ParkRoyal2100:
Quick question to the furniture humpers here: which do you prefer - domestic (household) or office/ commercial moves?
I personally prefer a mixture of both. Household moves are the everyday, the comfort zone if you wish, whereas commercial can be a complete pain in the arse, but every now and again its nice to do a commercial move especially if the client is the sort where you can have a laugh and a joke.
People think of commercial as hard work, but I find them easier than domestic moves. The thing I find most is how much my feet ache at the end of the day because you are constantly walking. Pretty much everything is trucked/dollyed so you do very little lifting in comparison to unloading 2000’ of domestic.
I once moved a university of 165,000 cubic feet. Took 2600 A1 crates and 6 men 7 weeks. Was enjoyable but not something I could do day in day out
Hi PARKROYAL , I prefer domestic moves but dont mind office moves as a change , I find you have to make sure H and S and method statements etc are more likely to fall in to place with office moves . James that was a bloody big office move your lads did , did any one lad stay on it for the full duration ? not including you ?
I have a internal moving contract for a firm in oxford ,but there moves are either evenings, sat or Sun which for a small firm can be tricky with hours etc .
I end up doing every shift which does wonders for my home life , at least I dont have to pay overtime even though its factored in to the quote .
Hi Steve, There were 2 drivers and me that were on it from start to finish. Mainly because there were 3 sites moving into one so it made sense to have one person in each site full time.
The move itself went perfectly. Some of the guys enjoyed it and some hated it so crewing it required a balancing act but on the whole went without issue. The hardest part was pricing it as well as sceduling it. We had to coincide term end and when the builders would let us in to start delivering. At one point I had 6 45’ step frame trailers full, waiting for the builders to allow us in!!
Long story short, we finished 3 days ahead of schedule, no damage to goods or buildings and everyone happy. We studied our costs and found that we had made a good profit, not obscene but we were happy considering the length of time and amount of resources etc. Happy days
Hi James , yes I bet scheduling that job was hard and juggling the men and trucks was just as hard , I like the banter you get on office moves , we did a big move in Birmingham for one of our clients a few years ago , my brother ran every day for two weeks collecting rubbish and bought it back to Oxford for them to then skip , i asked them to get a skip but they refused so I never asked again . , then we had 6 men and two trucks plus dads van on a friday, sat and sunday overnight in a very good hotel for all of us in birmingham and then I stayed up there on theSunday night ,ready to mop up for them , we got payed well but looking back I think we were to cheap , but it was a good client and we were trying to keep them happy .
We did end up clearing a Newport office and collecting from Harrogate for this client after we did the Birmingham move .
With us stopping in the hotel , the company sent some of there own staff and thought it would be wrong for our men to stop in the cabs , so my men were paid overnight money plus a very good single room each plus breakfast and aevening meal and I bought them drinks at night . no one turned down that job I can tell you .
How about these slidey floors of thse kitchen delivery wagons from Germany , its hard to stay on your feet but makes sliding the heavy units to the back of the wagon easy .
JAKEY:
How about these slidey floors of thse kitchen delivery wagons from Germany , its hard to stay on your feet but makes sliding the heavy units to the back of the wagon easy .
Hi Jakey,
Probably a lot better than the Jo-Loader system we used coupled with large tailifts that we had built by Marsden’s Vanplan and Coachskill on 40 ft trailers in the seventies
Here is a demonstration photo, taken at Marsdens at Warrington on a newly completed one promoting Edbro Tailifts wiith the photo of that vehice below it.
JAKEY:
Forgot to say Carl do you ever call Terry sinnot (was Marsdens) , i speak to him every now and then .
Was trying to speak to him today and whilst waiting for him to call back I logged on here and saw this thread!! Am still waiting for him to return my call Do you ever speak to Andy at UVB? He is a good lad.
Am getting a price for a new one so if you can spare any pennies to help me, it would be appreciated
JAKEY:
Forgot to say Carl do you ever call Terry sinnot (was Marsdens) , i speak to him every now and then .
Hi Jakey
That trailer was one of two 40ft single axle trailers we bought, we also had a few 36ft and 30 ft single axles but as you said the forty foot single axle trailers were difficult to negotiate into tight spots and so all 40 ft trailers after that were tandems and much easier.
Ford was D800, again one of several 20 ton gvw which was adequate for our use but most of our tractors were 26 ton gvw until we found 32ton gvw with Gardner engines , athough breaking a walnut with a sledge hammer were more reliable and acheived greater fuel economy, and although greater capital costs were cheaper overall to run, and certainly took a better photo. Here is a 26 ton GVW Bedford TM with a similar sized traier again wit Jo Loda system and large taillift. But this time tandem axle and trailer body by Coachskill
Terry Sinnot, name doesn’t ring a bell. Most of our deaing were with Ken Marsden, and Jeff. Also Gerry Crowe called regulary to see us, before he left for Vanplan, and I remembered him from his days as a foreman. The most interesting thing I saw was Arthur Rathbone, who also formed Vanplan designing and maing the fibre glass mould for the cab front they used from 1965 onwards. I always thought there was a strong Guy Invinsible DNA in the design. Below is our Beford SB BSO illustrating that cab
love the tm Carl . uvb was where my last sprinter was made when Terry worked for them after Marsdens finshed . Jdc what are you ordering ? i wont tell , nice to here your busy then ? , we are now from next week fully booked untill march the 1st ! ,how about you ?
I would love to say I am stacked out Steve, but it couldn’t be further from the truth!! Have lots of enquiries and a fair few bookings from the end of February onwards but till then it is bits and bobs. Its a frustrating time of year!!!
We should have replaced some of ours last year but we held off hoping things would pick up. I think this year will be better and the simple fact of the matter is we can’t wait any longer. I need another LEZ truck and I have a 1998 Scania with close to 1 million on the clock that is starting to cost me money! I haven’t made my mind up as to what to go for. It will either be an MAN 250 TGM Hi roof double sleeper or a Scania G Cab Highline. Bodywork will be from UVB once we agree a price and will be a 5 1/2 door standard removal body. I did toy with having the aerodynamic boat tail design but the major flaw in that design is you can’t see the back of the lorry as from the 4th container door, both sides taper inwards. Sitting in the cab and looking in the mirror looks like you are driving a 4 door! Great for the back streets of London
I showed in my last post BSO172C which illustrates the square cab that I told you Arthur Rathbone, then foreman and general expert on fibresglass at Marsden was developing one time when I was there in 1964. In 1965 they built four bodies for us. Three on Bedford SBs BSO172C as shown FUP145C JUP945C as you will see BSO was plymax body as was FUP however when we ordered the third JUP they said they could build with total fibreglass body, and it was one of the first they built and of course avante-guarde for 1965 and much better. When we ordered the TK which was the last of the four, they told us they wee having problems with fibreglass manufacturing and we either could have it in plymax or wait until they had solved the problems they were experiencing with fibreglass. As we were desperate for delivery we had it in plymax.
Several years later I was on Sparshafts stand at the Commercial Motor Show at earls court where they were proudly exhibiting a full fibreglass pantechnicon as though it was new technology, and were most dissapointed to hear we had by that time quite a lot with our first by Marsden dating from 1965.
Here is a photo of a 1963 Bedford Marsden 367MPT showing the cab shape previous to the square shaped one
As an interest I am gathering as many photos of Marsden and Vanplan built vans as possible and posting them on a group on Flickr I have created flickr.com/groups/marsden-vanplan/
To date there are over 400
And if anyone can provide any photos please do so by either post on Flickr or email copy for me to do so.
Our first Bedford Marsden was an SB petrol passenger chassis from 1953 and how I wished I had photographed that van. We had two other 52-53 petrol SBs by other builders for which I have blurred press photos but sadly none of the Marsden which was much superior in all respects.
The sad thing I have noticed as I have goggled the names of all the operators, that particularly the oldest are no longer trading and in fact not many operators from the photos are still in business.
Carl Williams:
As an interest I am gathering as many photos of Marsden and Vanplan built vans as possible and posting them on a group on Flickr I have created flickr.com/groups/marsden-vanplan/
To date there are over 400
And if anyone can provide any photos please do so by either post on Flickr or email copy for me to do so.
Thanks Carl, have contributed already. A fascinating flickr group full of oddities.
A s you old removal men will recall this is a site you dont want on a Friday about 5pm with this being what you have to tip and far the walk is , is was whacked out .
, i asked them to get a skip but they refused so I never asked again . 
, then we had 6 men and two trucks plus dads van on a friday, sat and sunday overnight in a very good hotel for all of us in birmingham and then I stayed up there on theSunday night ,ready to mop up for them , we got payed well but looking back I think we were to cheap , but it was a good client and we were trying to keep them happy .
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