Spotted on a french fb page, under restoration according to the comment with it, never seen a lhd interstate.
Steve
Nor have I! Bit of a turn up for the books, that one.
Well, I wonder if that T45 Interstate had the standard French-spec treatment for those export Roadtrains: ie Rolls 350 with 9-speed Fuller. That’d be a bit of a game-changer vis-a-vis 9-sp Fuller equipped LHD wagons!
Dont think there were any details with the fb post about the interstate. Can’t find the post now…
Anyway heres another roadtrain that popped up on a couple of fb pages.
Steve
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Reckon some of the later LHD ones would’ve made for a nice drive. They had a Rolls Royce 295L motor with a Fuller RTX 11609. Nice match.
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I chanced upon a detail in Bob Tuck’s Scammell book yesterday that renewed my interest in the standard Scammell LHD 6x4 S26 tractive unit with the Cummins NTE 350 in it. The detail showed that the 15-speed 'box installed was the Fuller RTX 14615. I had no idea that the Fuller 15-speeder had been upgraded to RTX status along with the 9- and 13-sp 'boxes. The RTX was nicer and easier to use because it meshed better.
Now I can see why Bob Poggiani was so keen to keep ‘The Scud’ on M/E work for Astran!
A snippet that I’ve just remembered: Bob Poggiani’s ‘Scud’ was a cancelled export order, not a military surplus unit. Sometime back in about 1991, Laurence Kiely did an article on it for TRUCK magazine. If anyone has the article and can scan it on here I’d be grateful!
According the military buffs, the army only used Rolls-powered S26s. Only civvi-street used Cummins apparently.
Cheers.
Now I come to think of it, I think the Laurence Kiely reportage was embedded in a larger LDD ME trip. I’ll see if I can find it…
EDIT to say: yes, found it. It only mentions the S26 in passing, erroneously quoting it as having a 400 bhp engine, when in fact it had a 350. There is, of course, the possibility that Bob had had it fettled to 400! Anyone know?
Been doing a little more research.
If you chose the 6x4 ‘Middleweight’ option (up to 65t), according to Scammell’s S26 brochure you got the NTE 350 as standard; according to the Commercial Motor magazine (09/10/82 page 14) you could have it with a 9-speed Fuller instead of the RTX 14615; according to Bob Tuck’s The Supertrucks of Scammell (pages 142 & 154) that would be the RTX 14609 ‘box; and according to that same CM report (above) you could have a Rockwell rear end: Cummins / Fuller / Rockwell then - perfect!
EDIT to add the spec-sheet for the Middleweight 6x4 S26:
From Nick Georgano’s excellent book Scammell The Load movers from Watford p.149.
[The reference to an 11-speed 'box is erroneous, I think, as the RTX 11609A was of course a 9-speed 'box. Though I am surprised that, with that spec, it wasn’t an RTX 14609A but hey-ho!]
EDIT to add that I think I’ve found the Motor Show '82 exhibit mentioned above:
I know its the same style of cab as a roadtrain but why so many pics of scammells?
Because at post 8 (Jan 2015) I made a conscious decision to include the S26 (Scammell by then being part of Leyland) rather than split yet another flippin’ thread! 
So were the Scammells simply badge engineered Roadtrains?
Actually, no. Scammells had their own strong chassis and used a different (but overlapping) set of alternative engines, gearboxes and axles. As suedehead correctly points out, it was the Leyland cabs that went on them. But they were built under the BL umbrella during the period in question.
I happen to be the original poster and by the time I made the decision to include Scammell, I was still the only contributor to the thread. This meant I was still free to change the thread how I pleased at that point. And it was over ten years ago!
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Scammell was the heavy weight and specialist vehicle division of Leyland Motors since the mid 1950’s.
Which meant components like chassis and axles and engine specs not found in the Leyland standard volume production types.
Which manifested in differences like Detroit 8v71 and 305 Rolls powered Crusader for example, rated for big weights, v standard TL12 powered Road train.The forces were still using the Crusader to pull heavy military loads after the Road Train was introduced.So anything but a badge engineering operation.
S26 was probably closer to a development/replacement of the Crusader using the Road train cab and obviously at least the ubiquitous late 70’s Leyland steering wheel used on everything from the Boxer to Scammell Commander.
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