robert1952:
Did the examiner place one of those empty stiff matchboxes behind one of the wheels to ascertain that the vehicle was not permitted to run backwards a fraction when the handbrake was released, like they used to with bus drivers in the '50s? Robert
When I took my driving test in the army 52 years ago, it was a full packet of â â â â behind the wheel!
bestbooties:
robert1952:
Did the examiner place one of those empty stiff matchboxes behind one of the wheels to ascertain that the vehicle was not permitted to run backwards a fraction when the handbrake was released, like they used to with bus drivers in the '50s? RobertWhen I took my driving test in the army 52 years ago, it was a full packet of â â â â behind the wheel!
And Iâll bet they were your â â â â and not the examinerâs! Robert 
harry:
Re.Sav I went over with a Swiss reg Henchel wag and drag with two pallets that weighed one and a half ton. The limit for the load on Gothard Pass was two ton . The truck was an old rattle trap that had previously demolished a house in Portugal and been more or less repaired. When I reached the descent on the Tessin side itâs one of the few times I felt like abandoning ship. It was a rough track that just fell away into rocky hairpins . You were way above the clouds and could see the tiny roads in the valley below . I didnât have much confidence in the clapped out old truck but it made it. And I had to go back that way empty because at the time there was no tunnel.
A few years later I took an artic ( bl##dy Henchel) over fully freighted with Laser sailboats from UK ,about two about two and half ton and back empty.
The alternative was right round San Bernadino and I was going to Basel.
What was the drive-line in those Henchels? Iâve often wondered. Robert
mushroomman:
One for the Spanish regulars here.What or where about exactly was that long slow hill that I seem to remember was somewhere near Burgos. I was taking two Massey Fergusson tractors circa 1981 from Trafford Park down to La Coruna at the time and I could see a huge wooden bull billboard advertising brandy (I think it was) stuck on the top of the hill. It seemed to take hours to reach it, just one big, long, slow, straight climb dropping down to a lower gear every five minutes. I canât remember if I passed it on the way back as I had to load shoes in Porto for the reload but it was one of the longest and the slowest climbs that I can remember.
Regards Steve.
I just thought that I would bump this thread along as I was pretty sure that somebody would of seen a huge bull advertisement at the top of a very long hill on the way to La Coruna. Anyway after doing a bit of Googleing I think that this might be the one that I saw back in the eighties, did anybody else remember seeing it at it appears that there were a few of them around Spain which seemed to have been removed in 1994. 
andalucia.com/culture/osborne-bull.htm
Regards Steve.
The top of the line tractor or draw bar Henchel had a 10 or 12 litre non turbo engine, the 6x2 twin steer had air ride on both the rear steer and drive.
JeffâŚ
Cheers Jeff!
And hereâs another bull for Mushroomman, I took while driving throâ Spain.
Which reminds me: the climb up to Teruel in Spain from either side was steep. Robert 
I thought there was one of those bulls near Cadiz or Sevilla, might not have been as big as that one. Spain was always a blur whe you were doing fridges so I could be wrong.
Oh Sutton bank springs to mind as being quite steep. I had to do a delivery over that way one day and came back down it on the way out. I think there was a 7.5 ton restriction on it, but as I was delivering in the area I took a bit of creative license.
JeffâŚ
When I first started I can remember drivers talking about âReversingâ up steep hills when they couldnât get traction. Iâve never had to do it but has anyone done it or seen it done?
ChrisArbon:
When I first started I can remember drivers talking about âReversingâ up steep hills when they couldnât get traction. Iâve never had to do it but has anyone done it or seen it done?
Sounds like local lads,not many artic drivers would get in a fix like that.
aye guilty ! a ford D series 2014 tipper i was on running from Lockerbie up into the Borders upthrough boreland --eskdalemuir (twigglees where they run the car rallys) ran out of gears on one steep hill ,reversed down to the bottom and turned and reversed up to the top X2 on that run, nothing to do wi near 20tons on the back 
.
another time my drag was in for service and i had to take a leyland terrier to a chemical company in west â â â â â â â well what looked a short cut on the map (from the M6)was a frigging big hill/steep ,didnt get even half way up before she ran out o puffâŚturned her round and reversed up âŚseems the road was only suitable for cars only 
ChrisArbon:
When I first started I can remember drivers talking about âReversingâ up steep hills when they couldnât get traction. Iâve never had to do it but has anyone done it or seen it done?
Yes! But only in a car. When I was young and foolish I had a knackered old 1954 Morris Minor with the 803cc motor and the heavier bodywork. I used to reverse up the steep incline into the car park at college because it wouldnât go up in 1st gear fully laden with passengers. Nowadays that would never happen because car reverse gears have much higher ratios than they used to. Robert
There were a few collections in Italy maninly between Piacenza and Genova where we couldnât get round the hair pins with the bigger trailers so we had to go forward as far as we could and reverse up the next bit, then forward and reverse until we got to the top.
It was bad enough going up empty during the day, but you had to come back down loaded, and sometimes in the dark.
The local draw bars with rear steer trailers didnât have any problems at allâŚ
JeffâŚ
Jelliot:
There were a few collections in Italy maninly between Piacenza and Genova where we couldnât get round the hair pins with the bigger trailers so we had to go forward as far as we could and reverse up the next bit, then forward and reverse until we got to the top.
It was bad enough going up empty during the day, but you had to come back down loaded, and sometimes in the dark.
The local draw bars with rear steer trailers didnât have any problems at allâŚJeffâŚ
With that SCA FIAT I used to come out of the tunnel ,go up East India Dock Rd. In traffic, keep tight to the kerb and turn left into Island Row without taking it wide one inch. Blokes behind me couldnât believe it!
Nowadays when I have a few too many brandyâs the bloody staircase gets very steep, I can usually make it to the top in crawler
Carlc:
Nowadays when I have a few too many brandyâs the bloody staircase gets very steep, I can usually make it to the top in crawler
Robert
robert1952:
Cheers Jeff!And hereâs another bull for Mushroomman, I took while driving throâ Spain.
Which reminds me: the climb up to Teruel in Spain from either side was steep. Robert
10
plenty of those bulls still around. Iâm in Spain in June Iâll get some pics.
when I was doing just Spain, mid 90âs it was normally tip/reload Barcelona, or tip reload Madrid.
1 trip though, I had done a, shall we say, âlong dayâ and ended up empty near Tortosa. Sat around for about 2 hours and was instructed to go to Almussafes to reload onions.got there, and to my surprise was on a bay and loaded double quick, I remember having a freshen up at the factory at it was a particularly hot day.
phoned the yard, and they said it was my choice!!! But if I wanted theyâd got me on the following mornings boat home out of Bilbao, or I could drive home the long way.
rightly or wrongly, I picked Bilbao for obvious reasons. A quick scan of the map, and clearly Teruel was the way to go. It looked so nice on the map, and the first 20 mins up Teruel was great, nice shiny new twin track, magic. How quickly it changed, bear in mind I was in abit of a tired old daf 360 with no air-con, and even at night it was roasting!!! I vaguely remember there being lots of climbs, up , lots of hot sticky single wcarriageway national roads.
Sorry my memory is rubbish, but think I managed 4+ ish hours of driving and my break was due. Ended up in some 1 horse town, somewhere I think there or abouts near Zarragoza. I pulled over and grabbed approx 90 mins sleep as I was knackered. Work up to do my 2nd stint upto Santurtzi for the Bilbao boat home to see I was now parked between 3 guardia civil jeeps who were having coffee and tortilla in the 1 and only restaurant in town that was open 24/7.
I woke myself up, and as quietly as is possible in the circumstances crept out of town, constantly watching the mirrors for the distant glow of blue lights to come creeping up behind me, fortunately they didnât
I remember tbe 2nd half of that drive bring alot easier, and made the dock with half hour/an hour to spare.
was it worth it? Yes!!!
Would I do it again? No!
Been back to Teruel since, much improved 
Teruel was a dirt road the first time I went up it, of course it had been â â â â â â â down and my shiny white Volvo and fridge ended up looking like Iâd been to Tehran not Teruel 
My mate stuck his newish F16 Globetrotter and one of Ralphâs fridges over the side of a hill near Teruel. Thatâs what happenes when you load fish out of Aberdeen on Monday afternoon and try and get it to Alicante for early a.m.Thursday morning. He did a runner and never went back to Spain.
JeffâŚ
I used to do customs with Ralph every Monday morning in Bilbao. He had only one motor then and was loaded with fish. I had a Swiss fridge wag and drag.
All hills were nasty in a TK 6-legger. 
