sandway:
Tom Johnston livestock haulier from Maidstone so it says on the door. Looks to me like this time he’s loaded with Kent peg tiles. Anyone know anything about him?
Yes, Tom Johnston ran livestock transporters from Detling from the 1940s with a mixed fleet of AECs, Commers, ERFs etc. Vintage Roadscene recently brought out a special booklet in their Road Haulage Archive series called ‘A Life With Lorries’ by Neil Johnston, who gets to a lot of the truck shows and events and is a keen modeller. Much of the company’s history is outlined in there, along with lots of pictures! Robert
Morning Robert. I think there may be a bit of confusion here. I always thought the Kent livestock company up at Detling above Maidstone was D A Johnson. The photo I posted yesterday was of Tom Johnston, different spelling, but also from Maidstone.
I remember seeing Johnsons lorries in the late 50’s and they were livestock hauliers but the attached photo of RKE 110G, an Atki Highline with 180 Gardner engine has Fuels written on the side of the door. Nothing strange about that of course, hauliers had to diversify with as wide a customer base as possible as most did. I have also posted a second photo of RKE 110G after it had been acquired by Lock of Headcorn and the front windscreen had been changed and a sleeper pod added. By 1977 this lorry was in the hands of Alan Butcher who ran Invicta Transport based at the end of Hart Street in Maidstone and I drove it for Alan on a Wim Voss contract for three months to the Benelux countries. Not one of my better experiences.
Can anyone advise me of Locks depot,I seem to recall a fellow driver from SoM,Lodge Mooney, going to Locks in Warrington,of course I could be totally wrong!
Alan Lock’s yard was here in Headcorn just before the railway bridge and about 200 yards past Foremans grain and agricultural merchants and about 400 yards from Woodcock’s Yard. All have now gone with Foremans site being redeveloped at this moment. For years Alan Lock was harrassed by those living nearby who didn’t like his lorries being in the village. Eventually he sold the land and moved into the old Unigate Dairies yard the other side of the railway line. Zoom on the street signs or rotate the view etc .
WE Reeve was bought by George Hammond around 1966, moving to Gas Road Sittingbourne around 1968. as detailed in this 1971 Commercial Motor article. archive.commercialmotor.com/arti … -in-trucks
Interesting photo. Looks as if it is a Mercury conversion with a proprietary trailing third axle rather than a factory built Marshal. Except for the very first Marshals which had Eaton Hendrickson suspension, they had under-slung springs on the back axles, and the axles were slightly wider spacing.
sandway:
Tom Johnston livestock haulier from Maidstone so it says on the door. Looks to me like this time he’s loaded with Kent peg tiles. Anyone know anything about him?
Yes, Tom Johnston ran livestock transporters from Detling from the 1940s with a mixed fleet of AECs, Commers, ERFs etc. Vintage Roadscene recently brought out a special booklet in their Road Haulage Archive series called ‘A Life With Lorries’ by Neil Johnston, who gets to a lot of the truck shows and events and is a keen modeller. Much of the company’s history is outlined in there, along with lots of pictures! Robert
I’ve posted a few photos recently of Tom Johnston/W E Reeve lorries taken from the net. As I haven’t read the book ‘A Life With Lorries’ that Robert mentions above I don’t know if the photos appear in there or not but if they do and there are more of them then it should be a most interesting read.
My formative years in Kent were spent mainly in that area bounded by Maidstone, Marden, Lenham and Headcorn. I was in school there, played there and worked there and perhaps thats why I still find interest in those haulage companies that operated from there.
I have just seen the attached photos of Woodcocks lorries from Headcorn on F/B and don’t recall seeing them on here before.
I didn’t realise Lock of Headcorn had been general haulage contractors before they got into tankers or was it another branch of the family? Also interested in the make of lorry? Any ideas.
sandway:
I didn’t realise Lock of Headcorn had been general haulage contractors before they got into tankers or was it another branch of the family? Also interested in the make of lorry? Any ideas.
That’s one large diesel tank on the Commer. Looks like a 75 gallons AEC tank
See what you mean. Not a standard tank then.
Interesting shot of the extra large derv tank on the Commer. I fitted what looks like a similar tank to the first Mastiff unit I bought, they only came with a single 37 gallon tank fitted on the O/S. The second Mastiff I bought a few months later came with a factory fitted 60 gal tank on the O/ side and a 30 gal tank on the other side and they were the same shape and looked much tidier than the what we had to cobble together on the first unit.
I imagine that the Commer in the pic would have the Perkins 6.354 engine fitted which would get nowhere near the same mpg that a Rootes diesel would obtain?
Couple more Woodcock’s of Headcorn lorries. Possibly the trailer in the first photo is brand new if not its being well looked after. The second photo has been on here before but it had M20 Photos written across it.
Another photo I have Alan Firmin the AEC is AF57 and the Foden is AF66, I have a complete fleet photo of all Firmins Lorries taken in the late 50s showing all the AF reg numbers will post as soon as i can find it
