Hi all, my next door neighbour is a retired BRS fleet engineer, John Gill, He originally came from Ipswich at some time went to Southampton (Ithink thats when he was promoted to fleet engineer) he is about 75 now any one remember him?
Gavin
went past the old leeds brs depot at elland rd today…flattened and gone 
cant be many left now?
hiya ,
blackburn depot bennington st still there looks just the same but don’t know what’s in there now was a totally undercover depot no hiding places , worked there in the 60s a couple of times , made redundtant first time left for greener fields second time , big mistake tackle was rubbish job was spot on but did do more for brs in the 70s this time consett depot another great job but like anything else all good things come to an end .
thanks harry long retired .
Hi, my last job in Transport was at BRS Cressy Rd. Depot, Hampstead which was the London Branch for the North West so our fleet code was CJ. We did mainly change overs with Studholme Street Depot of Liverpool, Preston, Blackburn and Bolton at Bromford Lane, Birmingham and Greenhays Depot of Manchester, Queensferry and Kitt Green of Wigan at Rowley road, Coventry, I started on Trunk but changed to shunting later, we had mainly Bristols with a few AEC’s both mainly artics with some 8 wheelers. The stuff from the North West was usually a load of old crap, one Leyland 8 wheeler from Preston that I seem to be getting regularly was flat out a 28 mph and I complained about it in London but I decided to take matters in to my own hands and blew the engine at Coventry and I never saw that motor again, on the other hand i do remember when I was shunting that I was allocated CL 1 now CL’s were from Greenhays Depot, Manchester and they did have some old rubbish and being allocated No.1 filled me with some foreboding and sure enough it was an old long nose Schammell with small wheels on the front and balloon tyres on the drive and trailer which was a bow fronted box, a thermostat on the radiater and a big starting handle sticking out of the front. I went and talked to some of the old hands as earlier in time Hampstead had run this type of Schammell, with out the bow fronted box, as the Schammell was fitted with two hand brakes side by side one of which w.as the hand brake as normal but the other was the trailer brake and useing the wrong one in the wet would not have been funny. Now while this motor was well past its first flush of youth it turned out to be a very nice drive after getting use to the gate change and the big bonnet in front and I realised why so many old drivers used to have so many good things to say about the old Schammells. One unusual thing at Hampstead is that we had an old Bristol unit on daily hire to MAT the European Transport Company at Barking, it did not go abroad. When the new weight regs came in our Depot Got Guy Big J’s with the ■■■■■■■ 220 and AEC 6 speed gearbox which pulled like a train but otherwise was rubbish and AEC Mandaters which in the Ergo cab British Leyland era was also poor, I had allways liked previous AEC’s. I had eiter as a regular trunker or as a regular shunt at different times CJ39, CJ46,CJ56 all Bristols, CJ71 a Mk5 AEC and last CJ119 an Ergo Mandater, anyway I got married and the left Transport.
Tony
As a little aside, I have read on here about the ■■■■■■■ engined Atkis with their front mounted exhausts blowing milk bottles over, what I do emember was that the Guy Big J had the same arrangement of exhaust with the 220 ■■■■■■■ and it could raise a mini skirt on a traffic island with a bit of judicious use of the accelerater, I was not able to do that with an Atki with a 150 Gardner with this arrangement.
Tony.
Suttons Tony, I assume that it must have been mid sixties you are talking about, did you ever do the trunk up to Rowley Road with those 36 foot tri axle trailers, there were loads of them used to come up day and night and change over with the northern ones, Big J’s, Mandators , Beavers and some Badgers, you used to be able to come up through Baginton Village then,I used to live on the corner of Rowley Road as a kid and listen to them all night changing up and down as they turned right by the Festival Pub to come up through the Village, My Dad was on Cartransport BRS then probably called Furness & Parker BRS at that time he did the night ferrying from the Standard Triumph to Rowley Road.
Frenchy , my little B.R,S. froggy, I have a little updated information, Deutsche Post, acquired DHL in 2001, also Excel in 2006, which included the remains of the old National Freight Consortium, so the old B.R.S. if still going, would be owned by the German post Office. Now our goverment want to sell off some of our post office, to TNT which is owned by the Dutch Post Office, do you think we should protest, so we could " STAMP" this out Ha Ha Ha. Sandman Norman
have posted this somewhere on tn before , but thought it would be more at home here , cheers pdw 
Hi Norman
Be better to stamp out the British Government methinks , Bring back the days of the old red and rust and be proud with British Road Services painted on em I say , and well be born again into AECs Leylands and Bristols , fighting for a £1 an hour , with A 10 hour day that would give you just 150 miles if you were clogging it , crawl out of the digs around 9.00am after a hearty breakfast , loved them days.
NOT .
Frenchy
Hi, Dieseldog6 we used to do night change overs with Queensferry (Shotten Steel) and Greenhays Depot, Manchester. The Triaxle Bodens were 33 footers and were used on change over with Kitt Green, Wigan Depot carrying 22t of Heinz beans etc, with us running into the Harlesdon factory and Kitt Green to the factory at Standish. We used to run 6 wagons a day and 6 a night 6 days and nights of the week, Kitt Green the same, this was a lot of beans etc. running up and down the Road. Yes we were paid 10 hrs a day on the BRS and time and quarter for nights again a minimum of 10 hours and even with the slowest waggons on trunk and I have had them with a 28 mph maximum you could still do well over 200 milesw a trip and no Motorway. Shunting on Suttons I was on a guaranteed 68 hour week and on there it was tip and turn and finish, it was a mistake to move from there to the BRS but I would also say that I worked just as hard on both companies but I probably could have been lazier on the BRS than Suttons if I had wanted.
Tony.
hiya,
Suttons Tony, lazy at the BRS i don’ think so sensible working practices everything was worked to the slowest motor and set by a driver who stuck to the rules was fairer for everybody if it had stayed that way it would have been a better job fewer drivers out of work, if i was starting out today i wouldn’t consider the industry too many cut price gaffers and low flying drivers the jobs not worth the proverbial J ARTHUR RANK , by jove i feel better for that 
thanks harry long retired .
Hi, Harry_Gill. I think you have missread me, I said that I worked just as hard on the BRS as I had done at Sutton’s after all they were both tip and turns (on shunting) the only difference was that you changed your own punctured wheels on Sutton’s but because on Sutton’s if you tipped and loaded by 1500 you were finished and no difference to your wages but there was not the same incentive on the BRS. But remember on Sutton’s if you finished loading at 2300 you were still expected in at 0700. The speed of the wagons had nothing to do with it as I have driven motors capable of 68 mph (MkV AEC) and others of 28 mph Leyland 8 wheeler with low ratio diffs in. Being stuck in the docks it did’nt matter how fast your waggon could go. By the way I got out of Transport September 1968 and never regretted it for a moment .
Tony.
Tony, hope you like spain, by god you packed up early, you must be 103 or you did not drive long, I had done 10 years then, then another 31 years after 1968, tell me I am eager to find out. Sandman Norman
Hi Harry, I liked you soap box speech, and agreed with what you said, pity you read what he ment out of context, keep sticking up for the old B.R.S. ways, bet you felt better for it afterwards ha ha ha. Sandman Norman
Hi Norman, no I have not had that long a retirement, I got married in 1968 and decided that the life on the road was not the best way for having a family life, so I went into the film labs for a couple of years and then joined Thames Television for over 23 years I then went freelance. I thought when I first left driving that I would miss the freedom and outside life of transport but found that in Broadcast Television you could have similar freedom etc. provided you did your job, but I suppose a little bit of Diesel must have got into my veins and I read with interest, and at times horror for the Industry, some of the stories on here. I have no photo’s unfortunatly although I enjoy enormously seeing the many evocative photographs on here, and I can only contribute memories of a period 1958 to 1968 from my own knowledge. I took my driving test in one of Sutton’s old Atkinson 8 wheelers, 28 years old in fact, which probably started life as a 6 wheeler and an older cab and a heavier chassis with a Gardner LW of 112 bhp, which would have been well over 30 years old when Sutton’s finished with it. The last waggon I drove regularly was a BRS AEC Ergo Mandater which was under a year old. The old Atkinsons on Sutton’s would have been better maintained the the new Guys and AEC’s we had later on the BRS.
Tony, I guessed you must have packed in early from driving, thanks for the info, once I drove a mandator, when I first went on to B.R.S. at Duston Northampton in 1972, the foreman said pick up that trailer for Seaton, what is the weight, about 12/ 16 ton, is it on the paperwork, yes he replied. Off I travel, I thought this motor, is not pulling very good, but travelled A34 to Oxford, Newberry, Sutton Scotney, on to A303, then I got to the long but straight hill, it stopped before I reached the top, tried several times, before turning around and then cutting through to the A 31, but then another steep hill got in my way, and my engine packed up, I called out Yeovil depot, they sent a big guy, to pull my load in, and a recovery truck to pull me in, I asked the driver of the Guy, to weigh my load, because I was in doubt about it. When we got in to the depot, the driver said, I had a job to pull it, it was over 36 ton, it was building material, loads of steel rods, hidden by wood, no wonder the poor little Mandator gave up the ghost, I gave the foreman a rocket when I went back. Sandman Norman
norman,your foreman proberbly meant 12/16 ton over the top !!!
curnock:
norman,your foreman proberbly meant 12/16 ton over the top !!!
YEs mate weigh over, pardon the pun
Hi all I thought you were all claiming BRS ran legal
Gavin, you old stirer, I always tried to run legal, but when people lie, or try to con you, in to bending the laws, you start to wonder if you can trust any one. But I never got caught out twice, there is those who want to run legal, and those who have no intention of running legal. Hmm, which are you Ha ha ha . Sandman Norman