Day Diary

[mrflibble]

Friday 13th April

Just finishing off emptying the cab of the truck I took on the Kosovan convoy (diary to come… ), and the phone rings - the agency wants to know if I’m available for work that weekend

I tell them that I only just drove off the boat from Vlissingen half an hour ago, so they offer me a nice easy run - midday start on Sunday trunking to Leicester for British Bakeries. Like a fool, I accept

Sunday 15th April

10am, I find a voicemail left on my phone at 9am asking me to get to British Bakeries ASAP, as “your truck is already loaded and ready to go”. So, I hot-foot it down there.

On arrival in the transport office (which they’ve moved), I’m told that they’ve had a bit of a problem, and I’m not going to Leicester any more; now I’m going to Eastleigh and Sebon (South London) with a load that’s already very late.

I also discover that, in my hurry to leave, I haven’t transferred my driving license photocard or digital tacho card to my normal (UK) wallet, and therefore I haven’t got it

So, instead of getting a nice new 56-plate machine, I get a 52-plate DAF as penance.

Anyway, I pick up the trailer and set off up the road. It’s a long, boring slog up the M5, along the M4, down the A34, down the M3, but eventually I get there. I’ve been to the Eastleigh bakery before, and it’s down at the end of what looks like a normal residential street. They must love all the HGV traffic going past their doors

Anyway, the bays don’t have loads of room available, but they’re not too tight either, so a few shunts to get it nice and straight, and I’m on the bay.

An hour or so later, and I’m empty and heading for London. It’s Sunday, so I already checked that I had a LLB permit before I left, and I program up the SatNav with the exact route specified. Again, it takes me down a B-road through a residential area, but eventually I get to an industrial estate, and pull up to the bakery. They’ve only got about 8 bays, and they’re all full. My trailer is already loaded and ready to go, but it’s on one of the bays, so I have to do a bit of shunting by dropping my first trailer outside on the road, picking up my new one and putting it outside, then putting my first trailer on the bay I cleared, and picking up my new one.

The reverse was a bit tricky as I had to do it at an angle to the bay, and put the trailer in between two still-coupled units. I think I only took one shunt, but I GOALed about 5 times just to make absolutely sure I didn’t hit either of the units with the blind rear corner of the trailer. Not the nicest of places to reverse into: Satellite picture here - you have to go through the gate as you reverse onto the bay, and I had one of the bays nearer the South-West.

Eventually that was all done, and I started off up the road again back home. I stopped for my 45 in Reading MSA before plodding back down the M4/M5 to Avonmouth.

542 km covered.

[hammer]

Its a bit off topic and I might be being thick but how did you get a map up like the one on the link?
I’m assuming its sat nav co-ordinates but can you do it off address / postcode?

[reef]

hammer:
Its a bit off topic and I might be being thick but how did you get a map up like the one on the link?
I’m assuming its sat nav co-ordinates but can you do it off address / postcode?

yep just put addy in google maps or multimap as if you were trying to find place for yourself click on satellite view zoom in then click on link to this page then right click on address bar and copy the address and to shorten it you just use the url tags in post a reply window

1st you need to open url tag after the = sign you put the url(address) you want to link to {url=http://url} Then you put your link text in (ppl usually put “map” or “here” in this bit…and then you close the tag with {/url} and thats it

i have used the { & } symbols in this demo but you must use [ & ]

[hammer]

Nice one, thanks for that Reef.

[mrflibble]

Got a call on Friday, asking if I wanted any work on the weekend; in particular, if I could do a 5am start for CRS in Portbury.

I said “yes”, and having put the phone down, immediately wished I’d said “no” - I didn’t particularly fancy a 5am start, and given that it was CRS, it was likely to be small town centre stores with [zb] access, delivering stuff off a tail-lift whilst double parked, lots of pedestrians and cars to get in the way, etc. i.e. the stuff of nightmares.

Anyway, I got there about 04:45 and signed in, only to find out that I was going to Plymouth, but they didn’t have a tractor unit for me yet.

About half an hour later, and I’ve got the paperwork for a 54-plate Volvo tractor unit which I’m told is already hitched up to a trailer that isn’t mine. I walk around the RDC and find both the tractor unit and trailer, and it appears that my suspicions were confirmed - its a very short trailer, with a single axle at the very back. Looks like it’s going to be a tough manouevre at the store.

I drop the first trailer and pick up the second, and go through my normal checks including checking that I can operate the tail lift. This pays dividends, as I find out that the unit’s tail lift cable has an Anderson connector on the end, and the trailer only has a big yellow block. So, back to the office I go, and the guy comes out and finds me an adapter.

Out on the road, and it’s only about 6am, so even though I’m going down the M5, there isn’t too much Bank Holiday traffic. I stop off at Exeter MSA for my first 15-minute break, parking right behind a CRS rigid, but the driver didn’t seem to notice me

Anyway, I take the opportunity to set up the SatNav with my destination, and it wants me to approach the store from the opposite direction to the instructions I’ve been given (probably because the route it wants to take goes through a weight limit or something), so I get it to re-route the right way, then set off down the road.

On approach to the store, I’m looking at both the SatNav and the directions I’ve been given, and they disagree. The directions tell me to go straight ahead at a roundabout, but the SatNav wants me to turn right. The road to the right looks narrower, so I decide to follow the directions. I follow the road a bit, and it doesn’t look right, so I stop and have a look at the SatNav, and sure enough, it was right and the directions were wrong

A bit of a back-track, and I’m back on route to the store again. The access to the delivery point is up a left turn marked with an empty red circle sign (“no vehicles”), but fortunately, it’s “except for deliveries”, so I’m OK.

The delivery bay is here - the arrow is right on the point where the rear of the trailer touches the dock. The dark line you can see above the loading bay is the edge of the sharp drop at the edge of the bay; there’s one on both sides, and there’s only an inch or so of spare surface either side of the trailer wheels. To give you an idea of length, the unit was about half-way across the pavement when parked on the bay.

Nonetheless, I got it mostly onto the bay in a single manouevre, although I took a few shunts to get it perfectly straight for the last bit where the sides of the bay really did drop away sharply. There were two other bays there (just above the one shown, but the store staff seem to use these two for parking their cars , leaving me with the short bay with sharp sides.

Once I was out of the way of the traffic trying to get past, I waved at the driver of the first car to say thanks, and she gave me a thumbs-up

Still, the truck was on the bay, and I hadn’t hit anything - result!

There was a short delay whilst I tried to get the internal tail lift buttons to work, then realised that I’d disconnected the tail-lift cable before pulling the trailer forwards a bit (they had no dock leveller, so I had to position the trailer exactly to get the tail lift to overlap the dock).

23 cages and two pallets later, and I’m empty. I’m expecting them to give me a load of cages to go back, but they only give me about 6 empty cages and one full of trays, so that’s loaded nice and quickly.

Once back in the cab, I try to work out whether I can make it back to Portbury in a single run - my DHG says I’ve done 2 hrs 40 mins driving so far, but that’s including a bit of faffing trying to find the drop and reversing onto the bay, plus driving around Exeter Services. Whilst I’m thinking about it (and considering the option of taking a 30-minute break on the bay), a Robert Wiseman rigid turns up, so I guessed it was time to go and try for the run back to Bristol.

Getting off the bay was a bit more difficult than getting on it - my directions explicitly said to come out the same way as going in, so I pulled forwards as far as I dare (to avoid running off the edge of the loading bay whilst turning), then screwed it sharp around to the right, using all the pavement on the opposite side of the road, and taking a quick shunt to kink the trailer a bit more.

On the way back, I was approaching Taunton Deane MSA with half an hour left to go, so pulled in for my remaining 30-minute break.

Arrived back at Portbury about 12:45 (no traffic jams all day! ), filled up with diesel, then promptly took about 10 shunts to get it straight on the bay despite there being absolutely acres of room - fortunately, no-one was waiting to get by.

Just as I was about to disconnect the last suzie (having already put the legs down and even remembered to take the numberplate off before putting it on the bay, something that I always forget to do ), the guy who allocated me the bay ran over and told me not to drop it - apparently, they usually leave the units connected to the trailers here . Of course, this meant that I then had to do all of the coupling up again

Still, shift over, and it went much better than I had feared. 370 km covered.

I was rather surprised at how fast the short trailer reacted to steering - it really was rather nice to reverse, as it responded so quickly, and having the wheels right at the back of the trailer meant that there was very little rear overhang swing to worry about.

[stvme2519]

i used to work at coop halesown driving 6 and 4 wheel rigids some of the drops were nigthmares and some of the woman at the stores were right ignorant and rude

[mrflibble]

stvme2519:
i used to work at coop halesown driving 6 and 4 wheel rigids some of the drops were nigthmares and some of the woman at the stores were right ignorant and rude

Well, I can’t say that I had that experience (although I only did one store) - the store staff were helpful and friendly (and there were about 5 of them all trying to help, so it didn’t take much time to unload…)

[mrflibble]

6am start, Sainsbury’s Emerald Park. Get told the customary “wait for a load”, although there isn’t the usual 10 or so drivers all waiting in the office. It’s rather a good job there isn’t, as all the seats have been removed since my last visit, and an extra office room has been built in the middle of the drivers’ waiting area.

It’s only 5-10 minutes or so before I get my load - down to Torquay, run empty back to Yeo Valley Foods to pick up a load to take to NFT in Patchway before returning to base. They give me a map for the Torquay store, but don’t have one for Yeo Valley, so I have to wait for someone else to give me directions, which they do after a few minutes.

My steed for the day is a shiny(ish) 56-plate Axor. They’ve also put in some fancy tracking thing in the cab since my last visit, so I have to go back to the transport office to find out what my login code is.

Also, the Axor is fitted with a digital tacho, so my 14-month-old digital tacho card loses its virginity

Checks reveal nothing wrong with the unit or trailer, so a quick trip out of the gate is in order, and I’m on the road.

Shortly after leaving the depot, I get a message on the cab computer thingy asking me to check the trailer number - I accidentally swapped two digits when I entered it, so I send a message back saying that it’s all OK, I have got the right trailer (and I checked that it said Torquay on the back before I picked it up), and logged the new trailer in.

It’s a nice easy run down the M5, as even though it’s a Saturday morning, it’s only 7am, so there isn’t too much traffic around.

Just after the end of the M5, I take the A380 at the split with the A38. This is only a mile or so from the yard of the company where I took my LGV courses, so I know the area well, but I’d forgotten just how steep Telegraph Hill is. Down to 5th gear and about 22 mph, and up we crawl. It’s going to be interesting coming back the other way, as the retarder in the Axor was useless - I would have been better off sticking my arm out the window.

Anyway, down to the store, and there’s loads of room to turn around and reverse onto the bay. Probably the first Sainsbury’s store I’ve seen like it.

Unloading wasn’t too bad. One pallet had fallen over because it was badly stacked and loaded, but the store staff weren’t too unhappy, as they said that they knew they had to split the pallet into separate cages anyway.

An hour so later, and I’m off up the road to Yeo Valley Foods. The directions I’d been given were to come off at the Bridgwater Services exit, but turn left instead of right into the services, then left again at the next roundabout. I did the first roundabout OK, but it didn’t seem right, so I pulled over in a layby. My first call was to DQ to ask for a postcode, but they gave me a postcode that was two more junctions up the M5. I decided I’d try the other Bridgwater exit, but that didn’t work either, so I had to phone the office.

A few more communication problems later, and we worked out that I had to come up another exit of the M5. Closer to the postcode I’d been given, not actually there. Anyway, these new directions were right, and I pulled into Yeo Valley with only a few minutes of driving time left.

Instead of demanding your keys, Yeo Valley give you a “Salvo” which is a big metal block that you stick on your trailer’s red airline connector, then remove the key and give that key to the bay staff, leaving you to use your cab if you wish.

An hour or so later, and I’m back on the road for NFT. It’s a Saturday afternoon, so the queue for the J17 exit was about half a mile long - curse all those shoppers going to Cribbs Causeway

Got to NFT and put straight on a bay; here they use another scheme - after getting on the bay, you hang your keys on a little chain at the edge of the dock; the loading staff then lift up the chain to withdraw your keys whilst they load, then drop them back down again when they’ve finished. I’m only on the bay for about 20 minutes before I get a green light, so it’s off back to Emerald Park.

At least, it will be once I get out of the traffic.

It takes me another 10 minutes or so to get out of Cribbs Causeway (I choose to go through Patchway to J16 rather than J17), and I come close to rear-ending a car on a roundabout that stops very suddenly to give way to an RAC van coming round the roundabout - even though the roundabout is traffic light controlled, and we’ve got a green light

The RAC van driver and I look at each other and shake our heads in disbelief.

There’s no more incidents getting back to Emerald Park, so it’s just a quick refuel, drop the trailer and park up.

In the office they review my tracking log and I get told I’ve done a good job although I got to the Torquay store a bit too early

[steve_24v]

Don’t you get fed up with all these store deliveries ?

I know it’s easy work, but…