Stupid,İdiot drivers,sorry for the language, makıng comments about Astrans and Ohs at their own site,
and still to find out that OHS was the Bıggest…MY god , you must read the comments…Chıldısh,foolısh…
Let them enjoy their past, The Book and DVD my god truck leaves the yard and breakes down in Belgıum??
what a servıce ■■ after 200 kms.■■
Conlusıon ıs-OHS was the bıggest,… that ıs all… others follow up.
They’re not drivers Nazmi. Astran had loads of publicity through TV etc. With ‘Destination Doha’ OHS with a much larger operation just got on with the job day in and day out. Also once Astran was formed they had very few trucks of their own. They had basically become a forwarder and the trucks were driver or small fleet owned.
mate you do rearly need to get over the fact astran are still going strong and I do recall it was you who was comparing size,not that it matters,and as for you andy I dont recall seeing you on the job or hearing about you doing it,maybe rong,so this turk shouldnt get upset after slating astran,what does he expect,get over the fact ohs went skint with a lot of debt,and thats a ■■■■ way to go.
Sorry to disappoint you but Astran have operated as a forwarder only with no trucks of their own for many many years. Uwe Ploog bought the assets and then sold out to Seymour Transport of Maidsotne who have run the operation for the past ten years or so. Quite clearly you don’t know me so I won’t comment on your other points.
But calm down. The only point being made was that Astran had the glamour but OHS was a far larger organisation.
Far from being wound up,so no need to calm down,its the ted with the gob thats at fault,ive been on astrans 18 years ans still on there so I do know a bit about them,and worked for tanker before that doin turkey etc so im up on my history…nobody at all mentioned astran were the biggest and the ones who know astran know they never were,but ted comin on astrans post and talking ■■■■■ is obviously a sign of him being bitter that ohs went skint and astran are still going strong.But as a lot of turkish companys do they become huge then ■■■■ it all up with there monkey drivers and slashed rates,over the years ive seen ted companys come an go like theres no tomorrow,so he should be used to it by now.
Evening all, interesting thread this, (and the “non Astran”, Middle East thread as well). As I suspected some people are becoming irate…why?
OHS were, without any argument the largest, UK based, (in volume terms) operator to the Orient, that is “owning” their own equipment, and employing their own drivers.
Where the issue becomes “clouded”, is trying to quantify in terms of size, “the rest”. For so many ran this route, using sub contractors, owner drivers, as well as their own kit,(well that owned by Lombard, Forward Trust, Close Asset…let alone us poor mugs in the rental game, Avis, poor old Gabriel Harding at Gullivers, then there was Roger at Willhire, Peter Colby, let alone the number of “factory” demonstration tractors that went East, (when they should have been plodding up and down the M1)!!!1
All great fun…unless you were on the receiving end of some of these “little” scams…and believe me there was serious “collatral” damage, and a lot of people lost out “big time” as a result of these pure criminal activities.
Last year my daughter gave me a copy of Ashes book on Astran, then wondered why I was laughing so much as I read it…
Convicted felons "exhaulted " as icons of the route…Oh for goodness sake…
A company with a less than credible credit rating…
Like so many of the “modern semi journalists”…who only see the “top show”, and know little of the real history…then current “journalists”, latch on, (because they see a warm glow in basking in the exotica of the age)…and fiction becomes fact…BS.!!!
Yet there were so many who drove this route, decent, honest, hard working…trying to achieve a good living while working for totally unscrupulus employers/freight forwarders, the “Hamsters in the wheel”, yet Never to be despised, for they sought only the "crock of gold " at the rainbows end…and I really hope some achieved that goal.
But who was the “biggest” running to the Orient,■■? OHS from the UK, who next■■? Ron Carman, (and subbies), at Brit European? how about our Swiss friends,Hansruedi Allermann, from Kreuz Malix…(or did they sub for Astran)? Or Lao Lastrauto whose Unic V8s ran alongside Magirus V8, 8x4 drawbars down to the Persian Gulf.Let alone the Frederichi family
I have no idea…so over to you Gentlemen…
But OHS was without doubt the biggest from the UK!!
Cheerio for now…
And I raise a very large glass of Bollinger to you all, each and every one…Good luck for 2015!
Or was it the Bulgarian hordes■■?
Chapuis, & VIT, in France,
hopey1945:
Indeed, and here is the one I drove…
Great to connect you with the picture, Hopey! I’ve just ‘bumped up’ my thread about LHD Seddon-Atkinson 400s for you: do please add to it if you can, I’d love to read your ‘take’ on these machines! Warm regards, Robert
Saviem:
Evening all, interesting thread this, (and the “non Astran”, Middle East thread as well). As I suspected some people are becoming irate…why?OHS were, without any argument the largest, UK based, (in volume terms) operator to the Orient, that is “owning” their own equipment, and employing their own drivers.
Where the issue becomes “clouded”, is trying to quantify in terms of size, “the rest”. For so many ran this route, using sub contractors, owner drivers, as well as their own kit,(well that owned by Lombard, Forward Trust, Close Asset…let alone us poor mugs in the rental game, Avis, poor old Gabriel Harding at Gullivers, then there was Roger at Willhire, Peter Colby, let alone the number of “factory” demonstration tractors that went East, (when they should have been plodding up and down the M1)!!!1
All great fun…unless you were on the receiving end of some of these “little” scams…and believe me there was serious “collatral” damage, and a lot of people lost out “big time” as a result of these pure criminal activities.
Last year my daughter gave me a copy of Ashes book on Astran, then wondered why I was laughing so much as I read it…
Convicted felons "exhaulted " as icons of the route…Oh for goodness sake…
A company with a less than credible credit rating…
Like so many of the “modern semi journalists”…who only see the “top show”, and know little of the real history…then current “journalists”, latch on, (because they see a warm glow in basking in the exotica of the age)…and fiction becomes fact…BS.!!!
Yet there were so many who drove this route, decent, honest, hard working…trying to achieve a good living while working for totally unscrupulus employers/freight forwarders, the “Hamsters in the wheel”, yet Never to be despised, for they sought only the "crock of gold " at the rainbows end…and I really hope some achieved that goal.
But who was the “biggest” running to the Orient,■■? OHS from the UK, who next■■? Ron Carman, (and subbies), at Brit European? how about our Swiss friends,Hansruedi Allermann, from Kreuz Malix…(or did they sub for Astran)? Or Lao Lastrauto whose Unic V8s ran alongside Magirus V8, 8x4 drawbars down to the Persian Gulf.Let alone the Frederichi family
I have no idea…so over to you Gentlemen…
But OHS was without doubt the biggest from the UK!!
Cheerio for now…
And I raise a very large glass of Bollinger to you all, each and every one…Good luck for 2015!
Or was it the Bulgarian hordes■■?
Chapuis, & VIT, in France,
Ah! The crock of gold… And the crock of gold is not always the ‘best’ or the ‘biggest’. Sorry to cross-thread you, but I’ve just posted some opinions about this subject on the Astran thread (may Allah forgive me!). In the meantime, Monsieur Saviem, I wish you a happy, prosperous and, above all, peaceful new year - bless you! Robert
Saviem:
Evening all, interesting thread this, (and the “non Astran”, Middle East thread as well). As I suspected some people are becoming irate…why?OHS were, without any argument the largest, UK based, (in volume terms) operator to the Orient, that is “owning” their own equipment, and employing their own drivers.
Where the issue becomes “clouded”, is trying to quantify in terms of size, “the rest”. For so many ran this route, using sub contractors, owner drivers, as well as their own kit,(well that owned by Lombard, Forward Trust, Close Asset…let alone us poor mugs in the rental game, Avis, poor old Gabriel Harding at Gullivers, then there was Roger at Willhire, Peter Colby, let alone the number of “factory” demonstration tractors that went East, (when they should have been plodding up and down the M1)!!!1
All great fun…unless you were on the receiving end of some of these “little” scams…and believe me there was serious “collatral” damage, and a lot of people lost out “big time” as a result of these pure criminal activities.
Last year my daughter gave me a copy of Ashes book on Astran, then wondered why I was laughing so much as I read it…
Convicted felons "exhaulted " as icons of the route…Oh for goodness sake…
A company with a less than credible credit rating…
Like so many of the “modern semi journalists”…who only see the “top show”, and know little of the real history…then current “journalists”, latch on, (because they see a warm glow in basking in the exotica of the age)…and fiction becomes fact…BS.!!!
Yet there were so many who drove this route, decent, honest, hard working…trying to achieve a good living while working for totally unscrupulus employers/freight forwarders, the “Hamsters in the wheel”, yet Never to be despised, for they sought only the "crock of gold " at the rainbows end…and I really hope some achieved that goal.
But who was the “biggest” running to the Orient,■■? OHS from the UK, who next■■? Ron Carman, (and subbies), at Brit European? how about our Swiss friends,Hansruedi Allermann, from Kreuz Malix…(or did they sub for Astran)? Or Lao Lastrauto whose Unic V8s ran alongside Magirus V8, 8x4 drawbars down to the Persian Gulf.Let alone the Frederichi family
I have no idea…so over to you Gentlemen…
But OHS was without doubt the biggest from the UK!!
Cheerio for now…
And I raise a very large glass of Bollinger to you all, each and every one…Good luck for 2015!
Or was it the Bulgarian hordes■■?
Chapuis, & VIT, in France,
Hi Saviem,
Think Salford Van Hire may have suffered from abandoned vehicles! Remember being in a garage in Ankara in early '76 discussing abandoned trucks - Salford seemed high on the list. They mentioned one that was full of excrement. The driver said it was to cold to go out!
Eeeerghhh!
John
Wishing everybody a Healthy New Year.
Gazzelle Arbi,All The Best For 2015.
Yes a Happy New Year to you all.
Your pride in your achievements, your stand for your employers and your individuality show through, and I am talking about anybody who ran ME or Kahzakstan more than once. Keep all the stories coming so we arm-chair drivers can close our eyes and imagine Tahir, H4 or the Goat Track.
Respect. Jim.
davepenn54:
Question for Jazzandy, back in the late 70’s I worked for a company in Oldham that stored all the dried fruit for Park Cake Bakeries, sultanas from Turkey (Izmir) & Currants from Greece (Patras). One day pulled into the yard with a load of sultanas on for storage and one of OHS tilts was in unloading the same and it was being pulled by an F7. It was in OHS colours and the driver said he just did the UK part of the journey, oh and it was taxed as a PLG? with the driver saying it wasn’t his usual motor and was normally kept across the channel, reason for the reduced road tax, but had been shipped across to deliver this one load for some reason. The fruit was normally sea freight into Heysham, Newhaven, Dover & Harwich which we then collected all handball off the dock, hard [zb] work, occasionally as it would seem in this instance it would come in as a backload for someone on the M/E run. By the beginning of the 80’s it had nearly all been transferred into 20ft boxes which made my job a lot easier but the whse; staff hated it as they then had to do the palletising which the drivers had normally done when collecting.
BTW remember the OHS GMC’s & the Mack’s from back in the day, they might not have been in this country much but they certainly stood out when they were.Regards
Dave Penn;
Dear Dave, Sultanas were from Izmır, had 4 export companıes as exporters, and regularly load Sultanas, even for Kellogs.
regards
nazmı
Thanks for bringing some sanity and wise words to the thread Saviem.
Poor old Nazmi opened a can of worms but his point is valid. OHS was the biggest British based owner operator running to the Middle East by far. He feels, as I do, that Astran has been over glamourised especially as it was not created until about 1979 when Asian Transport went spectacularly bust. Once reconstituted, Astran operated very few trucks of their own and fairly quickly became in effect a freight forwarder and once they had been bought out by Uwe Ploog they did not even own their own warehouse!
However the bandwagon rolls on and it seems that people would rather believe a myth than the reality. It was ever thus.
Anyway a very Happy New Year to you all and especially all who cut their teeth driving in the late sixties and early seventies!
Jazzandy:
Thanks for bringing some sanity and wise words to the thread Saviem.Poor old Nazmi opened a can of worms but his point is valid. OHS was the biggest British based owner operator running to the Middle East by far. He feels, as I do, that Astran has been over glamourised especially as it was not created until about 1979 when Asian Transport went spectacularly bust. Once reconstituted, Astran operated very few trucks of their own and fairly quickly became in effect a freight forwarder and once they had been bought out by Uwe Ploog they did not even own their own warehouse!
However the bandwagon rolls on and it seems that people would rather believe a myth than the reality. It was ever thus.
Anyway a very Happy New Year to you all and especially all who cut their teeth driving in the late sixties and early seventies!
+1 On That, Best wishes for the new year to all.
Yes i second all the best wishes for 2015 ,to all the new forum friends i have made through the key board this year .
The M.E.saga will no doubt go on ,i understand loyalty ,however it was only a job ,all of us no matter where we went were pioneers for that trip at that time…once you had done one all the others were ,well …not so good were they…if you have your health now ,after being cooped up in any cab , yes i know,… no one made us do it . but we wanted it that way in the1970/80s…you have not done so bad .I have noticed the main contributors on this part of forum we all are about the same age 70s i do not know any of you ,however "i would be in a lifeboat with any of you"rgds VIC.DBP
deckboypeggy:
Yes i second all the best wishes for 2015 ,to all the new forum friends i have made through the key board this year .The M.E.saga will no doubt go on ,i understand loyalty ,however it was only a job ,all of us no matter where we went were pioneers for that trip at that time…once you had done one all the others were ,well …not so good were they…if you have your health now ,after being cooped up in any cab , yes i know,… no one made us do it . but we wanted it that way in the1970/80s…you have not done so bad .I have noticed the main contributors on this part of forum we all are about the same age 70s i do not know any of you ,however "i would be in a lifeboat with any of you"rgds VIC.DBP
Vic, …can I be Cox■■?
70 plus…
Sciatica, bad back, varicose veins, preclude me from rowing duties…,
But I still make a mean cup of Tea!!!
Good luck, health, and happiness for 2015,
Cheerio for now.
Jazzandy:
Sorry to disappoint you but Astran have operated as a forwarder only with no trucks of their own for many many years. Uwe Ploog bought the assets and then sold out to Seymour Transport of Maidsotne who have run the operation for the past ten years or so. Quite clearly you don’t know me so I won’t comment on your other points.But calm down. The only point being made was that Astran had the glamour but OHS was a far larger organisation.
There seems to be a lot of garbarge coming over on this thread.is anybody really
bothered may I ask?A few pages back I asked did anyone remember Billy Preston from darwen Boots ex OHS,Drakards.Bowker
from many years ago.Also many more .■■?
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL ON T/N.
GUESTY44
Which bit of that last post is garbage?
My worry is the over glorification and myths being created around Astran. Asian Transport and its drivers I have a lot of respect for, Astran which rose from the ashes once the creditors had NOT been paid I have not.