Mike, you mentioned Das Rollende Hotel. The company name was Rotel
Those guys used to crease me up. You would find them parked in the middle of nowhere in eastern Turkey and Iran all sleeping in pigeon holes across the trailer. If you were real lucky you would catch them at getting up time when they all needed to follow the natural functions but could find no bushes or any kind of cover so they would set off walking till them felt they were far enough away. Some of them walked miles!
But what really used to surprise me was that the punters were not hippies but solid, middle aged Germans. Now you could understand the hippies sleeping in a big heap in ancient Bristol double deckers but those guys. What planet were they on?
But I have found their webpage and am amazed to see that not only are they still in business but they are operating, literally, all over the world!
As you said David they weren’t young people on the Rotel tours.I met a bus full in Tibet. They all looked like ex Afrika Korps.That bus must be well stuck,it’s double drive.Shows the advantages of a beer and bratwurst diet.Mike
So many questions and as many answers. When i was Running to the M.E. there were always stories about a new road that was being built through Russia to Iran, this was always going to open next year and we would go in convoy from guarded truck stop to guarded truck stop on this super highway. This was as big a tale as the driving jobs with Hungarocamion.
I dont know who was the first haulier to go to the USSR, but i know that Kepstowe freight services went there on a regular bassis for over twenty five years. They had their own ofice in Moscow with several staff, A seven and a half ton merc for local deliveries and an English subbie to tip and load trailers. They had as many as seventy five trailers on hire at any one time and around twenty english subbies on traction work as well as their own trucks. They were a very reputable company whose main interests was exhibition work. Some of their trips would be to the far reaches of russia and sometimes they would fly the trucks between cities. One of their subbies Alan Bremner was on a contract they had to Aeromar at Sheromotovo airport moscow on which he done twenty six trips in one year from London. After the break up of the ussr the Russians could not get enough of western goods and that is when the rat race started. As per usual the rates started coming down and the journey times got longer with the waiting times at the borders.
There were a few very lucrative contracts cropped up and a few companies made a few quid but then along came the rate cutters and spoiled it for everyone. I was on one job to Zarafshan which is way beyond Almaty and Tashkent and there were subbies on the same job for a well known haulier who were being paid almost five thousand pounds less than me for a trip.
This job also came to a halt as the company decided to have their deliveries done by rail. They were buying up containers as the Uzbeck customs would not re export the ones that they sent out and just left them in the desert. Due to the time it took to go by rail, they ended up with millions of pounds worth of stock lying on site.
Regards Jamie
Hi Davie hope all well with you down in the valleys. On my first trip down past Almaty it did feel good to be there as you had the feeling after driving through Akmola then Lake Balkash that you were back into some sort of civilisation as the road down the southern end of Kazakhstan was busier than the empty vastness of the previous days. It would be great to have some work going out that way again and I would jump at the chance to venture that way again.
Hi Colin, good to here from you again, I am fine and hope you are well. As Mike has said the cost of repairs to the equipment was horrendous. Some parts of the road if you could call it that had ruts and holes that you could bury complete wheels in and a few people who had ventured their with step frame trailers tore off complete axles in the ruts. It was certainly an experiance, one guy even managed to get a back load from Tashkent to Alloa in Scotland with a load of empty beer kegs that he collected from a pakistani cash and carry. The loads from China that Ralph Davies loaded were only taken to Moscow, I was Told, and were trans shipped from chinese trucks inside russia.
Some of the biggest problems were the rivers which disected the country and many of the bridges had been washed away at some time and not rebuilt, sometimes it was not unusual to travel hundreds of kilometers of a detour to find a crossing. many of these rivers could be up to a mile in width, it is an awsome country.
As Mike said many of the drivers Visas were only valid to certain places and most were only valid as far as Moscow. There was a lot of confusion after the break up of the soviet union and the formation of the CIS, but it was possible to get a paper that had been signed by the consenting states that allowed free movemment between them and so the russian visa was accepted in most and the US dollar solved any problems everywhere.
Regards Jamie.
Hi Jamie
I am good thanks and just working away. It is good to look back and think off all the good times on that job but winter time certainly was not one of them. I was asked a few times to do the loads from the border to Moscow but always refused as I didn’t fancy the guard being in my cab or just in case it all went pear shaped at the Russian border. I was told by a few Ralphs I met who were on route to Moscow it was so much up front and the rest on arrival in Moscow plus a bonus if they got it there quick. I had no reason to doubt them as I was offered the same deal and they were both guys I knew from previous trips.
Regards Colin
This is a copy of an e-mail received to-day, this was sent by Jeff Elliot, who not only tipped on that border but also reloaded on more than one occasion.
Hi Dave I had an other look at the transfer station at Corgos and finally worked what was wrong with the image.
It, or the trucks are way out of proportion, there were at least 20 docks on each side and I can remember at least 5 trucks sitting nose to tail on the north side, where we used to wait to collect papers. If I remember the attached building on the south side was where the agents and officials worked, I think it had a blue roof. When you were up there it was obvious where you were going so there wasn’t much formality at the border, which is why I used to remember it as still being on the Kaz side. Unless you were actually wanting to go to the village on the China side they didn’t bother with passports, don’t know what it would be like now though.
Jeff
Below are photo’s of the border, I have taken them from Google Earth.
hutpik:
Certainly during the 60s and 70 the road to the far east was much simpler via Turkey,Iran, Afghanistan Pakistan and India.It was reasonably safe and relatively hassle free,and for many people more interesting because of the different cultures.Mike
Good statement hupik…where or how did it all go so wrong and end up the way it is nowadays? It would seem that to go anywhere east of the Bosphorus or south of the Med is to take your life in your hands. Some still do (the sellers on here) and good luck to them but as you say, it used to be relatively hassle free and reasonably safe…but not anymore.
It would be great to be able to drive overland to India or Pakistan or further and take in Iran, Afghan etc but its an absolute no no now and North Africa is seemingly headed the same way.
Bloody good thread this though, very interesting!!
hutpik:
Certainly during the 60s and 70 the road to the far east was much simpler via Turkey,Iran, Afghanistan Pakistan and India.It was reasonably safe and relatively hassle free,and for many people more interesting because of the different cultures.Mike
Good statement hupik…where or how did it all go so wrong and end up the way it is nowadays? It would seem that to go anywhere east of the Bosphorus or south of the Med is to take your life in your hands. Some still do (the sellers on here) and good luck to them but as you say, it used to be relatively hassle free and reasonably safe…but not anymore.
It would be great to be able to drive overland to India or Pakistan or further and take in Iran, Afghan etc but its an absolute no no now and North Africa is seemingly headed the same way.
Bloody good thread this though, very interesting!!
It was the ‘small’ issue of the Irainian revolution that did it.The rest is history.
Hi all.I think to most of us born after the war the USSR was a dark and gloomy continent whereas the ME\Asia\Far East was considered more romantic and vibrant.We had all been brought up with ‘tales of the Arabian nights’ and stories of how the British bought ‘‘civilisation’’ to the far reaches of the ‘‘Empire’’ and as drivers all felt a bit like ‘Marco Polo’ when we left Dover.
Going through the balkan countries only reinforced our suspicions about communism.Then you arrived at Kapic.OK,our first image of the fabled orient was a vision of the Somme on a bad day.But even then you could ‘‘sense’’ the vibrancy of it all with ragamuffins[who turned out to be the agents]running around with papers and others with tea and buns.And 100mtr further you could see shops,little food stalls and traffic all swarming around like ants.Then you started the journey with the smell of kebabs in your nostrils.You only went a few kms and you had to fight for right of way over a bridge with a horse and cart.You just got going and were confronted by a mosque as big as buck house[the first you had ever seen].From then on it was just one vision after another.From the splendours of Istanbul,one of the most amazing cities in the world, to the rugged,primitive beauty of eastern Turkey,or,after you had struggled over Tarsus you immediately started looking for Jesus as you had been transported back 2000yrs.
The same was the case as you went into Syria and started whistling the theme to Lawrence of Arabia.
Or if you had crossed the vast emptiness of southern Iran and crossed the border into the vibrant lunacy that was Pakistan or climbed the long drag up to the Kyber pass seeing the old Pashtun people thinking ‘‘these were the guys that kicked crap out of us 150yrs ago,and still look like they could’’.Every part of the trip bought some historical memory,be it crusaders,Darius the great,The harems of sultans long ago or memories of the RAJ.
Then there were the countries where you could go from desert with 50c temps to mountains where you got hypothermia in the space of a few kms.One day you were digging youself out of the sand and the next watching the snow climb up the side of the truck.
And the variety of people along the way is beyond imagining,from the Turk policeman wearing sunglasses at midnight,to the 10yr old mechanic stripping a gearbox,or the old guy on a donkey wearing a 3 piece suit.The customs agent dressed in rags somewhere in the middle of no-where who spoke Oxford English,or the shopkeeper in Islamabad who’s cousin lived in England saying to me’‘his name’s hassan,do you know him’’ Wonderfull memories.Mike
Absolutely Mike, you’ve captured the emotion of the job and the times, and stirred some memories.
Like a group of south eastern turkish locals, dressed in Biblical attire (very much as you’d imagine Jesus and his followers to be dressed) congregating around a fully laden Tonka,
then all of them climbing on top of the load and sitting crossed legged with arms folded, all facing the front behind one who was obviously the head honcho, just hitching a ride to the next village… I’d have thought.
I don’ think I’d have liked to be in the cab of one of those tonkas, let alone sit on top of the load! Their confidence in '‘Allah’ must have been incredible!
Pete
However, somewhere on Toprun, there’s an account of a trip
undertaken by a French haulier who went there carrying equipment for (IIRC) Citreon, as part of a publicity exercise.
[/quote]
Evening all, hi, gb1, I think the firm you refer to is Tpts Chapuis, (part funded by the Regie Renault), who used to do the “Government” trips for which ever company needed them!!
Pakistan, for Citroen, (who owned Berliet), Nigeria, for the state owned Gas company, and the “Silk Road” job was much espoused by Paul Berliet, (RIP), who was responsible for the factory that Berliet created in China in the late 60s.
Somewhere in the chaos of my “moving” files, (I`m part way between my old office in the Pig Styes, to a new “executive pad”, in the Cow sheds), Ive a load of stuff on Chapuis, and also, VIT, as they were both my “fleet” customers, (as was the redoubtable Tpts Stouff), but perhaps a rather “different” outfit!!!
Anyway when I am moved, I will try and post a bit of history on Chapuis, one thing is for certain…in the UK there was never ever a company like Chapuis for taking on the “undoable”, doing it, and with honour, and looking after its staff. Would make most of the highly regarded “Middle East” hauliers in the UK look like very small beer… but I expect that statement will upset some people…but without doubt it is true.
I, for one, would love to learn more about Transports Chapuis which was a company that to all the Fench drivers that I spoke to at that time held in an almost mystical regard.
There is no doubt that special or ‘Government’ trips were done to all kinds of far away places but this thread started with the assertion that an English company, Cantrells, who were of no great reputation and who were better not parked anywhere near if you wanted to find fuel in your tank in the morning, were running commercially to Almaty with trailers for China in the late 70’s. I have my doubts about that because we drivers who were doing the middle east at that time would certainly have heard something about such a trip and also, to my memory, Cantrells were finished by the late 70’s but the question really is the difference between ‘commercial’ and ‘publicity’.
Well I finally got sign up, so here goes,
Yes I did the China border at Chorgos ( which is just one of the spellings ) That was back in 96 to 98. I also did Oman, Lapland, and Southern Libya for the same company. I did the China border probably 10 or 12 times in that period. Even though it was around the same time period as Dave Mackie I never saw him but I knew he was about. At the time there were very few westerners about, most of who were Polish trucks. However on any given trip, once into Kaz I wouldn’t meet any more the 3 per trip, speaking to the ones that I did see they were hauling for Rynart so no surprise there, they never said where they were going but I never saw them past Bishkek. The rest of the trucks were from, starting at most popular, Kaz locals, Russian, Iranian, then everyone else, and on most days I wouldn’t meet any more than about 12 trucks. We always tipped at the border control which was set up like an RDC, it was a few hundred meters inside China but as all the trucks up there were obviously going to the same place we weren’t checked in. No vehicles from China came into Kaz and vise versa, at the time I was doing it. In the past I was told that before the RDC was built the Chinese trucks went to the rail head in Almaty, that would be in escorted convoy to and from.
The set up was fairly good and reasonably efficient, from getting there to getting tipped, reloaded, and paperwork in and out was usually about a day and a half although other trucks were sometimes a bit longer. We were allowed to walk through to the village on the Chinese side with some of the guys that worked at the border as a guide, but passports weren’t stamped. There wasn’t much there so after a couple of times there wasn’t really anything else to see.
Jeff
Hi Mr Newmercman, I worked for an Italian company out of Udine, plain white FH 500 white Smitz fridges no writing or distinguishing allowed at all, no photos as the company had a policy of no cameras. Libya was down to Sicily boat to Tunisia then drive to the border. We started in Milan
If you come into the peage at the west end of Milan turn right and run up towards Varese, not far from there, there was a golf course and a big sign that said Hymen, very close to that was a big white factory with a big name on it written in blue. If you know who that was was then you would be able to work out what we were hauling and realize why the trucks were plain white with no writing.
According to my boss at the time the loads were getting from Italy to the customers warehouse in China ( usually Beijing ) in 16 to 18 days depending on the weather we encountered along the way. It seems that once the goods were cleared at the China border they were then free to travel on to the final destination relatively unhindered. Every truck movement in China at that time was recorded by the government so they had permission long before the loads even turned up. At that time air freight was fairly high, and there seemed to be a big backlog at the air terminals for freight to clear ( sounds familiar ) taking months sometimes if the right official wasn’t greased. Sea was deemed to risky as a lot of containers went missing, and also because the goods were temp sensitive requiring fridges. Overland rail was a nightmare as most countries along the way operated different widths of track meaning that at every border the containers had to be moved from one system to the other, again giving a fair scope for things to vanish.
As for stories I have written mine and it’s word count is 415,000. ( Yes Dave it’s gone up again ). So far I’m being ignored by 4 publishing houses. Ask Dave Mackie for details.
For what it’s worth, my real first continental job was a one off to Moscow in 1969 when I worked for Avis Truck Rental. It was an exhibition load for Proprietary perfumes of Ashford kent. They gave me an interpreter /navigator for the outward journey who had one enormous drawback. He couldn’t tell left from right! Our route was Belgium, West Germany, East Germany, Poland and into Russia at Brest Litovsk. The road all the way from the frontier to Minsk was dirt track but after Minsk was metalled one lane in each direction highway. We stayed at the Hotel Ukraine in Moscow and the exhibition was at the Restaurant Prague which was a little unfortunate as Russia had just invaded Czechoslovakia after the Prague spring.
Jelliot:
Hi Mr Newmercman, I worked for an Italian company out of Udine, plain white FH 500 white Smitz fridges no writing or distinguishing allowed at all, no photos as the company had a policy of no cameras. Libya was down to Sicily boat to Tunisia then drive to the border. We started in Milan
If you come into the peage at the west end of Milan turn right and run up towards Varese, not far from there, there was a golf course and a big sign that said Hymen, very close to that was a big white factory with a big name on it written in blue. If you know who that was was then you would be able to work out what we were hauling and realize why the trucks were plain white with no
Jeff.
Hullo Jeff.
Was that just past where the old Alfa Romeo factory was ? I think it was Arese. I think that the big White Factory would have to have been J… & J…, and I should think that the load would have been very valuable and of course very nickable.
Cheers, Archie.
I’m pretty sure that the first commercial loads at Alma Ata were 3 for the First National Oil & Gas exhibition in September 1993 - Cyril Gardiner and the late Gordon Macmillan off David Croome’s and Danny Macauliffe subbing for Kepstowe’s with a semi-low loader. I say pretty sure, not 100% but certain the Cantrell tale is just that, like all the crap about Ralphie’s going to China
It would seem that to go anywhere east of the Bosphorus or south of the Med is to take your life in your hands. Some still do (the sellers on here) and good luck to them but as you say, it used to be relatively hassle free and reasonably safe…but not anymore.
Wonderfull memories.Mike
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