A question for those involved with historic/classic etc trucks.
Are the wheels and tyres typically tubed cross-plies on split rims?
Or are more modern (and surely safer) tubeless on solid wheels…accepted/tolerated or looked down on?
Hiya Oily. Yes, I think you’re right: it would have been the Beaver. I was thinking of the later tin-front Leyland with the wide grille like the Comet in the pic below. The forward-control Comet replaced the old normal-control Comet in 1956.
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Ah, Blue Circle, that explains the yellow. Thanks Oily.
My first Haulage job was for Hedley Shaw with a 4 wheeler Albion. I just missed meeting him because he was in hospital after setting himself on fire in the crew room at the back of the garage. He threw paraffin onto the fire to get it to go. 
But there was a Comet just like that parked up in the yard with the front stoved in, a write off, and the blokes who were there before me said he left it there to illustrate his philosophy. ‘I pay you to go, not stop. He stopped’.
I was never told what happened to the driver.
Reckon I got off lightly, the bloke in charge who set me on was much nicer. 
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A fine looking motor…but I can’t remember it, maybe I’d left Harrisons when it came on the scene (1963), it’s got our local HD reg.plate and the drawbar trailer pushing bar. No doubt it did daytime local shunting and nightly London trunk.
The push bar at the front is similar to what Jack Ashworth fitted to his motors
I know quite a bit about push bars, I once wrecked one on a Harrisons AEC Mk 3, I ran it into a wall, I was only a yoof, no licence, just moving the Mk 3 in the yard, nobody had told me about air pressure. 
On the plus side the wall was completely undamaged, the push bar somewhat less so. 
Ready for monday
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A bit before my time but an AEC Mammoth Major with a semi-auto box
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I used the box quite often on National Travel Leyland Leopard coaches (a bit of part time work 
). I though they were a great bit of kit.
In the early days a neighbour of mine (Les George) was involved in the development of the box.
The times that I used the box I never had a failure/fault with it.
I remember those boxes (think they were same) on Leyland National buses when I was a young kid travelling to college in 70s.
One like this…
I also had a mate who used to work in the production of them at Lillyhall as an autoelectrician
I always took notice of stuff like that as a lad, as I always knew I wanted to drive something big (misguided youth 
).
The ones on those buses had a much smaller gear lever, about 2’’ long, it fascinated me how the driver changed gear with so much ease, after watching them previously double declutch with older models.
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I knew buses/ coaches used the SCG box but it must have been rare in a lorry. I did many a leg on National Express Leopards back then (as a passenger that is) - Victoria, Bristol, Taunton, the air thick with diesel fumes and that particular noise that the air brakes Leopards made.
The SCG box was common on Bristol RE and VR types, I’m not sure about the National.
The only semi auto box I ever used was in an old double decker bus (it may have been an AEC if memory serves) that I only drove once. The gearlever was on the steering column and it had a clutch. Thank goodness the regular driver warned me of it’s lazy attitude. You’d move the lever to the next gear then press and release the clutch then wait for it to change when it decided to.
I did a bit of digging on the interwebs and it seems Mk1 Nationals were fitted with Leyland pneumocyclic boxes (you could also spec a ZF providing you had the money).
What you’re describing sounds like a pre-select gearchange, but I’m just guessing.
Cars rather than trucks here, but this seems like the right place for it.
“Rustival” a meeting of various older cars etc, but not just immaculate show stoppers. Older everyday drivers, customs, campers, works in progress, etc.
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So is that the one with the tiny gear lever?
I just used to find it fascinating (hey, I was young, impressionable, and easily pleased back then 
) that a big vehicle like that could change gear with zero effort, one finger in fact, in such an easy way, after watching other drivers struggle with crash boxes in the older buses…presumably ran from the 60s.