Thats why for most of us it would be a dissappointment to go back along those roads after so many years gap.Part of the adventure was the primitive roads and all the difficulties on the way.Going now would be just like going anywhere on good roads and motorways.
mushroomman:
Edirne has certainly changed since we took those photos Birdie.3
earth.google.com/web/@41.676649 … WV9CR2cQAg
The bridge from Kapic just before Edirne.
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Tarsus 1.
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Tarsus 2.
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Great pictures, you must have had a much better camera than me, I often retrace some of my journeys on google maps and as you say it’s unrecognizable to the 70s.
hutpik:
Thats why for most of us it would be a dissappointment to go back along those roads after so many years gap.Part of the adventure was the primitive roads and all the difficulties on the way.Going now would be just like going anywhere on good roads and motorways.
It was certainly an adventure, I was 24 when I did my first trip and it was the first time I had left the UK never mind drive 9,000 mile round trip to Doha. Yes it would spoil the memories to see what it’s like today.
Birdie4x4:
hutpik:
Thats why for most of us it would be a dissappointment to go back along those roads after so many years gap.Part of the adventure was the primitive roads and all the difficulties on the way.Going now would be just like going anywhere on good roads and motorways.It was certainly an adventure, I was 24 when I did my first trip and it was the first time I had left the UK never mind drive 9,000 mile round trip to Doha. Yes it would spoil the memories to see what it’s like today.
Point well made. I agree. The same goes for European roads too. You’d certainly find the RN10 in France disappointing now, even if you recognised any of it!
Caravan Trading and General Services was a joint venture between Ali Al Ghoson of Dammam and Alan Newhouse of Behring International, which was based in Houston. This was started in 1979. Sheikh Ali, who had worked for the Saudi Railroad, spent time in the USA learning the trade, and presumably met Alan there because Behring Shipping, an associate company of Behring International, used the railroad, which ran from Dammam Port to Riyadh, to carry containers of equipment for the Saudi armed forces.
The 20 foot containers were end of life units, which were repainted in BEHRING grey in the States and arrived about 30 at a time. They were shipped on the railroad directly from the port to the Military base in Riyadh where they were emptied and then returned to Dammam. Our yard was just behind the railroad yard where they were shunted to. We then had about 48 hours to unload them into our own yard.
Health and safety was not a huge consideration here. Behring had shipped a frame with twistlocks which fitted the crane and could be operated from the ground - a rope system locked and unlocked them, but we soon discovered that this had two faults; it was dreadfully slow positioning it and if the crane driver, who was always just one of us, and not a professional, dropped the frame too quickly on the container it punched neat holes in the roof. This was quickly abandoned in favour of one of us riding the hooks and placing them on the container, then riding the container to the trailer. At that time our trailers didn’t have twistlocks and again to save time, we didn’t chain them on for the few hundred yards to the depot. This was supposed to be a private railway road anyway, but many drivers used it as a short cut from the port to the Khobar/Dammam road, I don’t remember us ever having one fall off!
Riding the hooks was a bit scary at first, but you soon got the hang of it (no pun intended!) I remember Bill Dolan operating the crane once and I had hooked on the container, Bill started to lift when Peter Best came up to the crane cabin and started talking to Bill. They both became engrossed in the conversation and forgot about me going higher and higher. I envisaged the jib going over and the container and me with it. They couldn’t hear my screams because of the crane engine until the hook assembly reached the top, which fortunately stalled it instead of pulling it over! This was all greeted with peals of laughter by them when they realised that I was petrified and about 40 feet in the air.
At the yard we fork lifted them off and it was part of the Transport Manager’s job to sell them. They were popular as accommodation for all the nationalities that worked there and were a major source of income for Caravan.
Photos of Ali Nasser Al Ghoson, Martin Mears riding the hooks, and Mohammed Hassan, a Somali/Yemeni who started as a driver and had become Transport Manger by the time this photo was taken in about 1984.
only done euro but reading all these posts makes me so jealous of you who have “DONE” it hats off to you all and keep those memories coming…
Riding the hooks amused me as my very first job after school was commercial bodybuilding and refurbishing shipping containers, so as the youngster I was sent up to hang the hooks, as the boxes were stacked two high this meant climbing 16’ with hinges, rivets and door bars for purchase and support, once on top you could relax as the crane operator swung you round as fast as he could and unceremoniously dropped the heavy door end into the muddy yard, then I climbed down and clambered up the next one. 20 years later I was doing it all again when Norman Lewis bought an old crane to load our demountable tanks. At least now we had ladders on the tanks and could come down between lifts.
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Rovinj in Yugoslavia, a lovely place hardly changed since I loaded shrimps back to the UK on my return from the Middle East back in 77, this was taken from just outside the loading bay.
Wheel Nut:
Riding the hooks amused me as my very first job after school was commercial bodybuilding and refurbishing shipping containers, so as the youngster I was sent up to hang the hooks, as the boxes were stacked two high this meant climbing 16’ with hinges, rivets and door bars for purchase and support, once on top you could relax as the crane operator swung you round as fast as he could and unceremoniously dropped the heavy door end into the muddy yard, then I climbed down and clambered up the next one. 20 years later I was doing it all again when Norman Lewis bought an old crane to load our demountable tanks. At least now we had ladders on the tanks and could come down between lifts.Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I put a similar post on Facebook and Des King, who worked with us in Saudi, with Ginger McNeil and Geoff Collins responded that it was hell if you walked out of you flip flops when you were on top of the containers, it fried your feet! I always wore shoes or boots, I didn’t like the idea of stepping on a scorpion in the desert. I guess those things wouldn’t be a problem in England!
Turks!
A Post & Video From Rinus Rinart on FB:
a small video, of our drivers…after 2 days waiting at Afghanistan/Uzbekistan border, and many checkings from Taliban inspectors…our trucks could leave empty direction Kazachstan+Russia…happy out of hell…
Note…last trailer who delivered cargo in Kabul, we had to take off our name on the trailer…so that Taliban could not see, it was an European trailer…
grts…Rinus/ NL.
https://www.facebook.com/rinus.rynart/videos/233496155377278
AS many of us at the moment are thinking of the hardships of the people of Afghanistan, a few pics of time past in the late 70s.
A long time since I was there, but in spite of it being a pretty wild and lawless place the people are generally pretty cool & the scenery in parts is awesome.
Helping the locals inflate a tyre in Herat
Local lad who stopped to help change & repair tyres North of Kandahar
Reciept for Afghan road toll
Photo courtesy of Michael Warden. The Ford and the DAF were owned by Richard Wright Transport from Selston Notts. I understand Richard made the Ford into a sleeper cab himself by adding a section and also added a roof rack but bought the DAF new.
Please click on photo to enlarge.
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Unloading KitKat’s in the back streets of Kuwait 1977, 4 filipino coolies running up and down a plank two boxes at a time.
I’ve been idly trawling through the Middle-East threads looking for ‘60s pics showing 10m/33’ tilts on long-haul. I can hardly find any! I think there are various reasons for this including:
- There just aren’t many photos of Middle-East work taken in the '60s floating about.
- A fair bit of the work seems to have been transported in box trailers, presumably for security.
These were the only half-decent ones I could find. They show a French company doing Iran.
