How to 'do' Norfolk Line Felixstowe

in thru gate 2, over the ■■■■■, round to the left and drive towards the end

round a bit of a 1 way, and 92 shed on left where the workshop is, (nice blokes in there)

drive up to the booking in booth, the little white one has a window either side and is open from 16.00-20.00

all other times drive up to the main building, there is a window there

to the left of white building is where units waiting for trailers are parked (you can park the night here, unit only, the reception for telly is crap and there seems to be a million seagulls screaming their heads off) the canteen and toilets are in the building just past the trucks on the left side of photo (looks like its under a crane)

book trailer in your dropping and book out the one you are collecting (takes a minuite) and go thru canopy


containers over to the right

your receipt for trailer tells you which row to drop/collect your trailer (all lanes are marked alphabetically) you can ask for a map of where the lanes are if you havent been before, but they are clearly marked in paint on the ground in big letters either end of each row

some random pics here of the veiws

drop trailer, pick up trailer, no seal on back so check load is ok, yep, no probs

stop and look at container boat leaving for far off shores

then head back out, driving to the opposite side of building you booked in at, there are 2 gates here,

the one on the left for unit only, you just drive to the barrier and it opens automatically, you dont need to see anyone or hand anything in (this is where this photo is taken)

if you have picked a trailer up go to the right, so you drive down beside the main building, (but the opposite side to the one you came in) towards the green canopy, pull up at window and exchange your bit of paper for a gatepass

thru barrier and canopy

bear left back towards gate 2, straight over ■■■■■, to gatehouse

hand in gatepass after signing it, then off you go into the sunset

the good thing is, if its windy, and all the twistlock technicians have to park up till it stops, you can carry on, the weather doesnt ever close Norfolk Line, so if you see loads and loads of containers parked up, or the radio says Felixstowe is closed, it doesnt affect you.

Spot on, always wondered how on earth anyone knows what is going on in the ports

i wouldnt have a clue of how to ‘do’ containers mate, (and hope i never do any) but with tilts,as long as your trailer is in at Norfolk Line you can be in and out (as long as there isnt a que) from booking in to booking out in 5 mins. the only time you get out of truck is to drop/pick up trailer.

A good thread. My information is a bit out of date so I cannot really help anyone now, but every single port, rail terminal and ferry have a different system for unaccompanied traffic. whether lifting a container in London, Leeds or Leghorn.

Nic write up. One thing i have always wondered about unaccompanied trailers is do you use your own securing straps or do the trailers have them fitted?

Grasshopper:
Nic write up. One thing i have always wondered about unaccompanied trailers is do you use your own securing straps or do the trailers have them fitted?

Trailers should always be strapped for the ferries, it will be probably rougher on the crossing than on the roads and a couple of 10 tonne coils of steel coming through the sides can make a mess to a ship too. When we sent unnacompanied trailers over we left the straps on and wrote on the CMR how many. Sangles is the French word for straps. We could replace the straps we had “lost” in the depot and most trailers had at least 8 inside them anyway. Other companies haven’t been so generous and it is a pain in the arse having to strap a trailer properly before setting off from the docks.

One company we dropped loaded trailers in, we were not allowed to remove our straps, but the shunter would not do it either so the bank staff used a Stanley knife and cut through 9 straps on a regular basis

Wheel Nut:
A good thread. My information is a bit out of date so I cannot really help anyone now, but every single port, rail terminal and ferry have a different system for unaccompanied traffic. whether lifting a container in London, Leeds or Leghorn.

yeah, i went to DFDS Immingham last week, my god, talk about making something simple difficult! if its que’d up to get out, no-one can get in!! if your fridge is more than 2 degrees out from what they have been told, you have to go back out the dock to reset it. and they dont even let you park in the dock, thats a 5min drive to the free lkw parkplatz.

Grasshopper:
Nic write up. One thing i have always wondered about unaccompanied trailers is do you use your own securing straps or do the trailers have them fitted?

the better companys provide you with a certain amount (e.g with Norfolk Line you get 16, if you finish working for them you have to give them back ), as an example, if you use 10 straps on a load you tell Norfolk Line, they will make a note of it, you also write it on the paperwork, and when you get to Felixstowe you go to the workshop and show them your running sheet, which you write (amongst other things, how many span sets on import and export) they sign and photocopy this, and reimburse you with the 10 you used. If your import had 10 spansets and you only used 2 on the export, you do the same again, but return the excess to the workshop. So you allways keep 16, by using this system everything runs smoothly and all straps are accounted for. We do use a lot of straps, as wheel nut said, for securing load on ferry more than road, and also because of the securing of loads law in Germany, where a lot of our traffic comes from/goes to.

What’s the little canopy building for

I will probably be corrected but isn’t that little bro ?

Dieselcowboy:

I will probably be corrected but isn’t that little bro ?

sure looks that way

Sure is, i beeped him as i went past, seen him a few times down there in his big 420.

Great post Kindle , helps visualse procedures much better than just plain text .

Do you have many trailers with defects , ones that you refuse to take out I mean ? I realise there’s a workshop on site but when I pulled for Montgomery we had some right issues picking up crap traliers … and of course the load was ALWAYS urgent … 99% didn’t have winding handles for the legs and no light lenses

Trailers are spot on most of the time, i think ive only once in a few months taken a trailer to workshop (cos of a tear in curtain which was done i imagine by the shunters, as it was fresh). most trailers have winding handles, but you get the odd few that dont, you carry one in the truck anyway, so no probs. The Schmitz (and few Krone trailers) all have lenses that are factory fitted on, apart from a few older ones. (again a few boxes of bulbs in the trucks sorts it out)
when i first started pulling tilts in the 90’s, no trailers came fitted with lights, you allways had to put your own on.

Cor! things have changed on “tilt” work, (I know they aren’t tilts anymore but still think of it as tilt work )
bulbs, Lenes and Winding handles, I bet they have proper number plate holder aswell? No more plates in a chain hanging from the back.

I used to haul Frans Maas trailers a few years back and many of them were in a state, air leaks, light not working, having to adjust brakes to get them to work.
and because they spent so much of thier time either on the sea or on dock meant loads of corrosion. Used to carry a big hammer to remove the posts for a side strip.

muckles:
Cor! things have changed on “tilt” work, (I know they aren’t tilts anymore but still think of it as tilt work )
bulbs, Lenes and Winding handles, I bet they have proper number plate holder aswell? No more plates in a chain hanging from the back.

I used to haul Frans Maas trailers a few years back and many of them were in a state, air leaks, light not working, having to adjust brakes to get them to work.
and because they spent so much of thier time either on the sea or on dock meant loads of corrosion. Used to carry a big hammer to remove the posts for a side strip.

i know mate, i used to sub for 'em!!

kindle530:
Sure is, i beeped him as i went past, seen him a few times down there in his big 420.

wont see him in it anymore mate

wheres he off to now then? hope he isnt going after my new job!
Andy McGowan rang me this morning, hes busy with Steenhoven, offered me a 2 day job, very well paid, govenor said he didnt want to upset Norfolk Line, so thats around £300 at least hes lost i said what about Badger, he said hes a pilot down and got one off sick, so i assume Steve is the pilot down.

How things have changed - I worked for Norfolk Line in Gt Yarmouth in the 1980s and there you went straight in and dropped your export trailer on the dock, if you had used spansets you could get them replaced and left them on the load. You weren’t allowed to open the import trailer until you reached your destination, but after I dropped a 12 tonne lump of iron from Germany on Sleaford roundabout they reviewed the setup so you could check your load on the dock and get the trailer resealed by security before you left.
The 12 tonne lump I dropped was the solid iron counterbalance part of an excavator and was listed on the CMRs as ‘excavator parts’ and had been loaded flat on the deck with blocks of wood nailed to the floor to stop it sliding about, it just pushed them through the floor as it went by, narrowly missing a car coming the opposite way. The police checked my tacho (16mph) and sympathised that it wasn’t my fault, but ultimately any load is the driver’s responsibility and I was fined £250 plus an endorsement.
Often after dropping your export trailer you would wait for up to 24 hours for an import trailer to continue working, and trying to make a living.
Here’s a couple of pics from then: