i started distance work 89/90,were they running day cab twin steer man,s with a spare wheel mounted military style on the back of the cab,maybe i,m mistaken,my first 6 months was a bit of a blur,steep learning curve and all that 
if my memory serves my right ,did alexanders become part of christian salvesen? 
.bob
Chris Webb:
They did Harry now and again and here’s a photo.However I made a glaring mistake,that class would never be seen on the West Coast line in BR days which was the old LMS Euston-Glasgow line so it wouldn’t be the A74. This loco was built in LNER days and would be seen on the East Coast main line between Kings Cross and Edinburgh.So maybe the posed photo was taken between Newcastle and Edinburgh on the A1,nearer to Charles Alexander’s stamping ground.Not as it matters,still a great photo.
These used to also run on the Waverley/Carlisle line through Galashiels so could have been seen on the A74.My mates and I used to sit and watch them go by in the early sixties before Beeching.
I suppose when they did Waverley they also did Aberdeen but not sure.
Mark.
I might be completely wrong (again!) but I seem to recall Alexander’s wagons coming into our Tilcon quarry for bagged lime in the early '80’s and I am guessing that at that time they were part of the TILLING group, as of course Tilcon were. Can anyone confirm this?
Pete.
hi everybody, in the 60Ty’s if we had just a couple of pallets for the far north of Scotland we would drop it into Charles Alexander john st depot Aberdeen, they ran mostly ridged 8 & 6 leggers on the fish trunk, Aberdeen to Kendal, it was the longest trunk in the country at that time, they all carried a straight tow bar so if the motor in front broke down next motor would just hook him up and drag him to where ever its delivery point was, used to be a little cafe out side john st depot, tatties neaps mince and a pot of tea 1s&3p, oh happy days 
um think it was TDG that bought charlies out, bumper
not sure mate but i dont think they were a member of tilling, unless they (tilling) came under TDG. AFTER I moved to kent 20 years ago i saw 2 of the tdg MAN 6 leggers for sale at a dealers next to transport cafe on the A26. how they ended up there god only knows. that would have been about 1987ish. my brother in law was on charlies in the 1980s. used to do preston trunk i think.
hi bumper…was the St John depot actually in john st or on the main drag coming up from union street on the rh/side?..oooops silly me, aye it was accessed from john street but on the main inverness road. its gone now with flats there. ive had many a pint in the giglcolmston pub across the road on a sunday opening time after a heavy night in the toon on saturday night. i lived out in kinnelar at the time. you wouldnt recognise the area now. there is a roundabout right outside charlies. i used to take fish into the poynernook road depot down by the arches to put on the south trunk. I never imagined for a moment i’d be living in the sooooooooooth! i think the john street depot handled all the maintenance. i loved coming down in the bus and passing charlies and seeing all the wagons down below in the hole. you couldnt see them at the other depot as they were at the back of the fish houses next to the viaducts…jim
hi jimmy m, i did deliveries every week from 1961-1965 to the Aberdeen area and inverness, as you say john st depot was in john st, nearly always approached it from kings st as we also dropped stuff of at J-G Barracks who had a depot of king st, never did Aberdeen again until the late 70tys, your right i did not recognise the place, charlies had 2 albion 4 wheeler motor’s painted in lucozade colour,s do you remember them, bumper
hello there bumper no i don’t remember the lucozade trucks. i was born in darvel, ayrshire, well kilmarnock infirmary actually, across from johnie walkers, in 1960. lived in darvel till 1979 when we moved to aberdeen 
we holidayed in abn every summer and my time was spent down the docks and fishmarkets looking at the lorries escpecially charlies for some reason or other. then moved to kent 20 years ago. if the cafe you went to was in king street its still there 
Hi bumper when you were on for Charlie do you recall a family member of mine who was from Newtongrange just outside Edinburgh who worked there in the late 50s to mid 60s name of Bill family called him Gillie T he was not a quiet chap and was most likely the inventor of road rage he then went on to road construction driving dozers and scrapers when they were up grading the 66 and ended up taxi driving in Penrith living on the travellers caravan site on the edge of Penrith before returning back to Newtongrange where he lived out the rest of his life. cheers Johnnie
hi Sammy, sorry mate but i never worked for Charles Alexander, at that time i worked for Thomas bell ( BERO-FLOUR ) we delivered mainly to there own depots apart from aberdeen and inverness to wholesaler’s, anything north of inverness was delivered by C-&A OR J-G Barracks, only new the lads that worked out of john st, also the two lucozade, drivers, regards bumper
It was said at the time Charlie had a Fish Lorry leaving Aberdeen every so many Minutes or so and every other Lorry carried a Towbar,and if one brokedown the ones coming behind all mucked in and transhipped it amomg them, and as far i know they got so much time to find a backload if not back empty.
Ben
Yes Ben Charlies always had a chaser with dry goods and if a fish truck broke down the chaser would take the fish trailer and the next chaser would tow the broken down truck to next depot or repair shop.
Harry Monk:
laybuy:
It’s not a beaver it’s a lynx.
Laybuy
Fantastic photo, when was it taken? I am guessing that is a staged photo of a restored lorry taken fairly recently? Although I’m no gricer, I can’t imagine that class of loco pulling a goods train in the day.
Hiya,
Looking at the photo, I’d say it was taken when the wagon was new. The registration is from 1938, Aberdeen Burgh Council, and the loco is not an A4 as it seems. It’s one of the P2 class 2-8-2 locos built for express goods or passenger service on the Edinburgh to Aberdeen section. The first two had a very different frontal appearance, with seperate smoke deflectors, and 2005 “Thane of Fife” had a single chimney, so this must be 2004 “Mons Meg” or 2006 “Wolf of Badenoch”. They had similar streamlining to the A4’s, but the giveaway is the shape of the lower central part of the boiler, the exposed reversing rod and the flat footplate. The footplates curved downwards on A4s and the rebuilt W1 4-6-4 “Hush Hush” , even on the small batch of streamlined B17 4-6-0s for East Anglian services pre-war. The letters “LNER” are visible on the tender, which makes it a pre-war shot, as the lettering was abbreviated to “NE” during wartime. This is also borne out by the lorry having no blackout markings or headlight masks. None of the P2 class survived into preservation, in fact they were rebuilt in a different form in the 1950s, and all were scrapped by the early 1960’s. A4’s did do service on express goods trains occasionally, particularly during the war and in their last few years in service in the early 60’s.
Fodenway (part-time railway nut)
curnock:
curnock:
curnock:
going back to the early to mid 70’s,there was always a chas alexander wagon parked up on a weekend in walsall,am trying to picture the vehicle type but need a bit of time to remember.at one time there was a scammell artic (routeman cab),then a four wheeler ergomatic not sure if it were an albion or leyland
Yes and the driver was probably on a dodgy , 2 of their drivers lived in Walsall, they had a depot in Bilston off Vulcan rd. nr. Starr roadways. Work was trunked down to them from Preston .
When my brother got wed in Aberdeen in 1971, I got a lift from Newcastle with one of Charlie’s boys in a Leyland Lynx with the headless engine (500?) Jeez did it go! I’ve never been so frightened, before or since. With the narrow gaps he put it through, I thought it must have narrower than standard!
harry, i was part of that era , and i think that most of the scottish fleet of lorries then was all hand sign written, charlies, gibbs, and tommy catto who delivered sides of beef to hotels in london , so much pride in lorries then, don"t you agree
in the early 
8os i can remember the volvo 6x2 f7 flats with fish from charlie alexander stopped at the moss cafe a74 north of carlisle for a bite before heading to preston,some pulled into lockerbie for a fish supper at the tower chippy. 
i can remember running with one o charlies drivers on a regular basis his cb handle was santa claus ,yup he had a white beard ,
mmmm think one o esks drivers had the same handle.
lol …coming down under the railway bridge at greenilstairs (a74) flat out wi charlies boys leaving me standing,somenights the snowploughs were parked on the side just inside dumfries and galloway and their drivers would tell you were the police were… good days…
Hya boys nobody mentioned ergo cabbed beavers with the turbo charged 690 engine supercomet iwas driving no match for turbo beaver nth or sthbound on a1 . Used to see them reglar in the early 70s kept telling uncles who i worked for i want one in the end i had to settle for a buffalo but charlies angels still passed me . Keep em coming nice to hear the old stories the young buckos of today dont know theyre born .