Henley transport co ltd remember them?

Yes, i made a mistake, it was M84 that we had at Teynham not M82. Here is a photo of the shunter we had at Paddock Wood during the WRM days. I dont know the origins of this old MAN but i think it may have seen service at Kent Salads before being sent to PW.

Mark R:
Yes, i made a mistake, it was M84 that we had at Teynham not M82. Here is a photo of the shunter we had at Paddock Wood during the WRM days. I dont know the origins of this old MAN but i think it may have seen service at Kent Salads before being sent to PW.

what was it?bullet proof it looks a right mean motor

some of the fleet parked up over the weekend in the hops marketing board (an arrangement between henley transport and the hmb to help ease the burden of finding parking space as the company had grown so much)
from left to right man b180 ykk,erf b tkr 540x (the last erf b series the company bought) seddon atkinson 401 uko 440x,erf c series b240 vkj,seddon atkinson 400 dkl 716t,erf b series mko 620w,erf c series ckn 400y,erf c series b340 tkm and finally d23 hkr the first company erf e series.
d23 hkr replaced ckn 400y on night trunk work with the rochdale depot,the two other units used on trunk from paddock wood were the other 2 c series b240 vkj and b340 tkm.
d23 hkr was driven by peter tomlin on nights with kevin fenner as the day man,b240 vkj richard jenner on nights and day man john spicer and b340 andy barrett on nights and norman horsford on days

Hi Mark, this came from A Wood Detling when Coolchain took them over in 2000. I could not find an identifying mark on it and refered to it as ‘Black Shunter’. It may have come from Portways, although I don’t remember it at Faversham.

Mark R:
Yes, i made a mistake, it was M84 that we had at Teynham not M82. Here is a photo of the shunter we had at Paddock Wood during the WRM days. I dont know the origins of this old MAN but i think it may have seen service at Kent Salads before being sent to PW.

Here’s one to get you thinking!
Henley’s being a good Boalloy customer were used in this article by Commercial Motor, as they used a range of their products. Can you identify the vehicles in this line up?
The unit is AKK122T, the Seddon Atkinson looks like JKL110V? The reg of the D Series is not recogniseable, but could be GKR510V.But what about that Transit? Old style petrol engine before the MK2 came out. Might be an M reg?
Any ideas?

tyreman:
Here’s one to get you thinking!
Henley’s being a good Boalloy customer were used in this article by Commercial Motor, as they used a range of their products. Can you identify the vehicles in this line up?
The unit is AKK122T, the Seddon Atkinson looks like JKL110V? The reg of the D Series is not recogniseable, but could be GKR510V.But what about that Transit? Old style petrol engine before the MK2 came out. Might be an M reg?
Any ideas?

the seddon atkinson 301 was jgj 110t,the ford d series was ekn 790t the old transit was an m reg but it was converted to run on lpg i will try and get of the full registration for it though

I can’t remember the reg, but there was one which I think was RKJ*** M possibly 190. I had this from new or very nearly new until the company put me through the test. Whether the one in the picture is the same vehicle or a replacement I don’t know. The M reg and the two D series that came about the same time I thought had Ellis’ bodies, but I’m probably wrong. These were used for the smaller farm collections which only involved one or two pallets. The Transit didn’t seem to be really suited to the job, because unless it was a soft fruit load, two pallets was about the maximum it could carry for weight, even then, two against the headboard was a lot of weight up front and it rolled alarmingly. I found it a good idea to break down the front two pallets by a couple of layers to avoid this. The vehicle was in some way an experiment, because it had an LPG conversion for its V4 Ford engine which was supposed to produce the same performance as petrol; but it didn’t. It had a note in the cab telling you to start it on petrol and to change over back again before turning off at the end of the day.

Jack’s reaction to finding out that a driver had enquired the whereabouts of a particular farm, was to tell the driver to: “Buy yourself a map, get in your car at the weekend and go out and find these farms”!

lawrence2765:
some of the fleet parked up over the weekend in the hops marketing board (an arrangement between henley transport and the hmb to help ease the burden of finding parking space as the company had grown so much)
from left to right man b180 ykk,erf b tkr 540x (the last erf b series the company bought) seddon atkinson 401 uko 440x,erf c series b240 vkj,seddon atkinson 400 dkl 716t,erf b series mko 620w,erf c series ckn 400y,erf c series b340 tkm and finally d23 hkr the first company erf e series.
d23 hkr replaced ckn 400y on night trunk work with the rochdale depot,the two other units used on trunk from paddock wood were the other 2 c series b240 vkj and b340 tkm.
d23 hkr was driven by peter tomlin on nights with kevin fenner as the day man,b240 vkj richard jenner on nights and day man john spicer and b340 andy barrett on nights and norman horsford on days0

That is a superb period picture Chris.Can I ask please-the Seddon Atkinson DKL 716T in the middle of the pic-is that a sleeper conversion-with the single window behind the drivers door it doesn’t look like a factory built sleeper? Getting back to my previous question regarding thr FHR signs on the front of the tautliners-Foreign and Home Roadways?-was this a Henley subsidiary?

hello tim dkl 716t was a proper works sleeper cab the same as the other 2 seddon atkinson 400s with sleeper cabs those being hkm 101v and pko 398r (this one being the first sleeper cabbed vehicle the company purchased and was allocated to terry barden.
fhr the abbreviation for foreign & home roadways,how this company was named was like this f was firmin (alan firmin linton kent) h of course for henley and r after reece (as in louis reece of horsmonden kent)
i will have to rely on cav551 for some help on the early stages of fhr,but when i joined the company fhr was still going but firmins had dropped out,so it left henley and reece to ship unaccompanied trailers out to boulogne where they would be loaded with citrus that had come up by rail from spain and then shipped over unaccompanied again for henley and reeces to provide the traction in the uk,shortly after this operation slowed up reeces were bought out by glass glover distribution and their horsmonden depot closed,leaving henley transport to continue the last fhr work was trailer loads of wine coming into the uk on behalf of translittoral.
the wine job wasnt too bad so long as you didnt get the trailer that always had to deliver half a dozen cases of wine or so to marks and spencers head office in baker street london for the guvnors on a weekly basis,chances were after baker street the next drop would be hoddesdon or somewhere else in the home counties,hope this helps tim.

lawrence2765:
hello tim dkl 716t was a proper works sleeper cab the same as the other 2 seddon atkinson 400s with sleeper cabs those being hkm 101v and pko 398r (this one being the first sleeper cabbed vehicle the company purchased and was allocated to terry barden.
fhr the abbreviation for foreign & home roadways,how this company was named was like this f was firmin (alan firmin linton kent) h of course for henley and r after reece (as in louis reece of horsmonden kent)
i will have to rely on cav551 for some help on the early stages of fhr,but when i joined the company fhr was still going but firmins had dropped out,so it left henley and reece to ship unaccompanied trailers out to boulogne where they would be loaded with citrus that had come up by rail from spain and then shipped over unaccompanied again for henley and reeces to provide the traction in the uk,shortly after this operation slowed up reeces were bought out by glass glover distribution and their horsmonden depot closed,leaving henley transport to continue the last fhr work was trailer loads of wine coming into the uk on behalf of translittoral.
the wine job wasnt too bad so long as you didnt get the trailer that always had to deliver half a dozen cases of wine or so to marks and spencers head office in baker street london for the guvnors on a weekly basis,chances were after baker street the next drop would be hoddesdon or somewhere else in the home counties,hope this helps tim.

Thanks for the explanations Chris-looks like I need to visit the optician.Re the FHR-you,ve actually answered another question-years back I saw a Louis Reece Volvo F10/12 pulling a Henley trailer in Guildford-now I know why. regards Tim

Tim C:

lawrence2765:
hello tim dkl 716t was a proper works sleeper cab the same as the other 2 seddon atkinson 400s with sleeper cabs those being hkm 101v and pko 398r (this one being the first sleeper cabbed vehicle the company purchased and was allocated to terry barden.
fhr the abbreviation for foreign & home roadways,how this company was named was like this f was firmin (alan firmin linton kent) h of course for henley and r after reece (as in louis reece of horsmonden kent)
i will have to rely on cav551 for some help on the early stages of fhr,but when i joined the company fhr was still going but firmins had dropped out,so it left henley and reece to ship unaccompanied trailers out to boulogne where they would be loaded with citrus that had come up by rail from spain and then shipped over unaccompanied again for henley and reeces to provide the traction in the uk,shortly after this operation slowed up reeces were bought out by glass glover distribution and their horsmonden depot closed,leaving henley transport to continue the last fhr work was trailer loads of wine coming into the uk on behalf of translittoral.
the wine job wasnt too bad so long as you didnt get the trailer that always had to deliver half a dozen cases of wine or so to marks and spencers head office in baker street london for the guvnors on a weekly basis,chances were after baker street the next drop would be hoddesdon or somewhere else in the home counties,hope this helps tim.

Thanks for the explanations Chris-looks like I need to visit the optician.Re the FHR-you,ve actually answered another question-years back I saw a Louis Reece Volvo F10/12 pulling a Henley trailer in Guildford-now I know why. regards Tim

just had a look back at the lorries parked up in the hmb at the weekend i can see why you asked the question regarding the sleeper cab on dkl 716t,as the angle i took the photo on doesnt show the narrow window towards the back off the cab (god knows why they were like that)i also think i may have took this photo or one similar standing on the back of the flat trailer i will have to look back and see

Hello Chris,

I had put something on the Kent Transport thread that vaguely relates to one of the probable reasons for the forming of F&HR. By about 1975/6 the local companies were following each other around the country doing deliveries, without getting the lorry back as quickly as they could for the next load. The haulage rate received from clearing houses and the time taken to deliver that return load was, I suppose, uneconomic in comparison with an extra outbound load. Henley’s particularly preferred to have the lorry back empty for early afternoon loading. The opening of Transfesa at this time generated a lot more work, just at the time when the concrete building business was declining. I also have a feeling that Alan Firmin was starting to do less work for Shell Oils Distribution around this period.

Here’s a couple of pictures of Seddon Atkinson SKN839R showing the 400 series with a day cab.
Although it was launched in April 1975, the sleeper cab wasn’t made available on the 400 until January 1976.

tyreman:
Here’s a couple of pictures of Seddon Atkinson SKN839R showing the 400 series with a day cab.
Although it was launched in April 1975, the sleeper cab wasn’t made available on the 400 until January 1976.

location for anyone who is interested is ensor mills rochdale the original henley depot

to the bottom end of the scale of vehicles ran by the company c610 ekk ford cargo used for collecting from local farms and packhouses and bringing back to customers depots or the yard at paddock wood for onward deliveries by the artics.
the vehicle was also used for a short while doing very small deliveries on behalf of proctor & gamble in kent and sussex.
this vehicle fleet no 61 was new to chris bradshaw a paddock wood based driver

E45TKJ had a relatively long life. It was the first in a run of vehicles in the white Mack livery, and was shown at that years Kent Show. It had survived into Coolchain ownership and by 1998 had been repainted into normal Henley livery. (Is it brown or beige?). It was then used as a yard shunter at Paddock Wood alongside E590TKP. No 45 was still in use in March 2003. It is seen here when relatively new with a Mack liveried curtain sided trailer.

i hope mark r will agree with me that none other than roger jenner sitting behind the wheel.
roger was allocated the vehicle from new after a couple of years he came into the office and became my right hand man and a bloody good bloke he was to have working along side me,roger stayed with coolchain wrm or whatever you want to call them after the buyout of henley transport,i dont know if he is still there but no doubt mark r will confirm.

Oh yes. Roger Jenner is definatly still with us here at Teynham. I see him most days and yes Chris is right he is a really nice fella. I’ll always find time to say hello or give him a wave if i see him. I think he deals with our account customers up in the office. I cant imagine him as a lorry driver though, he’s far too polite and well spoken.
Also Chris, did’nt John Buss start on a 7.5 tonner. And Alex Humby says hello.

I think Henley’s ‘brown’ was called ‘Sun Tan’.

Does any one know what John buss is up to now days ? used to work with him as stormonts. all so chris bradshaw worked with him at COLI WILDS STROOD. Cheers Mick.