Hi all this subject came up on another thread this morning and thought many would have had the experience of holdups tipping loads in RDC’s and the like, having done a lot of International work many on here would have spent hours waiting to clear customs in the old days which on a trip say to Italy you could spend the best part of two days just waiting around for the all clear on the paperwork and were expected to make the time up on the trip. Having been released from Hospital on Monday it took them six hours to process an A4 paper so I could get my medication and skidaddle home so it can happen in all walks of life so lets here your stories on this subject which I am sure there are many, cheers Buzzer.
Look on the bright side.Probably better to wait while the staff check and triple check that they aren’t releasing you when you need to stay,or releasing the wrong person,or forgetting to provide you with vital medication that you need to take,or giving you someone else’s by mistake and giving them yours.When the relevant doctors/managers/pharmacists that they need to ask could be ■■■■■■■ dealing with other patients,or an emergency,or operating etc etc.On that note there will probably also be numerous others being discharged at the same time around the hospital. 
My biggest bug bear with the Italians, was you where tipped and empty by Wednesday orThursday, do a couple of pick ups back to the yard and on the bank for Thursday night, on Friday morning top up with groupage then as always have to wait for that last item to come in which was never until six or seven on Friday night, which means you never got your papers until at least nine or ten, having been up since seven in the morning you now have to show willing and put some miles behind you if wanted to get back home, and you could guarantee this every week…grr…
Ossie
Not to mention attempting to transit Saudi, just get onto a bay at the border for a security check,(Whisky, ■■■■, guns,), when you’re told it’s Ramadan and nothing moves for ten days!
A friend recently on the waiting list for a new knee at Pinderfields Hospital Wakefield. It was well past the estimated month he been told so he decided to ring the department. “Oh yes Mr *********, we see you had the procedure done here 6 weeks ago” 
“Erm…can you hold on a moment while I check my knees because I can assure you I haven’t been anywhere near your hospital”
"erm, erm, erm, oh yes, there seems to have been some mistake, we will book you in for next Thursday. "
And that folks actually did happen
My record was waiting for 15 days in Tangiers for a reload after the work suddenly went slack! There were many others stranded on both sides of the Med on that occasion. Robert
I had a trailer door come whipping round in the wind. I put my arm up to stop it and it dislocated my left shoulder. Two botched reductions, three nights in hospital, eight days before I got home, one surgery a month later and six months off work. I would have been better off if I hadn’t seen it coming.
Had a week in Pireaus once.
Loaded in Cardiff with 4 sections each of an anchor chain for a supertanker with another fella from my company. One other contractor had the same 4 sections as us, then another guy had 2 sections and the anchor. All up about 85 tons and heres the clincher, the whole consignment was on one invoice.
Me and Bill and the driver with just chain all arrive in Pireaus TIR park and found our agent, only to be told that the chap with the anchor had come out the overland route and broken down. Because the whole deal was on one invoice, customs wouldnt clear it and we were to wait for the broken down truck which took about a week.
Customs/secuity were pretty good about it, so as long as we left the trailers in the TIR zone we were free to pull the pin and head off down the beach to ■■■■ up the running money.
Happy days.
Good thread Buzzer!
My very best hold-up was when I was working for Altrex in Holland. We had a huge contract bringing down all the equipment for the company Ballast Nedam when they were building the new port of Dammam. This included the furniture for their accommodation as well as all the equipment. Much of it was shipped in containers so Altrex brought a number of skeletal trailers to move them.
This trip I was sent into Rotterdam to load 2 20 footers of furniture. The boxes were sealed and the TIR carnets complete so all I could check was that it was the right container numbers, it was so off I went. 2 weeks later finds me arriving at the Saudi border at El Haditha. Nobody had done more than checked the seals to that point but, as always, the Saudis want a complete out, check and re-load. I back on the dock, they open the rear container and there the excitement starts. It is manifested as containing all beds but in fact contains desks. The front container is no better and contains wardrobes instead of tables. The Saudis have a simple solution. The paperwork is wrong so get it changed but there is no form of communication that I am allowed to use, the border being quite new and there were no services or agents whatever, which is the start of the problem. Got an homeward bound driver to take the Carnets and telex the office from the very friendly Agent on the Syrian / Jordan border to advise them of the situation. But that doesn’t help much as Dutch Customs decide they will only consider issuing new TIR Carnets when they have seen the existing ones so the homebound driver has to carry them home to Holland which takes 14 days. By this time another truck with 2 more boxes is outbound half way through Yugoslavia with, though he don’t know it yet, the same problem. Altrex dispatch man in car to collect the wrong papers so that driver has to sit at the National in Beograd. After my papers reach Holland - 15 days - Dutch Customs take a further 3 days to issue new papers which are then driven in a car, along with the other set, to Beograd and they get underway to Saudi. Its winter so that trip takes another 10 days to complete, so all together it’s now taken 29 days.
But sat in Haditha I didn’t know any of this because there is no form of communications and I am not allowed to leave the Customs Compound. There is no Café, no Restaurant and just 2 stinking holes which pass as toilets. Of course because it’s Middle East I am carrying a fair amount of tinned food but not enough to last for this period of time so am reduced to scrounging off other drivers. Not a problem because we all knew how we might be next in such a problem. If you want to try a real boredom test try nearly a month in a cage in the desert - it’s tougher than it sounds. But the outbound truck arrived in the end.
To make it even, though, my best tip was also there the following year. This time I had a full tilt of artificial Christmas Trees for all their staff, many of whom had wives and children with them. “What are these for” the Saudis wanted to know so I explained it to them. They went into a huddle for a bit and then said “accompany us”. Out we went into the desert along with a pick-up full of Indian labour who proceeded to empty the trailer, pile up the trees and set fire to them. When later I had the chance to ask the Chief of Customs what the hell they thought they were doing he explained that as far as they were concerned the load was Infidel Religious Symbols and as such banned from the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. They did give me a clean signature on the CMR though with lots of very fancy stamps and I was allowed to turn around and go home.
David
David Miller:
Good thread Buzzer!My very best hold-up was when I was working for Altrex in Holland. We had a huge contract bringing down all the equipment for the company Ballast Nedam when they were building the new port of Dammam. This included the furniture for their accommodation as well as all the equipment. Much of it was shipped in containers so Altrex brought a number of skeletal trailers to move them.
This trip I was sent into Rotterdam to load 2 20 footers of furniture. The boxes were sealed and the TIR carnets complete so all I could check was that it was the right container numbers, it was so off I went. 2 weeks later finds me arriving at the Saudi border at El Haditha. Nobody had done more than checked the seals to that point but, as always, the Saudis want a complete out, check and re-load. I back on the dock, they open the rear container and there the excitement starts. It is manifested as containing all beds but in fact contains desks. The front container is no better and contains wardrobes instead of tables. The Saudis have a simple solution. The paperwork is wrong so get it changed but there is no form of communication that I am allowed to use, the border being quite new and there were no services or agents whatever, which is the start of the problem. Got an homeward bound driver to take the Carnets and telex the office from the very friendly Agent on the Syrian / Jordan border to advise them of the situation. But that doesn’t help much as Dutch Customs decide they will only consider issuing new TIR Carnets when they have seen the existing ones so the homebound driver has to carry them home to Holland which takes 14 days. By this time another truck with 2 more boxes is outbound half way through Yugoslavia with, though he don’t know it yet, the same problem. Altrex dispatch man in car to collect the wrong papers so that driver has to sit at the National in Beograd. After my papers reach Holland - 15 days - Dutch Customs take a further 3 days to issue new papers which are then driven in a car, along with the other set, to Beograd and they get underway to Saudi. Its winter so that trip takes another 10 days to complete, so all together it’s now taken 29 days.
But sat in Haditha I didn’t know any of this because there is no form of communications and I am not allowed to leave the Customs Compound. There is no Café, no Restaurant and just 2 stinking holes which pass as toilets. Of course because it’s Middle East I am carrying a fair amount of tinned food but not enough to last for this period of time so am reduced to scrounging off other drivers. Not a problem because we all knew how we might be next in such a problem. If you want to try a real boredom test try nearly a month in a cage in the desert - it’s tougher than it sounds. But the outbound truck arrived in the end.To make it even, though, my best tip was also there the following year. This time I had a full tilt of artificial Christmas Trees for all their staff, many of whom had wives and children with them. “What are these for” the Saudis wanted to know so I explained it to them. They went into a huddle for a bit and then said “accompany us”. Out we went into the desert along with a pick-up full of Indian labour who proceeded to empty the trailer, pile up the trees and set fire to them. When later I had the chance to ask the Chief of Customs what the hell they thought they were doing he explained that as far as they were concerned the load was Infidel Religious Symbols and as such banned from the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. They did give me a clean signature on the CMR though with lots of very fancy stamps and I was allowed to turn around and go home.
David
Blimey David, that takes the thread to a new level of insanity! Alas, none of it really surprises me. Last time I was stuck for any time in Haditha was one Ramadan, but at least you were allowed to leave your passport at the gate and leave on foot to visit the little supermarket up the road. I doubt if the border itself had changed much though since you were there judging by the pictures I’ve seen. Have a lovely Christmas old chap! Robert
Saudi Customs were more relaxed at the Hallat Ammar border, at least in 75.
I had a regular contract for Haden the electrical contractors for the new Jeddah Airport,
my first run in 74 was the site office furniture & all the requirements for them to get set-up & running.
1 trip approaching Christmas 75 I had the Christmas presents for the kids on site and also a box of books on the manifest.
My agent came to me and said the ‘Librarian wanted to check the books, so we opened up and forklifted the crate of books
to the librarian who sat at the end of a long empty room furnished with a large Persian rug, a desk and little else.
Very politely he asked me to show him one of the books, so we crowbar’d the lid off to expose a consignment of illustrated bibles.
‘Oh ■■■■■■ I thought, but hey ho here we go – so with a suitable smile I approached him at his desk, “show me” he said,
I opened the first page with a picture of the last supper and said “looks like a group of Arabs having dinner”,
with a rye smile he looked at me and responded with “Yes you are right no problem then all OK".
I found In Saudi it’s often how you say it, as much as what you say, that counts.
AndieHyde:
Had a week in Pireaus once.Loaded in Cardiff with 4 sections each of an anchor chain for a supertanker with another fella from my company. One other contractor had the same 4 sections as us, then another guy had 2 sections and the anchor. All up about 85 tons and heres the clincher, the whole consignment was on one invoice.
Me and Bill and the driver with just chain all arrive in Pireaus TIR park and found our agent, only to be told that the chap with the anchor had come out the overland route and broken down. Because the whole deal was on one invoice, customs wouldnt clear it and we were to wait for the broken down truck which took about a week.Customs/secuity were pretty good about it, so as long as we left the trailers in the TIR zone we were free to pull the pin and head off down the beach to ■■■■ up the running money.
Happy days.
Hi Andie.
The chains you picked up would have been loaded at dumballs road Cardiff, but were made at Brown Lennox Pontypridd, we used to haul them from time to time , one driver had a load of chain come off the back of the trailer, but not in one go it came off like a caterpillar all strung along the road .
What year (roughly) would this trip been.
Clive.
ANDREWDAX:
AndieHyde:
Had a week in Pireaus once.Loaded in Cardiff with 4 sections each of an anchor chain for a supertanker with another fella from my company. One other contractor had the same 4 sections as us, then another guy had 2 sections and the anchor. All up about 85 tons and heres the clincher, the whole consignment was on one invoice.
Me and Bill and the driver with just chain all arrive in Pireaus TIR park and found our agent, only to be told that the chap with the anchor had come out the overland route and broken down. Because the whole deal was on one invoice, customs wouldnt clear it and we were to wait for the broken down truck which took about a week.Customs/secuity were pretty good about it, so as long as we left the trailers in the TIR zone we were free to pull the pin and head off down the beach to ■■■■ up the running money.
Happy days.
Hi Andie.
The chains you picked up would have been loaded at dumballs road Cardiff, but were made at Brown Lennox Pontypridd, we used to haul them from time to time , one driver had a load of chain come off the back of the trailer, but not in one go it came off like a caterpillar all strung along the road .
What year (roughly) would this trip been.
Clive.
Cheers Clive.
The chains weren’t new. Apparently ships loose these things all the time and I seem to remember that it was loaded out of a marine salvage yard who made their living by trawling the Bristol channel looking for these things and recovering them so, the fact that a Brazilian supertanker, moored in Greece needed one would suggest that they had lost theirs also.
Would imagine coming of the side would be a nightmare but the chains I loaded would have moved an inch, you couldn’t get both your hands around the links and each section weighed in at 5 tons.
When we finally got to tip in out, we drove round to the tanker and stripped off the tilt for a crane to be lowered off the side and haul it up on deck. Must have been 10 flights of steps from the quayside to the main deck, this ship was BIG
Would have been in the summer time '93.