Leeming Bar 2022.
Oily
Just noticed this pic of an EC with a caisse mobile on the skelly trailer.
Although caisse mobile (containers disguised as trailer bodies!) were more commonplace in box form, and more rarely as fridges or curtainsiders, tilt bodied ones were less usual.
And it reminded me of the Spanish caisse mobiles operated by Inter-Via I used to pick up from Dover West on dock traction in the 'eighties. Pic of one below when I broke down on Jubilee Way one snowy January day.
ERF-NGC
My first lorry after passing my test it was in Cannons colours then but I don’t have any pictures of it just this one after we sold it.Found this on the net somewhere so thanks to whoever took it
Must have been bit of a rare sight, a G88? Cancelled export order maybe?
I missed it was a G not an F well noticed. Looks like a RHD? So not Swiss unless the drive side was changed? But pure guesses.
Yup, most deffo RHD after zooming in to the max. mate. But when did the G-series came out? As this looks to be the most earliest version of that cab, because the windshield wipers are mounted at the top of the windshield?
Yes, I too noticed immediately that it was a G88 but didn’t think anything of it. As it is RHD it’s quite possible that it wasn’t a cancelled order at all. As you say it’s an early G88 and may just have been specified by the UK buyer. On the other hand, it is a 1972 registered draw-bar outfit, which is pretty unusual in itself for UK. So perhaps it was after all a cancelled order, but not a Swiss order but an Italian order; for the Italians, like the Swiss, used RHD wagons in the mountains for precise visibility on the precipices.
You and me both!!!
Had to put 20 characters in.
Were the earlier top mounted wipers air operated? I have a vague memory they were.
The later F88s with the lower wipers had two separate wiper motors, so the two blades operated out of sync.
@les_sylphides
Also the trailer looks to have have landing legs, so it is a semi-trailer with a dolly axle.
Good for transiting Swiss once upon a time I believe, and running heavy in Europe but lighter in the UK
Looked up “Treecrest” transport Ltd and apparently the one I found operated from Carluke near Stirling and was dissolved in 2020, Buzzer
If it was a cancelled order I wonder if the UK buyer got a good deal on it.
Can someone remind me how a G88 is different to an F88?
The axle on a G88 is set further froward.
F88 steps in front of the wheels, G88 behind.
Also there were special narrower trucks built for the Swiss market. The cabs on those are missing the “sticky out” wheel arches. I`ll look for a piccie
Edit link to piccie and explantion of Swiss CH 230
You make a couple of interesting points there. I drove an early F88 with top-mounted wipers and yes, they were either air or vacuum operated; and rather like the ones on '50s Ford Prefects, they went slower as you picked up speed - awful!
As you say, the trailer is semi with a dolly and as Swiss had a 28-tonne limit IIRC, the trailer could have been dropped off at the border and shunted to its destination by a local tractive unit. All sounds a bit of a palava, but this kind of thing was commonplace. Even as late as the early 2000s I remember transhipping half my load onto a local wagon to keep within the limit.
ERF-NGC
Thanks for that, but it could have done with a a foot ring on the wheel as the body weight would have been thrown forward I reckon, unlike with the Magnums where you climbed squarely behind the door with 2 hand rails for support.
BTW pretty sure I had a Mk.1 Atki with those air wipers, independant of each other, but in my case there was a little lever attached on the inside, so it could be operated manually. Not the best use of the left arm I remember thinking.
I had a few Aki Borderers at times. They were up to the start of the steel cabbed Sed-Atkis. All had air wipers. A bit of fiddling could get them either slow or not quite so slow.
Pretty sure the Mk.2s I drove did not have them.
I also had a 1939 Packard 8 and it was a real shock in my first rainstorm. Couldn’t see a thing.
When I said Packard 8, that was the model, by the time I bought it the previous owner had swapped the straight 8 for a Perkins P6. Much cheaper, but it did make a monkey out of the weird gearbox.