How far can you go?

[carryfast]

AndieHyde:

Carryfast:

AndieHyde:
Early 90’s was held a one off rally from London to New York without a single ferry involved. Channel tunnel was being dug and they were allowed to drive through it. As it was staged in winter time the Baring staight was frozen over so was also driveable to Alaska.
1995,

If they tried it they must have failed and no chance with a truck.

snagfilms.com/films/title/ice_challenger

Totally possible with a modified SUV. Anyone remember Top Gear driving to the north pole over sea ice in a Toyota Hi-lux. A fully freighter truck maybe not so much however any avid viewer of Ice Road Truckers will know they go out on frozen lakes as a matter of course and have ventured out on open sea ice to the northern off shore oil fields.
Technically plauseable. Yes. Econmically viable. Very much doubt it.

Check out the vid that was the first time it had been done with any success.There’s a lot more involved in crossing the Bering than solid flat lake or sea ice and no chance with anything which won’t float on water and climb over icebergs. But the plans being proposed for superhighway links from Russia to Alaska using a Bering tunnel are interesting.Although it’s anyone’s guess how they’d be viable at least in terms of linking Europe with America v existing Transatlantic sea links.

[bullitt]

These should do nicely!!

[andiehyde]

Carryfast:

lespullan:
Check this out dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3009708
Drive to Alaska by road. Les.
0

Have they thought that through.

All the fuel costs and maintenance and time needed for a 10,000 mile + run v leave it parked up for around a week or so from Liverpool or Southampton to the East Coast.

And that is the heart of the matter for a commercial proposition competing with establisbed sea routes. Couple of years ago I had 20" box moved door to door from the north on England to south island of New Zealand for £2500. On the back of a truck you would be lucky to get out of the EU for that money.
If in the 60’s they had found rich deposits of rare and expensive minerals on the moon some of us would be remenicing on this forum about one hitters back in space bulkers with the transwarp fuse pulled.
To go with the original posting of how far can you go?, there was a piece on the TVone news this week about the fleet of trucks the kiwis operate in Antartica and the race to get supplies to Scott base before the winter freezes them out.
With money and resources anything is possible but the halcion days of trips to Doha are behind us unless a way can be found to do it for less than £2000

[whisperingsmith]

> Richard J:
> Just sat sitting here wondering, where is the furthest place in the world that you can actually drive a truck to from England?

Even further if you are from Cornwall, Ireland, Wales or Scotland,

[jelliot]

Richard J:
Just sat sitting here wondering, where is the furthest place in the world that you can actually drive a truck to from England?

Why England ■■? why not the north of Scotland ■■? The farthest you could get would be anywhere at the sea side… However I think I know what you’re getting at… It is physically possible to get down to Malaysia, Singapore, then after that there’s a with a bit of Island hoping, Bali…

I used to do the China border Corgos or Korgos ( spell it however you like ) on a regular run, I can’t remember exactly how many I did but somewhere about 12 to 14, I didn’t really count. It’s on the north east side of Almaty about 350 k’s…One fact that I would like to add here is… I was looking at driving through China into Mongolia and back to Europe in a 4x4… China wanted $30,000 US for a transit visa plus I would also have to pay a Government guide/s for the whole duration, plus their expenses up to the border, and back to where they came from/

There was a photo of an ex Ralph Davis Volvo in south Korea I don’t think there would be many people that would know how it actually got there… but no doubt there would be plenty that would speculate… But before you do just remember about political red tape

But at the moment politics will stop you…If they opened up Myanmara (Burma ) then it would all be open for man and dog ( no… probably not a good idea to take a dog ) … I’ve spoken to a few Australians that managed to go that route in the 60’s 70’s… The Hippy Trail I believe … and that’s the way that Bus Aus still goes, but now they have a load of flight connections… There is an alternative route along the old silk roads, Ex Istanbul cause they couldn’t get involved with European O H and S, insurance etc …and round the top side of Napal but again with flight connections … All for about $6,000 per person takes about 6 or 7 weeks…
In a few years if things keep going the way they are then perhaps China may be a possibility… The Chinees government do fly drive expeditions under the name of Nova tours… But you can’t just wander about. it’s all done in convoy and you are ushered ( sorry " guided " ) round a specific route…Pretty much what you can do on a bus tour but you can kid on that your doing it your self, even if there is an unknown Chinese guy in the back of your car at all times… I know some people that work in China and it seems that getting about in the city that they work is OK, however they’re not allowed to own their own cars and iner rail travel is fairly restricted… but it is getting better…

It might be possible to get a truck to Cape Horn but again African politics, and War may be a bit of an issue… There’s no direct route and a bit of country hoping would be required… The roads in central Africa would be a bit problematic for trucks, but there are loads of ex British ( and even Scottish ) trucks doing the second life thing out there… Uncle Bob would probably have a fair bit of knowledge in that area as he tends to wander around a fair bit in that neck of the woods…

It all comes to what is commercially viable… Maersk have ships that do Korea / Europe, they carry over 16,000 20 foot containers per ship at a price of $35 US per container… look at it any way you like, it would be hard to do that job in a truck for that price…

Jeff…

[mushroomman]

Jelliot:
It might be possible to get a truck to Cape Horn but again African politics, and War may be a bit of an issue… There’s no direct route and a bit of country hoping would be required… The roads in central Africa would be a bit problematic for trucks, but there are loads of ex British ( and even Scottish ) trucks doing the second life thing out there… Uncle Bob would probably have a fair bit of knowledge in that area as he tends to wander around a fair bit in that neck of the woods…
Jeff…

Cape HORN in Africa Jeff, surely that’s a typo unless they have reunited Gondwanaland.

You are dead right about the roads though but hopefully they have improved over the last forty years.

Regards Steve.

[dnspring64]

I’ve heard Uber do a cheap run to Cape Town…

Sent from my SM-N910F using Tapatalk

[carryfast]

AndieHyde:

Carryfast:

lespullan:
Check this out dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3009708
Drive to Alaska by road. Les.
0

Have they thought that through.

All the fuel costs and maintenance and time needed for a 10,000 mile + run v leave it parked up for around a week or so from Liverpool or Southampton to the East Coast.

And that is the heart of the matter for a commercial proposition competing with establisbed sea routes.

Before I left the job I was looking into the possibility of running a Euro-North America service.It was only the issue of ro ro freight costs v containers,actually on the same ship.But which were/are close enough for unaccompanied trailers to be relatively more viable.Together with the problem that it has to be a DOT registered and compliant vehicle for commercial freight carriage there even in the case of temporary entry which seems like a dodgy interpretation of international road transport traffic law.Which also therefore won’t allow it to be registered and MOT’d here and a foreign national can’t register a vehicle over there. Which stopped that interesting idea from taking off.Which also makes US membership of the TIR convention a bit pointless.

But what is certain is that Europe-North America via a Russia/Alaska highway won’t work anyway v Transatlantic shipping whether it be container shipping and/or already long established unaccompanied trailer traffic.IE it’s a too far and therefore a too slow and too expensive way of getting from Europe to North America.

When it would be much easier and cheaper for Transatlantic ro ro shipping operations to reduce their rates enough to make such an operation at least as viable as containers and unaccompanied trailers.

Neither idea being viable anyway at least unless the US revises its regulations in line with normal protocols.Regarding European,or preferably at least just UK registered vehicles,which comply with the regs in their country of registration,for temporary entry,connected with international commercial freight movements.

[richard_j]

Some really interesting replies there, guys…thanks ever so much. Furthest I ever went was from Sussex to Aberdeen, then over to the Shetland Isles…further than a Southern Ireland run, mile for mile.

Nowadays I limit myself to going over to the Isle of Wight three or four times a year, but now our beloved rulers are considering stopping my DLA payments, I shall lose my Motability car, so it looks as though I’ll be confined to barracks now.

Thanks for a grand thread, guys…

[jelliot]

mushroomman:

Jelliot:
It might be possible to get a truck to Cape Horn but again African politics, and War may be a bit of an issue… There’s no direct route and a bit of country hoping would be required… The roads in central Africa would be a bit problematic for trucks, but there are loads of ex British ( and even Scottish ) trucks doing the second life thing out there… Uncle Bob would probably have a fair bit of knowledge in that area as he tends to wander around a fair bit in that neck of the woods…
Jeff…

Cape HORN in Africa Jeff, surely that’s a typo unless they have reunited Gondwanaland.

You are dead right about the roads though but hopefully they have improved over the last forty years.

Regards Steve.

Well if you’re going to make a stuff up it might as well be memorable… In my own defence your honour I’m old, senile and stupid enough to have just done 3 16 hour shifts back to back… and it’s meant to be a national holiday today…Of course it’s Cape Town… sincere apologies to any Africans reading this… actually Cape Point or Cape Anglas would be more accurate… I believe you can ride there with your best mate from John O Grote’s on a motorcycle…

Jeff…

[andiehyde]

Carryfast:

AndieHyde:

Carryfast:

AndieHyde:
Early 90’s was held a one off rally from London to New York without a single ferry involved. Channel tunnel was being dug and they were allowed to drive through it. As it was staged in winter time the Baring staight was frozen over so was also driveable to Alaska.
1995,

If they tried it they must have failed and no chance with a truck.

snagfilms.com/films/title/ice_challenger

Totally possible with a modified SUV. Anyone remember Top Gear driving to the north pole over sea ice in a Toyota Hi-lux. A fully freighter truck maybe not so much however any avid viewer of Ice Road Truckers will know they go out on frozen lakes as a matter of course and have ventured out on open sea ice to the northern off shore oil fields.
Technically plauseable. Yes. Econmically viable. Very much doubt it.

Check out the vid that was the first time it had been done with any success.There’s a lot more involved in crossing the Bering than solid flat lake or sea ice and no chance with anything which won’t float on water and climb over icebergs. But the plans being proposed for superhighway links from Russia to Alaska using a Bering tunnel are interesting.Although it’s anyone’s guess how they’d be viable at least in terms of linking Europe with America v existing Transatlantic sea links.[/quote

Wow. Just watched that link and your right, thats a hard bit of water to get across. Perhaps the rally crossed further north where the ice was more stable. Sadly this was a few years ago now and pre internet so I can remember them setting off, maybe owing to the publicity generated for the much miline chunell project amidst much pomp an ceramony of the convoy driving under “the channel”. I have to admit I didnt see the same convoy drive across the brooklyn bridge and on reflection maybe the whole project got sZBtcanned somewhere in Siberia along the lines of Mondo Enduro when they got on the train when it became just too impossable to traverse despite a superhuman effort.
I too have seen the doco about the proposal of a bridge/tunnel across Bering and reckon it would be a fantastic project, I dont see it as being a goer.
However, as a 21 year old, some years ago, staring out of the windscreen of my Renault R340 from Rio at the incoming little ferryboat that was to take me to Antirion, that IF someday, somebody, was going to build a bridge across that particular body of water■■?. I would have asked you to pass the ducie to the left hand side. But look what happened, a technological feat of epic proportions was created of which the bubbles didnt need and will never be able to pay for in 10 generations. Thats progress for yer!!!

[tonyj105]

AndieHyde:

Carryfast:

lespullan:
Check this out dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3009708
Drive to Alaska by road. Les.
0

Have they thought that through.

All the fuel costs and maintenance and time needed for a 10,000 mile + run v leave it parked up for around a week or so from Liverpool or Southampton to the East Coast.

And that is the heart of the matter for a commercial proposition competing with establisbed sea routes. Couple of years ago I had 20" box moved door to door from the north on England to south island of New Zealand for £2500. On the back of a truck you would be lucky to get out of the EU for that money.
If in the 60’s they had found rich deposits of rare and expensive minerals on the moon some of us would be remenicing on this forum about one hitters back in space bulkers with the transwarp fuse pulled.
To go with the original posting of how far can you go?, there was a piece on the TVone news this week about the fleet of trucks the kiwis operate in Antartica and the race to get supplies to Scott base before the winter freezes them out.
With money and resources anything is possible but the halcion days of trips to Doha are behind us unless a way can be found to do it for less than £2000

we can get a 40’ high cube to Mombasa for just under 1800, Qatar 1500 quid and Jeddah currently around a grand. do quite a bit of containers world wide , mind these are Coventry to quay, no onward shipment.

tony

[andiehyde]

Carryfast:

AndieHyde:

Carryfast:

lespullan:
Check this out dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3009708
Drive to Alaska by road. Les.
0

Have they thought that through.

All the fuel costs and maintenance and time needed for a 10,000 mile + run v leave it parked up for around a week or so from Liverpool or Southampton to the East Coast.

And that is the heart of the matter for a commercial proposition competing with establisbed sea routes.[/qu
Before I left the job I was looking into the possibility of running a Euro-North America service.It was only the issue of ro ro freight costs v containers,actually on the same ship.But which were/are close enough for unaccompanied trailers to be relatively more viable.Together with the problem that it has to be a DOT registered and compliant vehicle for commercial freight carriage there even in the case of temporary entry which seems like a dodgy interpretation of international road transport traffic law.Which also therefore won’t allow it to be registered and MOT’d here and a foreign national can’t register a vehicle over there. Which stopped that interesting idea from taking off.Which also makes US membership of the TIR convention a bit pointless.

But what is certain is that Europe-North America via a Russia/Alaska highway won’t work anyway v Transatlantic shipping whether it be container shipping and/or already long established unaccompanied trailer traffic.IE it’s a too far and therefore a too slow and too expensive way of getting from Europe to North America.

When it would be much easier and cheaper for Transatlantic ro ro shipping operations to reduce their rates enough to make such an operation at least as viable as containers and unaccompanied trailers.

Neither idea being viable anyway at least unless the US revises its regulations in line with normal protocols.Regarding European,or preferably at least just UK registered vehicles,which comply with the regs in their country of registration,for temporary entry,connected with international commercial freight movements.

ote]

Bang right.I now live in New Zealand and despite Austrailia being our biggest and closest trading partner and established RO-RO services between our two nations, do you know how many unaccompanied Aussie trailers I have seen on the roads of Aotearoa■■? None…nada…zilch…
Why. Too much dicking around with handling, compliance , customs while a swing lift can come in and hoist a box on his trailer and be out of the gate in 5 minutes.
And these are two countries who are relativley close enough and maginally the same, good luck with the Yanks and Russians accepting each others trailers…

[andiehyde]

tonyj105:

AndieHyde:

Carryfast:

lespullan:
Check this out dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3009708
Drive to Alaska by road. Les.
0

Have they thought that through.

All the fuel costs and maintenance and time needed for a 10,000 mile + run v leave it parked up for around a week or so from Liverpool or Southampton to the East Coast.

And that is the heart of the matter for a commercial proposition competing with establisbed sea routes. Couple of years ago I had 20" box moved door to door from the north on England to south island of New Zealand for £2500. On the back of a truck you would be lucky to get out of the EU for that money.
If in the 60’s they had found rich deposits of rare and expensive minerals on the moon some of us would be remenicing on this forum about one hitters back in space bulkers with the transwarp fuse pulled.
To go with the original posting of how far can you go?, there was a piece on the TVone news this week about the fleet of trucks the kiwis operate in Antartica and the race to get supplies to Scott base before the winter freezes them out.
With money and resources anything is possible but the halcion days of trips to Doha are behind us unless a way can be found to do it for less than £2000

we can get a 40’ high cube to Mombasa for just under 1800, Qatar 1500 quid and Jeddah currently around a grand. do quite a bit of containers world wide , mind these are Coventry to quay, no onward shipment.

tony[/quote

Thats awesome mate. Do you think I would be able to get a retrospective quote and rebate from your firm?? I need money for beer.

Seriously, from rural Yorkshire to rural Canterbury for £2.5k I am not complaining as we were round tripping Milan for about the same money at the time. Just hardened my resolve to hang up my keys and do something completely different in a far off land.

Thanks, Andie.

[jelliot]

I can’t see Russians allowing anything to just bee driven in via a tunnel… As for crossing the Bearing Straight with something that isn’t powered by polar bears… There is a heck of a lot of water going back and forward… The chance of ice anywhere in that area remaining solid enough for any amount of time looks pretty slim… certainly not long enough for a human on a machine to safely cross… I know there’s some ■■■■■■■■■ bikers out there, but you have to have at least a small amount of probability…If you did it would be a 1 in a million shot…

Jeff…

[mushroomman]

Jelliot:

mushroomman:

Jelliot:
It might be possible to get a truck to Cape Horn but again African politics, and War may be a bit of an issue… There’s no direct route and a bit of country hoping would be required… The roads in central Africa would be a bit problematic for trucks, but there are loads of ex British ( and even Scottish ) trucks doing the second life thing out there… Uncle Bob would probably have a fair bit of knowledge in that area as he tends to wander around a fair bit in that neck of the woods…
Jeff…

Cape HORN in Africa Jeff, surely that’s a typo unless they have reunited Gondwanaland.

You are dead right about the roads though but hopefully they have improved over the last forty years.

Regards Steve.

Well if you’re going to make a stuff up it might as well be memorable… In my own defence your honour I’m old, senile and stupid enough to have just done 3 16 hour shifts back to back… and it’s meant to be a national holiday today…Of course it’s Cape Town… sincere apologies to any Africans reading this… actually Cape Point or Cape Anglas would be more accurate… I believe you can ride there with your best mate from John O Grote’s on a motorcycle…

Jeff…

Hi Jeff, you haven’t mentioned anything about Double Bubble for working on Australia Day Don’t worry Mate, I still have plenty of cold tinnies left but sadly no Irn Bru although they do sell it in our local Woolies.
Being old, senile and stupid is no excuse, neither was being young, senile and stupid when we set off to go overland to Cape Town in 1975. Well that’s how we described ourselves when we ended up in the middle of a war zone in Angola five months later.
As regards the two film stars and I don’t know how many back up vehicles and film crew that they had when the were taking The Easy Way Down Through Africa, it brought back memories of our friend Linda who we met in South West Africa in 1976. Linda aged twenty two, had rode her B.S.A. motorbike from London to Cape Town, across the Sahara on her own. The last I heard of her was two years ago when she was living in Port Lincoln and she was just on her way to go travelling around India, again.

Regards Steve.

[jelliot]

I saw they had Vimto at our local Coles so I bought a couple of cans of that… when I got home I remembered that I didn’t like it… senile or just nostalgic…■■?

I stopped up the Alaska highway and noticed a guy with a bike … peddle type… not motor… he a had a small trailer on the back and union jack flag… I was a bit curious …The guy had the complection of an old hand bag and to say he was wiry was an under statement… he was heading for Dead Horse up on the other side of Prudhoe bay and had cycled up from Cape Horn. He’d been at it about 2 years… That’s what I was getting confused about… I was going to continue on with my first post…Cape Horn… Cape Town… But I had to go and get the groceries out to the good folk of Hobart… then do a load of cherries up to the boat… Double time for a holiday… If you don’t work holidays… don’t bother going back to work the next day cause someone else’ll be sitting in your truck…

There was an adventure mob that used to fly a bunch of guys ( and girls if they wanted ) out to India… buy a new BSA Gold Star ( Indian version ) then ride them back to the UK…

Jeff…

[carryfast]

AndieHyde:

Carryfast:
Check out the vid that was the first time it had been done with any success.There’s a lot more involved in crossing the Bering than solid flat lake or sea ice and no chance with anything which won’t float on water and climb over icebergs. But the plans being proposed for superhighway links from Russia to Alaska using a Bering tunnel are interesting.Although it’s anyone’s guess how they’d be viable at least in terms of linking Europe with America v existing Transatlantic sea links.
[/quote

Wow. Just watched that link and your right, thats a hard bit of water to get across. Perhaps the rally crossed further north where the ice was more stable. Sadly this was a few years ago now and pre internet so I can remember

Maybe you were thinking of the IVECO overland run from Italy to NY via Russia ?.If so check out the details here it shows that they used heavy airlift to cross the Bering to Alaska.

youtube.com/watch?v=LxoRpEsjM_o

[carryfast]

AndieHyde:
Bang right.I now live in New Zealand and despite Austrailia being our biggest and closest trading partner and established RO-RO services between our two nations, do you know how many unaccompanied Aussie trailers I have seen on the roads of Aotearoa■■? None…nada…zilch…
Why. Too much dicking around with handling, compliance , customs while a swing lift can come in and hoist a box on his trailer and be out of the gate in 5 minutes.
And these are two countries who are relativley close enough and maginally the same, good luck with the Yanks and Russians accepting each others trailers…

Ironically there’s nothing like that type of aggro in the case of using US spec vehicles and trailers in UK/Europe for temporary entry.IE so long as it complies with its place of registration/operation it’s fine for temporary entry in our case.Which seems to have been the basis of ACL’s ongoing Transatlantic trailer operations for decades.While customs clearance seems no different.IE both trailers or containers seem to be treated the same in that case although probably not TIR.

Which ‘would’ have been one of the advantages of using an ‘accompanied’ outfit.‘Accompanied’ in that case just meaning the whole truck not just a trailer and then fly over to meet it when it docks and discharge the TIR carnet in the usual accepted way for international road journeys.As opposed to all the aggro of container/trailer operations clearance.Which also seemed to be confirmed by the interest shown by forwarders regarding that idea when I was looking into it.

As for the problem of DOT compliance I’d guess that the Russians would have more chance of that than us ( so far ) or the Euros because the Russians aren’t subject to EU type approval and already seem to use plenty of US spec kit themselves in that regard.Which is basically what stops a Euro spec/reg truck or trailer being able to be used in the US for commercial purposes.Unlike a US spec truck/trailer which is ok in all cases.But unfortunately just can’t be registered/based here.

[chrisarbon]

I would love to drive the Silk Road to Bejing. I think I have the right truck. I think I have the right girlfriend and I think I have found an easy way to do it. Just need to get the finance together.

expeditionfortrucks.com/en/p … sia-2/#map