I no wat you want to tell over the bad old horrible trailers. I remamber in the beginning the old trailers we had at FM Groningen. We had ex FM Venlo trailers olso ex Norfolk Line trailers hoe was taken over by FM Groningen.
You war always happy if you was in Travemünde off Lubeck, the ferry port places voor Sweden, Norway and Finland in Germany.
Sam times you can have a flat tail of problems with the electrici. Always at that time the trailers ar haevy loadid with G.E. plastic and groupage on top.
In 1985 depot Groningen get 50 new 2 ash Pacton trailers. The old tils trailers ar moved to FM Wadinxveen to yousd four England. At that time the problems ware over.
From that moment we get lots off new trailers.
In 1995 we get 60 new 3 ash Pacton trailers, that ware good ones.
In 2002 we get new Schimtz curtainside trailers. In that time we had abbout 150 trailers, 40 tractors and 2 9 tons trucks.
Also we drived with B.V.T. trailers to Sweden.
Always we drived to Danmark, Norway, Sweden and sam times to Finland. In that time it was a good time by the company.
Frans Maas was one off the olderst company in the Netherlands.
It was 1890 that the company starterd with goods to go to Germany.
Here you see some trucks out 1945 till 1965 from Frans Maas Venlo.
On the way to Berlin from Venlo 1948. On the raith side en MAN diesel tractor.
Hanomag tractor on the way in Germany. Problem with the wiels. On the side off the road to fix it.
Also at the Frans Maas depot at Kaldenkirchen, Germany, Peter with his Hanomag depottractor.
DAF D50 tractor begin fifties.
DAF K30 tractor and trailer.
DAF K30 tractor and trailer.
Weekend rest in Venlo on the beginning sixties. You see the DAF T 1500 tractors in line and the DAF 2000 DO.
Same time DAF 2000 Do tractors in line from the top.
Weekend rest at Venlo. DAF 2000 Do.
DAF 2000 DO with a closed wooden trailer on his way in Germany.
DAF 2000 DO with a closed trailer.
DAF 2000 DO with a plane trailer.
On the way with a MAN diesel.
1965 Venlo weekend rest.
This Krupp tractor was a sub contractor Th. Geurts from Sevenum near Venlo driving four Frans Maas Venlo.
Also wy had bulktrailers in 1982. Wy drived with this trailers to car factorys in Germany and Sweden. Four the VW, Volvo and SAAB. In thoose trailers was loaded plastic pieces from G.E. Electric From Bergen op Zoom.
In 1984 we became new DAF 2800 intercooler tractors. This new tractors became also the new house colours from Frans Maas Groningen. Only Groningen had this colours. Venlo had stil the old colours. Later became Waddinxveen also the Groningen colours.
Me at the age off 30 years in the winter off 1984 at Travemünde, Germany.
Bert, I know this isn’t exactly what you want but it is a start. Most of my photos need scanning, but i don’t have a scanner. I have borrowed a negative scanner, but am having trouble making the scanned pictures clear. However, I will get there eventually. In the meantime here are some pics I have on disc, most are sub contractors, one is FM owned.
GES at Lutterworth, Toyota. First time the new mega trailers were visiting from Belgium, so had to be there to make sure they matched loading ramps ok.
Ellis Traction Daf (ex CFS) at Diest Belgium, loading first load destined for Toyota Lutterworth.
Ellis Traction low ride Scania with Rolls Royce engine, destined for Madrid.
Frans Maas Tilbury Daf low ride, being decorated for East Coast Truckers childrens convoy
This is the logo we designed for our trucks in Tilbury. We did this when we got the 4 series Scanias, the 3 series were in the customers livery, more later on that. About half a year after we applied them, an article appeared in a Dutch newspaper about Frans Maas, and the picture they used was one of our trucks photographed in Bergen-Op Zoom. Venlo saw the article, then contacted us to say they were angry as we had used a non standard livery, ordered us to remove it, needless to say we ignored them!
Here is the livery attached to one of our subcontractors trucks, KWT.
This was a very frequent visitor to Tilbury, almost every other day. I am sure he used to do the trunk from Waddinxveen.
It’s good to reed abbout that you now from G.E. and that you been ther. I been ther planty off times to chance trailers. Maybe we had seen eats adder ther in the coffee corner. We had always to chance 3 or 4 trailers a day for Groningen. Maybe you been at Rank Xerox in Oostrum? Also we chance ther trailers for Groningen.
The same story you had abbout the logo we had in 1984 abbout the new home colors. That was also en big problem. Also we had that agan in 2004 wen the dark blue became lith blue.
DAF 2800 intercooler, driver Maarten Hendriks.
DAF 2800 intercooler with a new 2 ash Pacton trailer.
Driver Harm Tuin.
Nanne Weening at Travemünde.
Break on the A1 autobahn, drivers Ebel Top, Jan-Willem Scheepers, Geert ? and his son and me.
On en saterdag with my son on the way to chance a trailer in Travemünde.
You were asking about RC Hart Transport? I’m Sue Hart and my hubby is Ron. We started the company in 1982 and sub-contracted for Frans Maas for about 20 years. We started working out of Yarmouth, and then moved to Barking and then to the Tilbury Depot, with Nigel being the Transport Manager. We ran Volvo Globetrotters, and at one stage had some of them sprayed up in Frans Maas colours. Then we went back to our own livery of white with 3 blue stripes.
We did a lot of Polish work for them, and basically more or less went anywhere. Just before we packed up over 3 years ago we were doing mostly Germany, into the different depots over there. We were lucky to have some good drivers, and still keep in touch with some of them. In fact tonight we had a call from Canada from an old driver that has been driving in Canada for 2 years now. Two more of our old drivers are out there too.
I’ll have a look and find some pictures for you of our trucks Bert. Keep up the good work.