than that back home due to it being a drier cold and not so humid as to what were used to which made it easier to bear, if the temperatures dropped too far you left the engine running all the time otherwise you would not be able to get it going the next morning as the metal pieces would freeze together and to free them again would take a several days thawing out in a heated environment.



Driving in these conditions was not too bad once the knack had been obtained unfortunately some learned quicker than others as the amount of vehicles alongside the road in snow banks, ditches or woods would often testify. At times though there were situations were experience was not enough I remember when particular instance when driving through Latvia on my way to get the boat in the Lithuanian port of Klaipeda when I had to stop on a slight incline because of an accident, I put on the forways and applied the handbrake thinking to myself this is going to be fun getting started again on this slope at this moment I had the feeling that something was not as it should be, realising that the vehicle was moving backwards I checked that the handbrake was applied it was there was nothing that I could do as the vehicle started to slide back down the slope with the wheels stationary apart from do my best to keep it straight, a slight thud was heard from the rear and the vehicle stopped so I got out to have a look at the damage realising that something had been touched, as I got to the rear of the trailer I saw that it was resting against a very sorry looking and very old Lada, as insurance was non existent in those parts the negotiations began and the man wanted 3,000 marks for his pride and joy and I could take it with me 30 minutes of hard bargaining later he acepted 150 marks and he kept the car .
Have you ever seen a sea port frozen over ? well on several occasions I have seen the Lithunian port of Klaipeda completely frozen over



with the locals sitting on the ice fishing through holes that they had bored in the ice.

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Parking could also sometimes be quite entertaining because the warm tyres would melt the snow and ice that they were resting on and the vehicle would often sink an inch or two before you came back making it quite interesting trying to get out of these ruts.



Some of the tricks used to make the driving a bit easier in such treacherous conditions were reducing the amount of air pressure in the tyres on the drive axles and on some inclines lowering the air suspension on the tractor unit and raising the suspension on the trailer so as to put more weight on the drive axle which in turn gave more grip on the road surface, I must state that I have never used snow chains in my life considering that if the weather is that bad then it is better to park up until it improves.
and now I am doing this for a living


so if you see me stop me all free coffees are gratefully accepted