There are many threads on here about the 70’s and 80’s when it was all T.I.R. and T forms, but in the early 90’s most of western mainland Europe threw most of that out the window and it made it a whole different experience. No more long ques at Aosta Autoport, Irun, La Jonquera, or sitting for hours in the Wheel House.
There must be many on here who did it before and after the demise of all the paper work, and for better or worse after it had all but gone.
Is still remember the first time I came of the boat in Calais and just drove out the other end of the truck park onto the big roundabout at the far end, thinking that at any time some bloke in a dark blue uniform and flat top hat would jump out of a Renault 4 waving a lolly pop, telling me there as “Problem Meester” and ee would ave to consult his colleague.
On the the other hand there were new boundaries and place that had been very restricted before and were now open. I my self was lucky to be able to get to some of them like Cita in the central east of Russia, Corgos on the China Border. And of course there were still guys doing a bit of North Africa and the Middle East, not to mention the Nordic countries as well.
A bit later on you didn’t even have to go over the water you could actually go under it, how many on here like me in the early days sat on the train in total darkness under the chunnel while the stewardess told us repeatedly that we would be under way shortly.
Did you go on a quick trip to Lille or farther afield,twice a week to Germany. Did you stop at the new BP at Hayby, Carissio, Victors, the Monkey House, Opti Transport in Istanbull, or the witness the last days of Londra Camping before it was turned into a Go Kart track. May be you ran IFOR supplies to Spit and reloaded back out of Italy.
Weekends at Campo Galliano, Ancona Bari, or Patras waiting for the boat.
At one point it seemed the ever 2nd truck in Europe was on British plates, just like everything in Britain today seems to be from the Eastern bloc or beyond.
There are many threads on here dedicated to single large companies, but there are a lot of guys and woman that worked for smaller transport firms.
So what did you get up to hand how far did you go?
Stories and photos welcome…I’ll be along soon with some of mine…
Jeff…
After having at least Sunday afternoon to service and wash the truck, I was out the yard by 4 am Monday, there were 3 deliveries of copper wire on 2 ton bobbins between Manchester and the Wirral. Usually the back load was empty bobbins on their stillages but as one of the other guys had already done them the week before I was told to head back south and phone from somewhere around Keele services on the M6. I was lucky enough to have the last stillage of by 11.30 so once the side was down and the paperwork signed I headed back south.
The back load was 9 meter lengths of oiled steel bar out of the black country. It was messy stuff, but I liked it as the agent wouldn’t load any groupage on top of it, so it was a 1 collection 1 drop load. The place was an old steel stock holders yard, but the name on the gate was different to the company the were operating from it, as they had just taken over the yard and hadn’t changed the signage yet. The first time I went there it took me a few goes to find it as none of the locals had even heard of the place.
At Keele I phoned the agent to confirm the job but was told to stop at Hilton Park service and collect an Italian driver that was having a bad day and had spat the dummy. It was his first time in the UK, he spoke very little English, he had been weekended, and had also had 2 attempts that morning to try and find the steel stockholder. By the time I got to him he’d had enough and was about to head of home empty, but I got him calmed down and we headed of down the M6 M5 to the Kidderminster junction.
There were a lot of low bridges in the area and coming in the obvious route from the M6 would land you in lot of trouble, which is what my Italian friend had found to his pearl. By 1 we were at the gates and so were about 6 other trucks, so it was waiting time and try to keep the Italian happy, but coffee out of a vending machine in a week plastic cup wasn’t helping at all. To Pass the time I drew an escape map for my friend, and let him load before me, and before he set of I made sure he was going to be all right.
It was a half strip out for me which wasn’t unusual, and by 3 in the afternoon I was ready to roll. The boss came out to meet me at Toddington and gave me my running money and also thanked me on behalf of the agent for getting the Italian to the loading point.
My plan was to get to Calais, so with the oiled steel siting on the lower deck of the step frame, I drove through the rain to Dover and signed of around 7 that evening ( Yeh I know but it was the 90’s and there was a bit of creative time keeping going on )
I was out of Calais for about 6 having had a good nights sleep and headed of to Lux for cheap fuel, and all was going fine. I was wondering what my Italian friend was doing and though that he had probable driven all night, and was by now tipping in Novara and about to sell his truck. At the fuel stop in Lux there was a message from the agent, could I go back to the New BP at Hayby and sort something out. The message was a bit garbled and I didn’t a clue what it could be about, but I turned round and drove back to Hayby.
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Here’s my Italian friend in his Magnum… He really wasn’t having a good trip…
By the time he got to Hayby he’d had enough and pulled in for the night. spying a spot near the gate he thought his luck had turned for the better so he reversed in. Not paying much attention to what was going on and as it was still dark because they still didn’t have all the flood lights installed he reversed his truck. Taking his bearing from the cabs of the other trucks parked either side he just kept going back and would stop when his cab was in line with the them.
The guys either side of him were hauling 20 foot skelly trailers with containers.
I hitched a wire rope round his towing pin and he was back on the road 20 minutes later with no damage, after buying me breakfast, which was really quite good. We ran the rest of the way back to Novara together I never saw him or the truck again after that…
Jeff…
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I started back with Mr V in 1991 on a weeks ‘holiday cover’ shunting trailers to Ramsgate and back on day work (4 and a bit hours each way). Before the end of the week he asked if I wanted to come back on the books, “why not” thought I and that was it. He pointed out the left ■■■■■■ B series and I finished the week using that. Sunday was a midday start and a run to Ramsgate for the 19:00 boat, then up to Venray the next morning and back to Oostended and up to Venray and back Ostende then to Venray and up to Paderborn before running home. Most of the work was for RX and we were mainly European shunters. All week we would run between Oostende and Venray also collecting from suppliers in Germany and Belgium as well as Holland. As the weekend approached you never knew if you were coming home or not as the usual instruction towards the end of the week was ring in from Jabbeke. If asked what boat you wanted from Dunkerque you were coming home, if they said take it into Oostende you were weekend.
Depending on trailer availability you either stopped in Oostende (Summer weekends where else?) or ran up to Asten. Then after a weekend of absorbing the local culture (Did I ever mention I was a star of the Oostende Karaoke Bar?) you’d do it all again the next week.
we used to spend nearly every other weekend in dover. weekended waiting for customs clearance,
parked next to a bloody fridge.
Lucky old you, those fridge driver seem to be a sociable mob. I woke up at Campo Galliano one Sunday morning totally surrounded by them.
It never really bothered me when I was pulling a fridge though.
Jeff…
There’s a story behind this one, but I’ll let you add your comments first.
Jeff…
I haven’t had much time to catch up, but here’s the tale for this one.
I was doing 3 drops on Skye long before they put the bridge over to it, but was late away from the yard so I had to sit it out at Kyle of Lochalsh overnight as I had missed the last ferry. The ferry timing was a bit sporadic to say the least, but the first ferry was usually around 6 in the morning so I decided to sit at the bottom of the slope of the jetty. The sign used to read something like this…
First ferry 6am then about every hour and a half after that, if it gets busier there will be more runs. Last ferry 10 pm.
Quarter to 6 the next morning I got knocked up and told to either get of the jetty or on the ferry, so I rolled on, and legged it round Skye doing my drops. On the ferry the guy told me that there should be a sailing around ten-ish in the morning so it would be good if I could make it for then as it was winter and fairly quiet so they didn’t really want to do another one until around 1 or 2 in the afternoon. Everything was going good until the last drop when I met a farmer that wanted to tell me his life story and the complete history of Skye since the ice age, and I had to listen to him as he could of been a potential customer.
It took me over 4 hours to get back to the ferry and I knew it was going to be tight. This was the sight that greeted me at quarter past ten. luckily I was on the good foot with the ferry crew and they came back for me. I was speaking the some of the crew on the crossing who had been waiting for me, and they knew the guy I was talking to and fully understood the situation.
Jeff…
In the late 90’s I was approached by an Italian company to do long haul stuff, with the main objective being the Chorgos about 100 meters on the China side of the Kazakhstan / China border. At that time China was closed to most westerners and a bit dodgy as far a politics went, they really didn’t like people snooping about so the company had a very strict no camera, no recording device rule which was mainly to keep tourist/ drivers from getting locked up or just disappearing all together and being branded as spies.
On one trip, while crossing Russia I stopped to buy some supplies and there was a beggar woman trying to sell a camera at the side of the road,( unfortunately not unusual for that time in Russia ) it was a Russian copy of a 35mm Kodak point and shoot so I though why not as I knew the shop I was going to sold 35mm film. I shot a whole roll along the way and got it developed when I got back, but sadly only a couple of shots were any good, with most being shot while moving and in poor light they all had very bad camera shake and most it was hard to even know what was sky and what was earth.
This shot was the last on the roll and nearly cost me everything I had. It was taken about 2 in the morning when I got up for, ( well I’m sure you know ) in the transfer station at Chorgos. The auto flash went of ( I didn’t think was working or I wouldn’t have taken the shot )and less than a minute later half a dozen armed Chinese border guards showed up with dogs and ordered every one out of the trucks while they did a cab check. I had heard them coming and knew there would be trouble so I chucked the camera up on top of the fridge and closed the door as quickly and quietly as I could. I wasn’t game enough to get it back for a couple of days until I finished tipping and reloading and was safely back on the Kaz side.
It was a cold wet night and the cab check took about an hour and half with all the drivers having to stand out side in what they would normally wear to bed. It was never said what was actually going on, but the next day there were plenty of rumors going about.
The photo isn’t that spectacular but when I think of what could have happened my blood still runs cold.
I think I’m a bit wiser now.
Jeff.
You are a brave man Jeff 
Kepe them tales coming people,there must be loads of them!
Reg Danne
There was a Swedish one hit wonder came on a China run with us, and he seemed to have every kind of recording device known to man. The inside of his truck looked like some kind of film studio. I don’t know how he managed to get out the yard as the boss was very strict about such stuff.
He was pretty ■■■■■■ of most of the time as he as he was always wanting to stop and take photos and video, but the rest of us just kept rolling. Kaz was usually 5-6 hours between breaks, and 3 stints per day. When we stopped over night at the rail yard in Almaty, he was told to stow his gear with the transport chef or stay put as the rest of us weren’t going to have anything to do with him if he intended to take all his gear to the border.
Jeff…
Well i understand that any one want to record those trips but you still have a jobb to do,and the risk a the border… but he only did one trip?
There was a Swedish company doing those longhaul,think they were called Autofrakt. It was a artikl i a magasin here in Sweden in the 90is. There was an englishman working there. Frank Woods i think name was.
Reg Danne
My Russian’s a bit rusty but I’m pretty sure it says Orta Ocey Trans,and the smaller writing is Uzbekistan Republic, Tashkent, phone,fax, and telex so he was pretty local. And if I remember it was an ex Peekes of Warsaw wide cab SK Merc at the front. Top bloke driving it as he made us a fantastic Shaslik thing with goat cheeze, which he was very happy to swap for half a bag of fresh tomatoes and lettuce.
Jeff…
I remember seeing Auto Frank ( Fratk ) a fair way out east towards Tomsk, someone told me they were hauling man hole coves from the foundry at Novosibirsk. I did a few out of there my self but didn’t see Auto Frank there at the time, mud bath in the winter dust bowl in the summer. Doesn’t mean they were never there though. Didn’t know they had a Brit on with them.
Jeff.
He was an old M/E hand i read in the astran thread.
I will try to find the mag and see how far out they got! I would love to have done it,but when you guys were doing it i didnt know about it… 
Reg Danne
Jelliot:
Lucky old you, those fridge driver seem to be a sociable mob. I woke up at Campo Galliano one Sunday morning totally surrounded by them.
It never really bothered me when I was pulling a fridge though.
Jeff…
I was parked up at Wilsdruff services near Dresden once, next to a Dutch driver who had been driving fridges for so long that he couldn’t sleep without the noise, so he made a cassette recording of a Thermoking blasting away to lull him to sleep on slack nights! I kid you not. Robert 
Robert,now thats a propper lorry! I like it!
Reg Danne
Dirty Dan:
Robert,now thats a propper lorry! I like it!
Reg Danne
Thank you, mate: you’ve no idea how much that comment means to me! I ran it for a year before running out of wonga. As you may appreciate from other threads, I’d driven this Twin-splitting Eurostar round Europe, North Africa and the Middle-East before acquiring it.
I’ll post some more unusual stuff on this thread… Robert
Some bloggers may have made this connection: I used to write LDDs (Long Distance Diaries) for TRUCK magazine in the '90s. In all but one case, I simply wrote about an interesting place I was going to AS A DRIVER (I did a Turkey, a Poland, a Morocco, a Spain, a Romania and I think one or two others - they’re all filed away in storage in UK).
The single LDD I undertook as a reporter, although I did a little driving, was a trip to Azerbaijan in 1997. I travelled with two Patrick White DAF 95s driven by Danny Cantril and a young New Zealander whose name escapes me for the moment; and a Seddon-Atkisnson Strato with the Space-cab, 365 Roller engine and Twin-splitter piloted by an owner-driver called Robert Cantril. We were joined by two excellent blokes off Willie Lambie in Scotland, also driving DAFs. It was the Sedi I drove for a spell during our crossing of Azerbaijan. The Twin-splitter was not the best of installations, but this unit had been running into Russia, Kazakhstan and all over central Asia. We met several other Brits on the same work travelling to and from Baku in Azerbaijan on that run. We tipped in the rig-blast yard north of Baku. These were the last of the hard-ba**stards on this work - it wasn’t all roses but it was a fantastic trip. Here are some happy snaps from it. Robert
A few more pics from that Azerbaijan trip? Oh, all right then! Robert
I have to say, it was the weirdest feeling to be on a trip like this and not be in charge of my own lorry. We met some damned good drivers on this trip, including a bloke called Joe Porter who used to work for Patrick White but who had defected. Here is a picture of him just on the Georgia side of the Azerbaija/Georgia border. Robert
Talking of Long Distance Diaries. One single incident, for me, justified all the hard work I had done to submit those LDDs to TRUCK magazine. It was about 2001/2 time and I had boarded one of the ferries from Ancona in Italy to Patras in Greece. A gathering of KFOR lorries had also boarded. KFOR drivers were bound for Kosovo with supplies for the British army and like all those low-key civilian operations, the drivers were always ex-servicemen. I got chatting to the drivers on board and we shared a bottle of retsina or six. I got lost coming out of the gents and I told them, ‘If I can’t find my way out of the gents on a ferry, how the f**ck am I going to find my way to Doha?’ Much mirth ensued. Then one of their drivers came up with a tale and recounted a similar tale involving my rescuing a driver in Romania. ‘You just got that from a magazine article, you’re just bull-sh*tting!’ he exclaimed angrily. I quietly informed him that I had written the original article. ‘So you must be Robert Hackford!’ he said. I answered in the affirmative. ‘You are the reason I am here,’ this fierce young and adventurous driver declared. ‘I was inspired to do long-haul work by your Long Distance Diaries! And I love this work’. Ladies and gentlemen, I rest my case: I am no longer guilty of leading the young astray - and what a perfect endorsement of my LDDs. Sigh! Sometimes the world can be alright. Robert
