Now long gone but any memories of either pulling unaccompanied trailers out of Folkestone Harbour or passing through it? We used to ship tristacks over for Meanhout to load. I only ever did the job once and it turned out to be a nightmare.One of our subbies asked me to pull a trailer out for him one night and take it to his yard at West Malling. I picked his Merc unit up at around 7 or 8 and went solo down the A20 to the harbour. As expected after eventually finding the trailer, it had no lenses or bulbs, what I wasn’t expecting was that the load wasn’t roped and that someone had tried to have the sheets away and either been spotted or given up. That sorted in the typical sea breeze it was on to pumping up what was clearly two very soft tyres. Again not totally unexpected as I had been told where the adapters and air line coil were kept " just in case".
So ready to roll after around two hours? of course not… no trailer lights. This unit didn’t have a double plugged suzie so after pulling the plug apart and the trailer socket as well it was pull the plug off the unit stop light switch and stick a paperclip in the teminals and run like that. That was when I remembered that in the dark it was easy forget that the route into the harbour was not the same as the one out, so we did a couple of circuits before regaining the A20, and that was a lot slower ride than it is now with the M20.
cav551:
Now long gone but any memories of either pulling unaccompanied trailers out of Folkestone Harbour or passing through it? We used to ship tristacks over for Meanhout to load. I only ever did the job once and it turned out to be a nightmare.One of our subbies asked me to pull a trailer out for him one night and take it to his yard at West Malling. I picked his Merc unit up at around 7 or 8 and went solo down the A20 to the harbour. As expected after eventually finding the trailer, it had no lenses or bulbs, what I wasn’t expecting was that the load wasn’t roped and that someone had tried to have the sheets away and either been spotted or given up. That sorted in the typical sea breeze it was on to pumping up what was clearly two very soft tyres. Again not totally unexpected as I had been told where the adapters and air line coil were kept " just in case".
So ready to roll after around two hours? of course not… no trailer lights. This unit didn’t have a double plugged suzie so after pulling the plug apart and the trailer socket as well it was pull the plug off the unit stop light switch and stick a paperclip in the teminals and run like that. That was when I remembered that in the dark it was easy forget that the route into the harbour was not the same as the one out, so we did a couple of circuits before regaining the A20, and that was a lot slower ride than it is now with the M20.
Back in the '80s I used to run tri-stacks into Folkestone docks and pull unaccompanied trailers out. It was necessary to carry (usually in a heap in the passenger footwell ) the following:
a lighting board and 40ft lead,
palm couplings,
converter valves and olives for the air taps,
all manner of light bulbs and plastic lenses, a trailer winding handle with bolts to hold it place,
a rear number plate on a chain,
webbing straps and lots of ropes for the flatbed trailers.
And probably a lot of other paraphernalia I’ve forgotten about. Dock traction was an art in itself in those days. The trailers were usually flatbeds or foreign tilts. None of the other ports was any better. It was the same in Ramsgate, Dover, Chatham, Dartford, Purfleet, Sheerness.
The alternative was to do fridge work (noisy in those days) or do long-haul with a tilt. Give me a tilt with a TIR plate and seal any day!
Did dock traction work for Ferrymasters and the likes of MAT out of Teesport, Hull, Heysham, Liverpool, Fleetwood, Nth Shields etc in the 80’s and 90’s and as Ro said you definitely had to have passenger floor full of the extra’s required.
You could tell if a Newbie driver had dropped a trailer off with light lenses and bulbs left in, it was like all your Christmases had come together, and you could stock up on your spares supply.
Have ended up using a screwdriver a few times when on different units at night that didn’t have a decent bolt for winding up the legs
jshepguis:
Did dock traction work for Ferrymasters and the likes of MAT out of Teesport, Hull, Heysham, Liverpool, Fleetwood, Nth Shields etc in the 80’s and 90’s and as Ro said you definitely had to have passenger floor full of the extra’s required.
You could tell if a Newbie driver had dropped a trailer off with light lenses and bulbs left in, it was like all your Christmases had come together, and you could stock up on your spares supply.
Have ended up using a screwdriver a few times when on different units at night that didn’t have a decent bolt for winding up the legs
Your post reminds me that another essential was a good catwalk lamp or a standing torch, especially if you needed to change all the couplings! Although most port areas were floodlit, the gap behind the cab was often plunged into shadow on a dark night.
Used to ship out of Folkstone to Boulogne if I remember correctly. Must admit my recollections are very hazy. Was it the Hotel Burstin opposite the entrance or is that the new place? Think the shipping line was P & O and the ferries were the Lion and Tiger. Certainly remember they could be very uncomfortable when the sea was rough. Would have been 78 I think not later.
I was driving a Volvo F89 working for Alan Butcher out of Maidstone. One thing I loved was coming out of the docks fully freighted and giving it plenty of wellie as we climbed up Tontine Street. You could almost see the buildings reverberating as you passed them.
1st job after passing my Test was steel coils to Wales out of Folkestone, bunny hopped my way out past the Sunday market crowd, tip run back to the yard, collect tristack for Folkestone and repeat
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