Hi Robert! Some verry good pics there,what were they hauling down to Baku?
Dirty Dan:
Hi Robert! Some verry good pics there,what were they hauling down to Baku?
Ahem! The answer to your question is yet another of those ‘coals to Newcastle’ tales. An Aberdeen company had patented the simple idea of roping small concrete blocks together to form mats for holding down oil pipes in the Caspian Sea off Baku. Result: hundreds of 20-tonne mats came out of Scotland that could have been just as easily made on location in Baku. The Caspian Sea was so polluted that it was a bright, lurid emerald greeny turquoise colour when we went down there. Georgia had been totally trashed by the Russians when they left and the roads were murder, the towns half-demolished - especially Batumi in the south - and dead tanks stood along the roadsides. As I understood it the patents for the Scottish mats were about to run out, and I think the Azerbaijan ran out along with the patent! My mind is rusty on this issue but if anyone can find my LDD there’s more detail in there. Robert 
robert1952:
Jelliot:
Lucky old you, those fridge driver seem to be a sociable mob. I woke up at Campo Galliano one Sunday morning totally surrounded by them.It never really bothered me when I was pulling a fridge though.
Jeff…
I was parked up at Wilsdruff services near Dresden once, next to a Dutch driver who had been driving fridges for so long that he couldn’t sleep without the noise, so he made a cassette recording of a Thermoking blasting away to lull him to sleep on slack nights! I kid you not. Robert
0
Great addition to the thread Robert and Danne, I was starting to feel a bit lonely…
I was with my fridge one night near Adana parked next to 3 others and in the middle of the night I could hear a loud snoring noise so I went to have a look, to find it was coming from a Dutch Scania that was parked on the other side of all the fridges.
When I last came to Australia I once again met up with Bruce Honeywill who at the time as the editor for Truckin’ life. He asked me if I would like to do a few European/ Asian stories for the mag so I got stuck into it and delivered a very short version of what will soon be part of my series of books.
He phoned me up and told me how fantastic it was, and how much he had enjoyed reading it and looking at the photos but wouldn’t be able to print any of it as no one would believe it was real.
Jeff…
Jelliot:
robert1952:
Jelliot:
Lucky old you, those fridge driver seem to be a sociable mob. I woke up at Campo Galliano one Sunday morning totally surrounded by them.It never really bothered me when I was pulling a fridge though.
Jeff…
I was parked up at Wilsdruff services near Dresden once, next to a Dutch driver who had been driving fridges for so long that he couldn’t sleep without the noise, so he made a cassette recording of a Thermoking blasting away to lull him to sleep on slack nights! I kid you not. Robert
0
Great addition to the thread Robert and Danne, I was starting to feel a bit lonely…
I was with my fridge one night near Adana parked next to 3 others and in the middle of the night I could hear a loud snoring noise so I went to have a look, to find it was coming from a Dutch Scania that was parked on the other side of all the fridges.
When I last came to Australia I once again met up with Bruce Honeywill who at the time as the editor for Truckin’ life. He asked me if I would like to do a few European/ Asian stories for the mag so I got stuck into it and delivered a very short version of what will soon be part of my series of books.
He phoned me up and told me how fantastic it was, and how much he had enjoyed reading it and looking at the photos but wouldn’t be able to print any of it as no one would believe it was real.Jeff…
I had the same trouble, Jeff. I wrote a book called ‘Lorrying’, and the publishers said the same as yours; so I dismantled the book and used some of it for magazine articles. LOL Robert )
Concrete and ropes thats amazing 
But it created some really good hauling work! Still i would love to done work like that!
I have my own thread in the photosforum feel free to have a look of what i have done and are doning
Reg Danne
my dad has got truck,truck and driver,trucking magazines going back about 40 yrs hes never missed a issue,im gunna have a look at the old ldd in truck magazine ive not seen them for years ,ive enjoyed reading and looking at the photos on here
I really like to read those old LLDs,are they possible to buy somwere?
Reg Danne
I love reading the LDD’s too, its a pity there aint a book with them all in, as I think it would be a good seller, I for 1 would have a copy.
thank you Robert for your contributions to many a fascinating read.
cheers
gaz
tetragaz:
I love reading the LDD’s too, its a pity there aint a book with them all in, as I think it would be a good seller, I for 1 would have a copy.thank you Robert for your contributions to many a fascinating read.
cheers
gaz
Cheers mate! The Azerbaijan trip LDD came out at the end of 1997 so it would be easy to find. Mine are in storage in Blighty so I can’t look myself. Robert:)
Hi! Loving the book idea Tetragaz!
Well as some of you know im Swedish and i dont evan know what magasin they were in so i dont know were to start looking…
Reg Danne
I remember in the late 80’s early 90’s there was an LDD about a guy going to Kaz in a Magnum I would love to have a read of that. I have conflicting thoughts about it and have a feeling it might have been my old mate Simon Sargent, but I don’t think he got that far. Any one else remember the story.
Jeff
Hi jeff! There is an threde about a guy called asia Tom and he had a magnum and went werry far east!
I do a litle bump for you;-)
Reg Danne
Hi,the Kiwi guy who worked for Patrick was either Hamish or Adam.I replaced Hamish in early 98 & worked for Patrick til 2004.Robert & Danny Cantrall were both top blokes.I remember reading an article in the trucking mag about that trip to Baku.Willie Lambie had a good crew on for him as well,good times.
Rarby:
Hi,the Kiwi guy who worked for Patrick was either Hamish or Adam.I replaced Hamish in early 98 & worked for Patrick til 2004.Robert & Danny Cantrall were both top blokes.I remember reading an article in the trucking mag about that trip to Baku.Willie Lambie had a good crew on for him as well,good times.
That’s right! It was Hamish. He was only about 23. When the Azeri guards took my camera away from me at the Georgian-Azeri border, Hamish sneaked into their office, re-captured the camera and hid it under his bunk for me. He was quite handy with the spanners too, I remember. Robert
Jelliot:
My Russian’s a bit rusty but I’m pretty sure it says Orta Ocey Trans,and the smaller writing is Uzbekistan Republic, Tashkent, phone,fax, and telex so he was pretty local. And if I remember it was an ex Peekes of Warsaw wide cab SK Merc at the front. Top bloke driving it as he made us a fantastic Shaslik thing with goat cheeze, which he was very happy to swap for half a bag of fresh tomatoes and lettuce.Jeff…
Hi jeff,the fridge van in your photo is very similar to a fleet that was based in Tashkent, when we were running to Zarafshan gold mine. The difference being that they had Central Asian transport written on them as well as in Cyrillic. They must have had about ten of them although quite a few were badly smashed up in various places. I read on another thread that the Merc’s had been assembled from knock down units somewhere in central asia. some of us were in tashkent for twelve day’s waiting to clear export customs on one trip and we could see several trucks in central asian transports yard. The story going about at the time was that they had lost the right to use TIR carnets and were unable to continue international work. So maybe this was the reason for the change of name. but you must admit it is a very distinctive logo with the leopard. regards jamie.
Hi Jamie if remember right 68 was the phone, fax code for Tashkent anyway, so they might have been changing things at that time. I remember a lot of Muslim Turks getting about as well, they didn’t seem to have as much trouble getting places as Western Europeans. They used to come up from Iran and use the old silk routes. We used them on occasion if there was to much work for our permit location, Helen and Tuna ring a bell, and I have a feeling they were connected somehow. If I remember they were all red with big white sign writing on both the trucks trailers. I didn’t see many Wily Betz, only the odd couple here and there, mainly south or east, west of Moscow, but none down towards Kaz. Rynart Trading ( the ones with peacock green and red graphics ) were quite a common site but must of them were Polish and Czech subbies.
I was running containers to and from the Devonport docks last weekend and saw a mustard yellow FH with a red oxide chassis and my first thought was that it must be ex Peekes of Warsaw, pretty unlikely, but old habits die hard.
Were you running with Dave Mackie, Colin, Gilders, Nick Bull etc, or working at the mine?
Jeff…
Cracking reads on here.
I started going away 94/95 as a lad of 24
I used to think I was king of the road, and that madrid and barcelona were a long way, how wrong I was.
It was a good crack though, used to be so many uk trucks at it back then and apart from the odd billy ■■■■■■■■ merchant most of the lads were great. People would stop and help each other out, and I’ve had some great weekends in the usual places, victors, freds, and nules that were all popular back then. We just did groupage up and down, hard graft at times but mostly fun with the odd ‘longer’ day thrown in. Our boss tried to keep making it pay in general, but threw in the towel in the end when it just didn’t pay anymore.
didn’t go to spain for a few years, and then landed a job going all over the place, and was shocked to see how much, and how quickly things had changed in spain.
I used to double man with my cousin in the 90s doing spain and italy,i used to love having the the weekend in barcelona spending the day on the beach then getting changed and spending the night up ramblers,until one night my cousin got pickpocketed in a club then when we to the lorry the window had been smashed,luckely nothing had been taken ,but after that we never ventured too far away from the lorry .
Where did you leave it?
harry:
Where did you leave it?
Just up from the beach on some waste ground u/o ,parked there loads of times never had a problem it was in the open,after that we used to stop in the beach bar nearby or if we fancied a walk take it in turns which suited me as it gave me a bit of a break from me cousin and he was addicted to goin in clubs,he even went with midget once who must have been in her 70s ,propper pervert