I was thinking some of my random whipped up Toby type thoughts and remembered a day on Nedexco where I managed 3 Norfolk Line crossings in 1 15hr shift, I started in Adinkerke, ran to the boat, shipped across, tipped Paddock Wood, back over empty, changed trailers in Dunkerque and back in again and parked up on the A20.
Anyone else done anything similarly pointless and time consuming whilst achieving very little
Four shuttle crossings in a day isn’t unusual for Kent-based fridge drivers.
BuzzardBoy:
I was thinking some of my random whipped up Toby type thoughts and remembered a day on Nedexco where I managed 3 Norfolk Line crossings in 1 15hr shift, I started in Adinkerke, ran to the boat, shipped across, tipped Paddock Wood, back over empty, changed trailers in Dunkerque and back in again and parked up on the A20.Anyone else done anything similarly pointless and time consuming whilst achieving very little
Apart from shipping out of Poole to Cherbourg to change trailers or doing 2 loads from Kemsley Mill to Eurotunnel parking because a driver was banned from the UK
Wheel Nut:
BuzzardBoy:
I was thinking some of my random whipped up Toby type thoughts and remembered a day on Nedexco where I managed 3 Norfolk Line crossings in 1 15hr shift, I started in Adinkerke, ran to the boat, shipped across, tipped Paddock Wood, back over empty, changed trailers in Dunkerque and back in again and parked up on the A20.Anyone else done anything similarly pointless and time consuming whilst achieving very little
Apart from shipping out of Poole to Cherbourg to change trailers or doing 2 loads from Kemsley Mill to Eurotunnel parking because a driver was banned from the UK
Used to do the Poole-Cherbourg change trailer routine quite often as a subbie for transalliance GBE. It was quite a push to do it and get diesel from the shell and nip into the tabac before the boat had turned around.
Used to do up to 10 train crossings a week as a subbie for Frans Maas Tilbury on Toyota work.
Didn’t the Poole-Cherbourg ferries ship trailers unaccompanied then? Seems odd to send a truck and driver all the way across just to changeover in the dock and straght back onto the same ferry again.
Used it as part of split daily rest when you could do a 16 hour spread. It was back in the day of french diesel being a lot cheaper than uk.
skids:
Used it as part of split daily rest when you could do a 16 hour spread. It was back in the day of french diesel being a lot cheaper than uk.
That makes sense. Probably not much more to send a trailer across with a unit attached, and filling up with considerably cheaper fuel, probably with a four wheeler with bigger tanks back then definetely made it worth while.
skids:
Used it as part of split daily rest when you could do a 16 hour spread. It was back in the day of french diesel being a lot cheaper than uk.
I started doing Euro work (for myself) in 1986 & don’t ever remember French diesel being ‘that much cheaper’ than English!! It was always a bit cheaper, but not like Spain or Luxembourg where you wouldn’t leave without filling tanks to the brim.
Ross.
I can remember when English diesel was so much cheaper than French diesel that a Douanier used to climb up into the cab at Calais to check your fuel gauge to make sure you weren’t bringing in more than 200 litres, and we used to put a 10 franc piece on the fuel gauge bezel for him to pocket so he didn’t notice the tank was full to the brim. 
Harry Monk:
I can remember when English diesel was so much cheaper than French diesel that a Douanier used to climb up into the cab at Calais to check your fuel gauge to make sure you weren’t bringing in more than 200 litres, and we used to put a 10 franc piece on the fuel gauge bezel for him to pocket so he didn’t notice the tank was full to the brim.
I remember that well, he’d step up and look at your fuel guage before you parked & went to have your permit, T forms & Carnet de Passage stamped!! The big difference in them days was that we could get our VAT back easilly but the French charged 19% and it was really hard to reclaim it, their diesel was a little cheaper (net of VAT) but they paid a much higher price for their petrol!!!
Ross.
robinhood_1984:
Didn’t the Poole-Cherbourg ferries ship trailers unaccompanied then? Seems odd to send a truck and driver all the way across just to changeover in the dock and straght back onto the same ferry again.
Mine is not to reason why, especially when the planner is French.
You may be surprised to learn that there are stevedoring and port charges for unaccompanied freight, it will probably cost £40 extra to ship a trailer unaccompanied and they will always ship a self drive where an urgent trailer may be left on the quayside.
Harry Monk:
I can remember when English diesel was so much cheaper than French diesel that a Douanier used to climb up into the cab at Calais to check your fuel gauge to make sure you weren’t bringing in more than 200 litres, and we used to put a 10 franc piece on the fuel gauge bezel for him to pocket so he didn’t notice the tank was full to the brim.
there is also a mmtm story that those little men were living in various châteaux up and down the land of cheese from their ill-gotten gains 
Wheel Nut:
there is also a mmtm story that those little men were living in various châteaux up and down the land of cheese from their ill-gotten gains
10 francs was a £, which would be worth more like £3-4 at today’s values… 50 over-fuelled trucks per crossing and a ship arriving every hour adds up over a few years, so it wouldn’t surprise me.
I never once paid a fine in the 1980s, but I bought a lot of coffees for various enforcement officials, and I think we all preferred it that way.