Suedehead:
oiltreader:
First pic, temperature controlled fine art mover, guess the second is probably the same, all credit to Richard Says for the photos.
OilyIt says Tesco on the side of the second one.
Sorted ta.
Happy new year to all let’s pray for a better year ,
Re Pickfords. I seem to recall that they didnt have a very good reputation on household removals and everybody used them “ONCE”. Were they really that bad or was their reputation justified ?
Suedehead:
Re Pickfords. I seem to recall that they didnt have a very good reputation on household removals and everybody used them “ONCE”. Were they really that bad or was their reputation justified ?
As someone who was part of the management structure at Pickfords hopefully my input will be of interest. I transferred to them from Scottish Road Services and, by and large, my experience with them was mixed.
As with any large organisation there will always be some people who are very good at their job and others who were not up to the mark but by and large I wouldn’t say that the actual removal part of the job was done badly. At Glasgow we had one of the largest branches in the company and had a large staff. The biggest problem that existed was that the “workers” ran the depot. Initiative was not part of the job description. This was down to a combination of weak management at branch level and extremely weak management from head office. The fleet choice was also outdated and too rigid. For most branches it was a Bedford or nothing else. The local management had no say in what was bought or what specifications. Then again, if you’re never asked, you can’t answer!! The fleet was depreciated over 8 years which meant that you were always playing catch up with new developments. I could go into greater detail but that wouldn’t be in line with the original question.
In respect of them “only being used once” I think you could apply that to any removal company. After all how many people need to use the services of a removal company on a regular basis?
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Hi Steve happy new year to you and your family mate when you back in we back on Monday ,looks like I be tramping as our other pump driver is finishing next week so there’s only me ,he going back to Bristol as his mother isn’t well
Hello John ,
Happy new year to you all .
Yes every one is back in on Monday ,i had a few quotes during the break and a couple of box collections and deliveries .
Dennis Javelin:
Suedehead:
Re Pickfords. I seem to recall that they didnt have a very good reputation on household removals and everybody used them “ONCE”. Were they really that bad or was their reputation justified ?As someone who was part of the management structure at Pickfords hopefully my input will be of interest. I transferred to them from Scottish Road Services and, by and large, my experience with them was mixed.
As with any large organisation there will always be some people who are very good at their job and others who were not up to the mark but by and large I wouldn’t say that the actual removal part of the job was done badly. At Glasgow we had one of the largest branches in the company and had a large staff. The biggest problem that existed was that the “workers” ran the depot. Initiative was not part of the job description. This was down to a combination of weak management at branch level and extremely weak management from head office. The fleet choice was also outdated and too rigid. For most branches it was a Bedford or nothing else. The local management had no say in what was bought or what specifications. Then again, if you’re never asked, you can’t answer!! The fleet was depreciated over 8 years which meant that you were always playing catch up with new developments. I could go into greater detail but that wouldn’t be in line with the original question.
In respect of them “only being used once” I think you could apply that to any removal company. After all how many people need to use the services of a removal company on a regular basis?
Thank you for your reply and a bit of insight into Pickfords. Not surprised that the workers ran the depot as wasnt Pickfords part of BRS ? thus having a heavy union presence. Same goes for the fleet, as they did run some tired looking fleet spec vehicles.
Regards
Andy
A Seddon Pennine pantechnicon we sold to Joe Barnes & Son Removals of London in aprox 1975
One of three sold new by Longfield Road Motors Main Seddon agents to our old (Now sadly long gone) friend Tom Liddle when after he sold his 16 van business T.T.Liddle with his massive 16 acre depot in Stanley Co. Durham to P& O (Storemasters) and then bought Lewins Removals stanley. The final photo shows it (or one of its two sister vehicles) in Lewin’s livery and sadly I never took a photo of any one of these 3 vehicles in our livery
Seddon had designed these vans to sell more or less as stock vehicles with the body built in their Pennine Coachworks adjacent to the Truck factory in Oldham, but soon decided to discontinue bodybuilding as they needed the factory space to increase truck building and Boalloy bought the moulds & equipment and started building the bodies under licence to Seddon, at Boalloy Congleton. Of the three we bought from Tom the first was a Pennine Coachbuilt & this and the third were Boalloy built
Tom had decided to replace 5 rigid vans with new Dodge Tractors with van trailers (See one in photo) and we bought the five (3 Seddons & 2 Bedfords) This Seddon was only about 6 months old when we bought it , and I cannot remember the reason why we sold it so young especially as at the time we were buying a few Seddon pantechnicon vans with Marsden & Vanplan bodies
However Joe confirms I collected him from Darlington Station with my then new Red Triumph Stag and took him back to Spennymoor where strangely my Dad (Who didn’t like doing sales which was a job I usually did) sold it to him & then took Joe for Lunch whilst he waited for his train back to London. We then apparently loaded it for London & after delivering the load delivered the van to Joe’s place.
Strangely I cannot remember this episode and even more why we sold such a nice looking young van. Thinking about it I might have come up with the answer which I will go into in more detail on the W.H.Williams thread Now after hearing from Joe after 45 years
Impressing looking van that Seddon. What cu ft capacity would that have been ?
With that ribbed body, it must have been a ball ache for the sign writer, no wonder its got a board on the sides 
Suedehead:
Impressing looking van that Seddon. What cu ft capacity would that have been ?
With that ribbed body, it must have been a ball ache for the sign writer
It was maximum length of 36 foot making it about 2,300 cu ft If my memory serves me right they had no wheel boxes which if it had would have increase the capacity by aprox 30 x 8 x1= 240 cu ft but they had drop wells with false floors to adapt them as straight through floor. We hated ribbed aluminium bodies. Cheap & nasty. However Peter Butler our sign writer coped well. I wish I’d taken photos as ours had a lot of writing on , but here’s another Bo-alloy body, this one on a Ford passenger chassis with similar ribbed aluminium which shows what it would have looked similar to
