Ok, so it’s getting to that time of year when by beloved Lilly is due for off-hire, after running up 520,000km in 3.5 years. 
I love my Stralis, as I think everyone knows… 
…It’s the first proper “space cab” I’ve ever had - and from a self-catering point of view beats the hell out of our Mercs and Volvos…It has taught me to love AMT transmission and how to use it properly - even after a nightmare six months in it’s Eurotronic 1 Euroshed predecessor, which was enough to put anyone off for life…It has only ever had major breakdowns when someone else was driving it, so from my point of view has been pretty ■■■■ reliable (although the people it blew 3 turbos and needed 2 engine rebuilds on feel a little differently 
)…It carried my son safely around the country for 8 months whilst I was pregnant (these things matter to us women, I’ll have you know)…and it goes like [zb] off a shovel once you know how to drive it (hence the turbos and engines above ).
Consequently it’s off-hire date of the beginning of November has been looming large in my mind, a dread only heightened by the threat of having to drive a Merc instead. I hate Mercs. It’s a sign of the times, I guess, that this woman who happily lived for 18 months in a 10 year old 360bhp Scania p-cab is moaning about having to drive an eighteen-month old, 460bhp MegaSpace Actros ( ), but that’s not the point. It could be a Longline-Mega-Wega-Super-Duper-Penthouse-Stretch-Space Actros with built in icemaker and free mini-bar for all I care, I just don’t like Mercs. I digress.
The worst thing about the pre-off-hire period at our place, especially if it’s for the ex-evaluators like mine which is the only one going off hire at the time (so no nice fleet of short-term top spec demonstrators to fill in the gaps), is that a couple of weeks beforehand they come off the road for short periods for “pimping” and repairing ready to be checked. The idea is that by handing them back in as near-perfect condition as possible the dealerships who owns them won’t send a massive bill when they come to inspect. All fair enough, expect that it means that the poor old driver - a tramper, mind, so we’re talking a good quantity of kit - gets constantly hoofed out into whatever other wagon is knocking about for 3 days here and 3 days there so the work can be done. With no notice whatsoever, because this is our place and giving notice whould require someone having some idea what’s actually going on. This is when the arguements inevitably start. 
Bear in mind, if you will, that our Fleet Manager and our Transport Manager don’t communicate except when they are forced. If you break down, you first ring the FM to get it sorted or agree on a botch job, then you ring the TM and tell her what’s happened. By the time you’ve had to ring them both seperately with updates, explanations, and timescales, the breakdown has doubled in length, but hey, that’s life. Grrr.
No real surprise then, to be running in a week last Monday, having just taken on a job which involves very tight timing and a short night break, but is worth it for the mileage, to receive a second phonecall from the FM to inform me that my wagon was coming off the road and I’d have to move all my kit. Now. Arse.
Long story short, after much bickering and mithering, I collar another driver and lob all my kit from my beloved Lilly into our white short term hire Stralis (I think he’d worked out that making me drive a Merc at that point would’ve pushed me over the edge from gentle warfare into outright mutiny - this is a firm where they had to lay off a night driver because they couldn’t get any of the distance drivers to go home for the odd night and free up a wagon, after all. I kid you not.) Ok, so it has 50 less horses, 4 less gears, and a temporary livery which is nigh on invisible to the naked eye, but it’s still a Stralis, and it’s only for two days. Actually the last bit isn’t so good and became the crux of the arguement once the “But I’ll be late to tip if I do it now, these bloody wagons are actually here to deliver freight not just to keep you in a job tinkering” battle had been fought and lost. Fortunately it bacame a non-issue when two days later the work was nowhere near done and I settled into 52 OKX for the rest of the week.
Now, maybe I should have smelt a rat when I noticed the suspicious marks on the dashboard and carpet. But this is a short-term stopgap wagon which has been driven by just about everyone at some point or other, so I expected it to be thoroughly unloved and dismissed the stains as coffee, tea, coke, beer, and whatever else had been split over the previous six months and then left as the current driver gratefully fled back to his rightful home. The two binbags full of rubbish - cans, packets, old copies of the Daily Sport, odd stiff socks, orphan gloves etc. etc. - had to go, but it was bearable. So I moved in. After the third day, when it became increasingly apparent that I was unlikely to get 03 BFL back - it was booked for livery removal the following week and for final checking a few days after that - I took a brush to the floor and emptied another bag full of various dead air fresheners out of the upper pockets, and got the rest of my kit out of Lilly, which had been doing odd days on local work in between workshop visits.
Friday rolls around and I ring up the FM manager to ask what’s happening the following week. “You can have your wagon back”, he announces (YAY!!!)…“But it’s coming off the road again on Wenesday” (AAARRRGGGHHH!!!). At this point, by complete coincidence, 03 BFL passes me coming out of the dock gates - minus it’s roof deflector. A tad unimpressed, I call the FM back and ask if it’s going to be in the yard for me to put my kit back into. “If you’re quick, it’s going to Scarborough tonight, and the driver will be in in half an hour”. Given as how there are 5 wagons in front of me trying to get onto the dock, and it’s shift change so we’ll all have to sit on the slots for a good hour, I’m now left having either shift kit at 5am Monday morning or come in at the weekend. Only to do it all again two days later. What a completely pointless bloody exercise.
Another phonecall and another arguement and the FM finally agrees that I can just stay in 52 OKX for now. Ok, so it has a few less gears and will never pull Windy Hill at 45mph fully freighted, but the smaller engine means less engine braking so it’s easier to push over the limiter on downhills…plus I’m getting really quite comfortable now. In fact the only thing that is driving me nuts is all the other drivers freaking out that I might be keeping it long term - we got taken over a couple of weeks ago and the groundless doom-mongering is reaching a crescendo.
Word on the street is that if my wagon doesn’t get replaced then we’ll all be out of a job by Xmas. The fact that we don’t properly go onto Eimskip’s books until November, and that any decisions about new wagons would’ve been made months ago, is apparently beside the point. If 03 BFL doesn’t get replaced the end of the world is nigh, and that’s that. Don’t book next year’s holiday lads. We’ll all be forced to go and work for SHOCK a transport firm like HORROR Prestons, Foxes, Devereux or Stiller. The shame of it…
I can understand where the concern is coming from - after all, we only found out we’d been taken over a day after it happened when the lads on the dock gates started extracting the urine and waxing lyrical about our imminent fate pulling stinking fish boxes out of Immingham - so information is like gold dust right now. Even so, I am the last person who knows what the hell is happening to my truck, and the FM has threatened to have me off-hired with it if I don’t stop hassling him, so the constant enquiries from the others are getting a bit much.
Anyway, I potter on quite happily, ignoring the Low Oil Pressure warning which the thing throws at me every morning and has been conclusively proved on many occasions to be a lie, and no longer freaking out when the dashboard informs be that the keycode has been rejected and the immobiliser is now on when I’m doing 57 mph down the A19. No problem. So long Lilly, it was great driving you, but I’m in your older sister now, and quite happy with it. Another driver helped me give it the wash of it’s life that evening and we discovered once the grime was removed that it had been a Herbert Fletchers truck in a former life - and looks a bit daft now with our temporary decals AND the ghost of Fletchers livery both showing loud and clear, but hell, at least when I drive like a prat no-one will know which company to complain to. And at least the doors don’t leak when it rains, like Lilly’s do.
Then it all starts going pear-shaped.
Early this week I nip into a regular customer at Gateshead to do a changeover and get thoroughly distracted. First I run into a very old friend who I haven’t seen since my Southampton days. Then another of our drivers pulls in behind me and after the traditional faux-arguement about who’s taking the box which is on a slider, breaks the news that he is off the road at the end of the week, as he’s replacing the lass in the office who’s just passed her Class 1 and is going Owner Driver straight away with no experience and her rich father’s cash. Good grief.
After three such bombshells it is, I’m sure, forgiveable if not excuseable that I managed a career first and had a slight “forgetting to disconnect the lines when pulling out from under the trailer” incident…
20 minutes, a lot of swearing, a massive amount of grease, a phonecall from alix776 who collapsed in hysterics and a change of clothes later, I head off in my newly redesigned Stralis “Longline”, thanking my lucky stars that I’ve been driving long enough to know how to sort out the aftermath of such a ■■■■ up whilst leaving the minimal of evidence…
By the time I get on the dock the lines have, er, “recovered their composure” (I realised my mistake quickly enough tthat they weren’t permanently stretched, and the ABS plug re-assembled remarkably well… ) so I press on, load a box for Bolton at 7am the following morning, and run out. Arrive at the customer, which is a regular tip for us, park across the loading bay so that no-one can queue jump me by nipping in before I get up in the morning - a regular practice at our place - and hit the bunk. As I doze off it starts to rain.
Corenso opens at 7am, so my alarm is set for 20 to. I wake before my alrm to the sound of running water. Not dripping, running. Hmm, wierd.
Bleary eye’d I roll down off the bunk, one foot on the fridge, and step on to the carpet. My foot sinks into what feels like a wet sponge. The other foot creates a “sploshing” sound as I step down. The passenger side footwell has an inch of water in it.
Looking up, the sunroof is, as I thought, shut, but there is a full on river flowing over the front lip and down the top set of lockers. It then vanishes into the lower locker and emerges at the bottom onto the centre section of the dash, which thanks to Iveco’s sensible “no-keys-needed” system, is live and smelling distinctly unhealthy. I tentatively open the lower locker and my collection orders, defect book, “feminine hygiene products” ( ), spare tacho envelopes and several miscellaneous strip-seals flow out onto the floor along with several litres of water. I manage to dive and rescue my Rizlas from beneath this torrent int he nick of time. The same cannot be said for my underwear. Priorities, you see. I have more underwear. Fortunatley my actual tachos were saved by being on top of my defect book.
I quickly get into my miraculously dry clothes, set what’s left of the cab to rights, and move the wagon onto the bay. The direction of flow changes with the pitch of the wagon, and I get an impromptu shower, as does the rest of the dash. I now seem to be driving a Stralis “longline” with Water Feature. Marvellous. Ring FM. No, Lilly is not ready for me to have her back, as the TM keeps sending it out on odd jobs so the work hasn’t been finished. He doesn’t know what to suggest about the water feature, especially since it hasn’t happened any other time it’s rained in the last 6 monbths, including since I’ve been in it. Yeah, right…that’ll be what those aforementioned water stains were all about, then.
Alix, needless to say, was in truly uncontrollable hysterics by the time he heard the latest (we chat most days, so he has followed this saga with amusement). Git. 
Fast forward to Thursday. It has rained several times with no repeat leak, and I’ve noticed that when you shut the sunroof it sometimes whistles, sometimes doesn’t, with no obvious way of ensuring which position it settles in. I cross my fingers and resolve to park carefully for the remaining two nights, having been assured that it will be fixed at the weekend - I turned down the opportunity to go straight to Iveco, being paid mileage and all that. I’m not the mithering kind when it comes to downtime, and have rearranged my kit so that if it happens again nothing will get wet.
Get into the yard to much excitement. We generally write off a wagon at least once a year on here (Mileage pay again. 'Nuf said), and had been thinking for a while that we’re about due another one. Lo and behold one of the 04 plate Stralises has been put on it’s side on a roundabout not far from the yard. It’s always on roundabouts…
Work continues in dribs and drabs on Lilly. It turns out that the missing roof spoiler was down to our workshop, or to be specific, Steve in our workshop, who managed to get it entangled in the gantry crane and rip it off. It has had some of the upholstery from the inside removed ready for replacement, and there are various spare parts tucked in lockers etc. ready for fitting. It is still at this point, liveried.
Obviously we are now yet another wagon down, so as Friday dawns I am informed that I am definately back in NX 03 BFL by Monday morning, and that they will be taking it off the odd day runs and putting it back together ready. No, they don’t know how long for, but the inspection booked for the following Wednesday has been cancelled, so it’ll be for at least a week. YAY! My own wagon beloved wagon back, and no more running cold water 'cos the doorseals have been fixed!!! 
We have a bit of a tradition going at our place where if you see anyone running out as you are running in on a Friday, you have to ring them up and tell them they are going the wrong way. Consequently I’m hoofing it back across the M62 when I pass Mel going the other way, and ring him up to berate him for not waving and for heading in the wrong direction. And no, the fact that I nigh-on unliveried wagon with an unmarked blue curtainsider behind me is not an excuse. He should have been peering across the carriageway just in case. 
Conversation moves onto the subject of my wagon and it’s return to my possession that evening. “Well,” he says, “They’re no reassembling it, 'cos I just saw Lee driving it. It’s still got no spoiler and the livery is all off on one side. You won’t be able to make any money next week 'cos you’ll only be able to go into places where you book in on the side which still has decals, else no-one will know who you are!” We speculate on whether the answer to this conundrum is to back into all the customers with the liveried side facing the right way…or whether it’d be easier just to go everywhere backwards…but then we only get paid mileage going forwards…and so on in a suitably deranged manner (No, Kenny the Greek, Mel hasn’t changed a bit )…at no point seriously believeing that they were going to leave the truck like that. Surely not…
Oh yes. Not only have they not had time to put back together what they’ve taken off, but no-one’s actually sure which bits of Stralis lying around the workshop are off my wagon and which are what’s left of the one which got rolled…except for the numberplate, which has pride of place on one wall complete with a big “RIP” sign. (The driver, a shunter who only had it for the day, is fine apart from dented pride by the way. The same cannot be said for the regualr driver who has gone sick in disgust.)
So last night, after a major arguement with the night man who HAD to take my wagon for some reason only known to the FM, despite the fact that he was seriously and understandably upset to have to wait for me to sort my kit out on no pay, and despite the fact there were 28 other wagons in the yard which he could have taken instead, I moved back into what is left of NX 03 BFL. No roof spoiler, half the interior in the midst of being replaced with spare parts in every pocket, and only half liveried on one side. It looks an absolute [zb]ing wreck, frankly.
As I finally got myself sorted and prepared to leave the yard, the FM sidled up to me grinning from ear to ear. “Good news, Lucy”, he announces. “Because we’re a wagon down, we’ve extended the contract on yours!!! You’ve got it back for at least a month!!!”
Personally i think it’s all a ploy. After a month of driving around in the shed that remains of my truck, albeit at high speed, and then another fortnight of wagon hopping and general disorganisation, I’m going to be so grateful to have a WHOLE truck that I won’t give a rat’s arse what badge it has on the front…
I love my job. Really. 
Ps. Phew, I feel better for getting that off my chest.
. They all seem to go rather well speed limiter wise too. 
