renegade, wasnt the hereford depot in millpond street ?opposite the bp garage,just past the footie ground? i seem to remember going in there in the early 80’s(i worked on brs for 13 years out of gloucester depot)the brs depot in ross on wye was home to mike prosser transport/littlewoods foods/and ross tyres and is now a morrisons , gloucester was originaly on great western road,then moved to st oswalds road which is now a retail park.mitcheldean was originaly home to george read’s fleet then brs but is now all houses/flats…god better go lie down my head hurts.bob.
hiya,
hereford depot, remember getting a pylon (flat pack) out of there for somewhere in the north of scotland when i worked for brs consett nice load a couple of chains and off you go, forest of dean only in there for fuel never got nowt back always sent you somewhere else for your backload got fuel at gloucester in passing never loaded out of there remember a traffic office guy in the newport south wales depot had a special hearing aid under his shirt on his chest and to see him with the ear piece on his chest when using the phone was most unusual always a load back from there though in fact consett did a change over trunk with them i did it for a few weeks when the regular guy was off poorly good job and home every day very happy days.
thanks harry long retired.
Harry did you ever use Wrexham depot in the 70`s for fuel/backloads in your time ?
the bloke there running the transport was called Albert and was totally blind
funny how he used to run over 50 motors back then and knew were each one was or should of been 
and now after going from BRS to EXEL and now DHL we have 4 managers and 6 motors at our depot with no one knowing whats really going on 
nianiamh:
Harry did you ever use Wrexham depot in the 70`s for fuel/backloads in your time ?
the bloke there running the transport was called Albert and was totally blind
funny how he used to run over 50 motors back then and knew were each one was or should of been
and now after going from BRS to EXEL and now DHL we have 4 managers and 6 motors at our depot with no one knowing whats really going on
i think thats the norm these days,spotty faced youngsters,who dont know their arse from their elbow and just cause they can tap a few keys on a computer can get you to chase your kin tail all day long 
,i need to go lye down in a dark room for a bit now. 
hiya,
nianiamh only ever went into wrexham for fuel and only on the odd occasion i think they did a lot of beer, a bit near my home base of blackburn in those days so it was nearly always back home empty from that area to grab our own traffic.
thanks harry long retired.
BARNSLEY had three different sites over the years, the first being the old Fisher & Thompson garage on Meadow Street, just above the modern-day PC World and surviving as retail units (after re-cladding and re-roofing). The second was Rosa Garage, Wakefield Road, nowadays used by Globe Coaches but still very much as it was back then. The final move was to a purpose-built depot on the Carlton Industrial Estate a couple of miles north-east of town. I’m not sure who’s in there now, but it’s definitely not BRS.
WAKEFIELD’s depot was the former Fred Crowther garage, next to Sandal Cricket Ground on Barnsley Road and providing undercover parking for the whole vehicle allocation. After BRS left, Crowther moved back for several more years. The site was then redeveloped, and is now a car dealership (Volvo)
hiya,
i seem to recall a BRS depot in Malton Nth Yorks i seem to remember bunkering there once but this would have been in the early 1960s, can anyone tell me if they remember the depot or was i dreaming i used so many depot’s in my time, something tells me this depot was near the railway line and just before the level crossing.
thanks harry long retired.
dieseldog6:
I have to agree with wessexman, priceless, the 2 BRS commer car transporters could easily be my Dad, the one loaded with the Rootes Group cars is definatley a Coventry depot one,as is the M/T one, I can’t make out the reg though, pity can anyone else. Fantastic!! I will have to show my Brothers, well done Wheelnut. I spent my days with my Dad in one of those Commers, even going out the very first day they put them on the road, they had ten to start with TJF 901 to TJF 910 they were all lined up in order, just after the M1 opened. we went to London , Victoria Dock with a load of Rootes cars, happy days.
thats funny though it was my dad loading Stan Druse i used to go with him as much as school would let me remember one time one the m1 our commer caught fire we had to sit on the bank of the motorway my dad worked for all the car transports firms in the midlands happy days
What a topic!
After 20 odd years with BRS, I received my redundancy letter as part of the BRS / Exel reorganisation, which saw the sale of the BRS Truck Rental empire to Volvo.
Without the large rental and long term contract hire fleets needing maintenance, I was offered an extension to manage the closure of c65 BRS depots which no longer had a fleet to support and were surplus to requirements. Not the job I would have chosen, as I fought to keep a lot of them open.
I have an NFC Directory c1970, and will add to the debate plus give you a potted story of the closures.
hiya,
Love to see that stuff mi 1 3ke put it on quick as you like should be of interest.
thanks harry long retired.
There was a large BRS depot, and parcel depot, in Cardiff Road, Reading. We used to do warranty repairs on their BMC trucks in the 1960’s, they had a large contract fleet there as well including small vans. When I moved to Derbyshire we used the depot at Alvaston, Derby for tacho work. I think that the original depot was on Ashbourne Road in Derby, the offices were still there after the depot moved but it has all been built on now (housing I think).
Pete.
Hi,
I started with BRS in the 70’s at the repair centre Ettingshall road, Wolverhampton, other depots I worked from were Jenner st, W-ton,Foxes lane W-ton, Wellington, Telford. Oldbury ( where toys r us is sited) Dartmouth rd. West Brom, Middlemore rd. Smethwick.
and currently at Landor st. B’ham, we still have quite a few old BRS men like myself who have kept their service from BRS to Exel and now DHL. Working on contracts we dont have any yellow motors and so far have resisted the yellow and red clown suits
Amazingly we still use some of the old ops numbers for some of the stationary.
Someone on here mentioned the old Walsall depot by Queen st., can you remember when they were also at Bentley where the Pickfords site was? another site I remember was BRS parcels at Gypsy lane Willenhall.
In their heydays they owned vast amounts of property , when it was privatised about 79/80 ? they sold off something like £100 million pounds in property and still operated from remaining sites at a profit.
Used to be a small Depot on East Common Lane in Selby yorks, most of the trucks worked out of Rostrons Paper Mills which was just down the street.
Nearley all the drivers were local lads from around the Selby area,the garage site is still there (unused) and the old Rostron’s mill is being knocked down as I write this note.
Hi to you all I started on BRS OXFORD in the early 80s as a fitter on the yts , after i got fed up of getting covered in crap and had listened to all the drivers telling me there storys they let me go on the road , started on a daf 2500 day cab drawbar , normal story , youngest driver crapest truck , any way cleaned her up fitted cb and radio and then after 8 weeks they decided to lay two drivers off but as I was longer serving than some of the older drivers I was put on shunting hated that spent more time a sleep , then one driver left and i was given his motor g reg daf 2500 drawbar wirh a pod wowwwwwwwwwwwww eh , any way stuck with that for two years , twice a week on glasgow / edinburgh . One day call from the office brandnew MAN 320- waiting for me no pod but with a proper sleeper . sadley no pictures , any way would love to hear from any oxford BRS drivers or Habitat drivers , EVERY ONE CALLED ME jakey on the c b .
Hi, I am new to this so I hope I am doing it correctly. I can remember the depot in liverpool it was next to the ‘dockers club’ Edinburgh Park. It was up a steep ramp. In the early 1970s I sometimes delivered batteries there. I think they had Noddy vans if my memory serves me well. I worked at St.Helens depot for two weeks around 1976 via a driving agency, it was just down the road from Suttons depot and they gave me a Guy Big J 4 which had seen better days.
Hope this helps.
Lee Parks
CORDWANGLER:
Hi, I am new to this so I hope I am doing it correctly. I can remember the depot in liverpool it was next to the ‘dockers club’ Edinburgh Park. It was up a steep ramp. In the early 1970s I sometimes delivered batteries there. I think they had Noddy vans if my memory serves me well. I worked at St.Helens depot for two weeks around 1976 via a driving agency, it was just down the road from Suttons depot and they gave me a Guy Big J 4 which had seen better days.
Hope this helps.
Lee Parks
hiya,
Welcome aboard “CORDWANGLER” nice to hear from you, and believe me all contributions to this and all other threads will be read and appreciated i think i speak for everybody on here, good luck.
thanks harry long retired.
The depot at Great Howard Street Liverpool was Pickfords Heavy Haulage and Removals in the 60s and 70s so BRS most likely used it after their demise.
Harry did you know any of the drivers at Staniforth road Sheffield as I had a few mates worked there ,my dad also worked there around 65 to 70 ish as he transferred from Pickfords and then transferred back and when he came back I was about 4 years senior to him ha ha but we always got on really great so it was no problem. He mostly did London smalls while at BRS and if you knew him it would be by big Jock as he was around 25 stone.
Cheers Johnnie
sammyopisite:
The depot at Great Howard Street Liverpool was Pickfords Heavy Haulage and Removals in the 60s and 70s so BRS most likely used it after their demise.Harry did you know any of the drivers at Staniforth road Sheffield as I had a few mates worked there ,my dad also worked there around 65 to 70 ish as he transferred from Pickfords and then transferred back and when he came back I was about 4 years senior to him ha ha but we always got on really great so it was no problem. He mostly did London smalls while at BRS and if you knew him it would be by big Jock as he was around 25 stone.
Cheers Johnnie
hiya,
Sorry mate never got to know the drivers in that yard, it was a busy place usually in get your collection note which was coupled to your delivery notes out load and on your way only ever in there when working in the North East area good traffic though always a one dropper and always close to home or beyond.
thanks harry long retired.
I bet a lot of drivers remember loading dogfood at BRS melton mowbray & BRS at Wisbech
tonyhogi:
I bet a lot of drivers remember loading dogfood at BRS melton mowbray & BRS at Wisbech
hiya,
It was a regular pick up when you got tipped in that area, i always managed to wangle a load for oe’r the border which usually mean’t i had to have a dodgy night out en-route, but it was good traffic single pallet load right through.
thanks harry long retired.