Interesting picture - the lorry is loaded with ‘pokes’, so I wonder whether it really is going to Reigate. The hand picked hop bines were taken by farm trailer to the picking machine, which was elsewhere on the farm. From there they were loaded into pokes and taken to the oast house for drying and pressing into pockets; which is where this is. Certainly Reigate was one of the destinations for hops, because I fell off the top of a load there.
Hop picking time was a very important and busy season for everyone at Spelmonden when there was plenty of overtime. The needs of the farm took priority and every night would normally see one of the vehicle fitters staying behind to help the farm fitters, in case of a breakdown with the machinery. Daytime would also see the odd piece of farm equipment being repaired in the vehicle workshop.
tyreman:
Here’s another photo from Rochdale of XKN22X
xkn 22x was new to reg greenfield it originally came home as a 4 x 2 tractor unit then was converted to 6 x 2 once the 38 tonnes limit came in.
it was only in the fleet for about six years and was stolen from paddock wood one night and never seen again,a very annoying situation especially if your the driver whose vehicle it is,you lose all those belongings and bits and pieces that you have accummulated over the years some of which you can never replace.
ckm 260y fleet no 26,the company purchased 6 seddon atkinson 401 4 x 2 tractor units (3 x reg and 3 y reg).
5 had gardner engines fitted and the 6th uko 440x (fleet no 44) was fitted with a 265 rolls.
they were all converted to 6 x 2 with the exception of uko 440x.
ckm 260y was based at hersden (just outside canterbury in east kent) but all vehicles based at hersden were signwritten as henley transport co ltd,hop pocket lane,paddock wood,kent.
KKL 600P (FLEET NO 50)
this was to be the last aec the company purchased and the first 6 wheeler to join the fleet with a tautliner body.
i am almost certain this aec marshal was new to charlie creasey based at paddock wood then passing onto the late bryan goldsmith.
KKL 600P certainly was new to Charlie Creasey and it initially proved to be a bit of a disappointment to him. I think that this had one of the uprated AV 506 engines, but I seem to recall being told it was in the workshop for lack of power soon after delivery. I don’t know the outcome of this whether someting was wrong or if it was just the height of the body. It also suffered, like many Marshalls from axle tramp when braking. Not visible in the picture is that it had a front exhaust. There was at the time, a 600 registration on one of the L reg A series ERFs (■■■■■■■ I think), which is why the fleet number doesn’t match.
The only other large rigid with a tautliner body was Mercury JKL 210L which was the only vehicle on low profile tyres. I loaded this once and after a flat, I found it a scary ride with the load straps being secured to the pole in the roof. It rock’n rolled alamingly along the country lanes.
cav551:
KKL 600P certainly was new to Charlie Creasey and it initially proved to be a bit of a disappointment to him. I think that this had one of the uprated AV 506 engines, but I seem to recall being told it was in the workshop for lack of power soon after delivery. I don’t know the outcome of this whether someting was wrong or if it was just the height of the body. It also suffered, like many Marshalls from axle tramp when braking. Not visible in the picture is that it had a front exhaust. There was at the time, a 600 registration on one of the L reg A series ERFs (■■■■■■■ I think), which is why the fleet number doesn’t match.
The only other large rigid with a tautliner body was Mercury JKL 210L which was the only vehicle on low profile tyres. I loaded this once and after a flat, I found it a scary ride with the load straps being secured to the pole in the roof. It rock’n rolled alamingly along the country lanes.
FLEET NO 60 was erf a series tractor unit jkl 600l fitted with a ■■■■■■■ engine
Thumbing through the two log books I still have, I was promoted from KKJ 290E to TKT 460H in the hot summer of 1976. TKT had twistlocks which were used when I had return load of a box of cotton waste from Oldham? to ?Tilbury. The vehicle had been based at Chartham for some time before I had it, but the driver’s name escapes me. I can recall however, John Heady (ex Elva Cars) taking a call from him to say that it had broken down on the East Lancs road out of Liverpool. I have a feeling that it also got a GV9 at one stage for excessive smoke, because he was complaining that it now only did 57mph; which was true. After a Mercury, it was a surprise to find how easy it was to select crawler on the move, normally the detent was so strong that it needed two hands, but because crawler was actually needed in a Marshall occasionally it wasn’t so stiff.
DKL 716T (FLEET NO 33) this was one of three sleeper cabbed seddon atkinson 400 the company ran,the others being hkm 101v and also an r registration.
716t was one of those that the registration didnt tie up to the fleet numbering system,there was already a fleet no 16 that being rkj160m the erf a series 4 wheeler flat.
Was there a reason that between P reg and V reg none of the reg numbers ■■■■■■■ with the fleet numbers? Did the licencing office change its rules for reserving numbers, or was it easier just to have the next number issued?
lawrence2765:
DKL 716T (FLEET NO 33) this was one of three sleeper cabbed seddon atkinson 400 the company ran,the others being hkm 101v and also an r registration.
716t was one of those that the registration didnt tie up to the fleet numbering system,there was already a fleet no 16 that being rkj160m the erf a series 4 wheeler flat.0
B170 YKK (FLEET NO 18) this was allocated to malcom hobbs from new, who most of his time with the company work chose to work nights on distance work as opposed to trunking.
one morning when malcom was on his way back from delivering to bristol & cardiff fruit markets it was arranged for him to call into mans head office complex at swindon, where malcom took the man out on a test track with a chap called tony leggett from man.
the reason for this was to give the drivers a refreshers course just to try and get better fuel economy from the vehicle,tony leggett held the record for the best fuel consumption but malcom west round the test track and bettered it!
C640 EKN (FLEET NO 64) seddon atkinson 301 with 28ft boalloy tautliner body this was to be the last seddon atkinson the company purchased.
it was allocated originally barry hood based at spelmonden,then transferred to paddock wood where the late bill wright took the vehicle over for night time deliveries to wholesale markets,shown here parked up for the day in a lay by.
lawrence2765:
C640 EKN (FLEET NO 64) seddon atkinson 301 with 38ft boalloy tautliner body this was to be the last seddon atkinson the company purchased.
it was allocated originally barry hood based at spelmonden,then transferred to paddock wood where the late bill wright took the vehicle over for night time deliveries to wholesale markets,shown here parked up for the day in a lay by.0
38ft body on a 6 wheel ridgid Lawrence? 28ft would be “pushing the boat out” don’t you think !! Cheers Bewick.
lawrence2765:
C640 EKN (FLEET NO 64) seddon atkinson 301 with 28ft boalloy tautliner body this was to be the last seddon atkinson the company purchased.
it was allocated originally barry hood based at spelmonden,then transferred to paddock wood where the late bill wright took the vehicle over for night time deliveries to wholesale markets,shown here parked up for the day in a lay by.0
have amended the body lengh for those interested its surprising the no 3 key being next to the number 2 key on my keyboard
I’m hardly surprised that Jack stopped buying Seddon Atkinsons after sampling one of these 301s. The C reg ■■■■■■■ L10s were abysmal. At the time I was working for the local Seddon Atkinson dealer and we were naturally trying to flog these things. PDI would reveal coolant leaks from a water jacket behind the turbocharger. Injectors were set up wrongly Once they were in service the oil leaks started, which quite frequently meant stripping down the timing case. After about six months the whole thing had to come down because the piston cooling oil jets were incorrectly directed and the engines drank gallons of oil. Once that was sorted, the camshaft lobe wear problem raised its head. The chassis build quality wasn’t much better either. Loads of rectification work on PDI. All of this when ■■■■■■■ were really bulling up the L10 and making out that it was so much better than a Gardner. Granted the 14 litre E320 was a cracking engine.
Whether it was this one, or another one of Henley’s 301s I don’t know, but one came back several times for lack of power. Eventually at six o’clock one night it broke down at Wrotham with one of the Sed Atk favourites. A speck of hot rust from the exhaust manifold had pinged off, missed the heat shield and melted one of the air pipes that was really difficult to get at. It was my bad luck to have to attend this breakdown and removing inlet trunking to gain access revealed lo and behold - a seized turbo. A couple of days later, I had the pleasure of putting it right at Spelmonden and listening to the jeers.
