Simon international

UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUMS OLD TIME LORRIES, COMPANIES AND DRIVERS (INTERACT
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rondavies:

bestbooties:
When I had a Transcon on Brit European,having heard that some drivers had had problems at the Saudi border,my firm had the “Make” of truck on the triptych as a “Transcontinental”.
When I got to the border,the guy checking my triptychs asked what this truck was,a Transcontinental,as he’d never heard of it before.
As many times as I tried to explain it,he was not happy.In the end,he said,“Where’s your truck?”,I said ,“Just outside”.
He took a look outside and said,“Oh it’s a Ford,why didn’t you say so!”.No problem,straight in!.

Wow! You had air con? Sheer luxury!! :slight_smile: :slight_smile:
Waiting to load hazelnuts in Giresun

When Ron Carman bought the pair of Transcons,he had started to listen to the drivers a bit and took note of the extremes of temperature we had to contend with,so these were the first motors on Brit European with air con and night heaters,oh boy were we spoiled.(Dave Prosser from the Trowbridge depot had the other one).
These had the 270 ■■■■■■■ in but were nontheless flying machines.
The only problem with the air con being retro fitted,with the soft cab suspension,the pipes kept rubbing through and losing the gas.
I once loaded hazel nuts from Giresun when I was on Brit European,I didn’t know who we subbed the load off,we didn’t know of Taci Kocman on Brits then,and I was there for a week awaiting clearance before I could get loaded.
(The dirty front wheel was caused by the plastic plug popping out of the front wheel hubcap,allowing the oil to run out).

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Remember Davies Turner’s compound in Tehran? I know I stayed in it once or twice. If you had a Davies Turner load you could stay there free. I had to pay but my memory is letting me down somewhat. I know it had toilets and shower facilities and I seem to remember a restaurant. Was there a swimming pool? I recall being parked up besides a White Trux motor there and paying the driver to let me sit in his cab for twenty minutes as he had air conditioning.

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Wheel Nut, I may as well get hung for a sheep as a lamb if Jeffrey should ever join this site and read my posts! :laughing: :laughing:

Here’s another result of his heavy load ideas. A stepframe which we all know is designed for bulk loads rather than weight and this double blowout occured on the way out in Austria. I think I spent more time changing tyres on this trip than soft mick!!

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rondavies:
Wheel Nut, I may as well get hung for a sheep as a lamb if Jeffrey should ever join this site and read my posts! :laughing: :laughing:

Here’s another result of his heavy load ideas. A stepframe which we all know is designed for bulk loads rather than weight and this double blowout occured on the way out in Austria. I think I spent more time changing tyres on this trip than soft mick!!

Yes, that does look like a “ahem” profitable load :stuck_out_tongue: Those bloody supercubes with little tyres were a menace and I had 3 axles by the time I went very far.

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Whilst I was with Simons I did two trips down to Bandar Abbas taking equipment to Wimpeys who were involved in building a dry dock for the Iranian Navy.

The first trip I had my Swedish girlfriend, Annie with me and with the heat and humidity in the gulf I booked us into a hotel whilst we were there.

View from hotel room Bandar Abbas

You could see all the ships on the horizon waiting to get to the docks to unload which is, of course, the reason why all the trucks were delivering goods overland in those days.

So when I did my second trip to Bandar Abbas (on my own this time) I knew what the humidity would be like and stopped overnight up in the hills before driving down to my destination. I got up the next morning and noticed that there was an Iranian truck parked near me on the side of the road. It was a long nosed merc with it’s bonnet up. I wandered over to see what the problem was and could see that the fanbelt had broken. I checked in my spares box but didn’t have a belt that fitted. So I said to the driver (as my command of Farsi is zero, it was more sign language) that he could jump into my cab and I’ll take him to the next village so that he could arrange for some help.

When he got into my cab he patted the engine cover and I went 'brrrrm, brrrrm, motor. Then he pointed to my bed and I gestured with two hands to the side of my face, sleep, sleep. I then started the engine and as I was waiting for the air to build up he got out of the passenger seat, reached across and tapped my todger with the back of his hand. Ugh? Then the penny dropped and I realised that what he had meant was, are we going to have ■■■ over the engine cover or on the bed? I hit the roof and was shouting at him to get out. He looked most surprised at my actions …probably thought I was playing hard to get as it was me who had invited him into the cab in the first place.

I jumped out the cab went round to the passenger side and dragged him out!

My mates have had a few laughs over that. Saying that having started the day with a broken fanbelt which was a bit of a ‘bummer’ (pun intended) all was not lost. In fact things were looking up as this European bloke with long blondish hair had just invited him in to his cab for a roggering!

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No one has come back to me regarding the Davies Turner compound. I recall it being a bit of an oasis but please refresh my memory regarding it’s facilities. Did it have a swimming pool or is the old grey matter just getting scrambled??

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rondavies:
No one has come back to me regarding the Davies Turner compound. I recall it being a bit of an oasis but please refresh my memory regarding it’s facilities. Did it have a swimming pool or is the old grey matter just getting scrambled??

Hi Ron the swimming pool was in the restaurant/ camp site that was run by Koreans on the road just as you turned into d/t’s compound this was the main road to Afghan. Incidently when I went back after the revolution I thought I would try to park there as it was a bit grim in Teheran sure enough it was still there but it took a bit of persuasion for them to let me in as no trucks had been to Iran for so long any way we were having a chat over a cup of tea and they were telling me how bad everything was ,I asked what had happened to the restaurant to which they said the Revolutionary Guard turned up one day took over the place shot the Koreans and threw the bodies in the swimming pool, happy days Regards Biffo

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biffo:

rondavies:
No one has come back to me regarding the Davies Turner compound. I recall it being a bit of an oasis but please refresh my memory regarding it’s facilities. Did it have a swimming pool or is the old grey matter just getting scrambled??

Hi Ron the swimming pool was in the restaurant/ camp site that was run by Koreans on the road just as you turned into d/t’s compound this was the main road to Afghan. Incidently when I went back after the revolution I thought I would try to park there as it was a bit grim in Teheran sure enough it was still there but it took a bit of persuasion for them to let me in as no trucks had been to Iran for so long any way we were having a chat over a cup of tea and they were telling me how bad everything was ,I asked what had happened to the restaurant to which they said the Revolutionary Guard turned up one day took over the place shot the Koreans and threw the bodies in the swimming pool, happy days Regards Biffo

Wow! Thanks for that info Biffo.

i believe things got bad for a lot of folk out there around that time. I’ve sometimes wondered what happened to the guys who were our agents out there (Teen Transport).

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Have read that the boys turned right at Ankara and the men went stright on. Not so sure that that was absolutely true. Mind you going to Iran in the winter wasn’t all fun!!

I remember during the winter of 75/76 I got caught in a blizzard on Imramli. There were a few of us Brits travelling together and we all chained up at the bottom of the hill with just one set of chains each on the drive axle, diff lock engaged and up we went. I was in the lead and having reached the summit, I started to decend but quickly realised that it was too dangerous and steered into the side of the road about a hundred yards or so down the other side. I applied parking brake, jumped out of the cab and started to run back up to the top to warn the others to pull over. The next driver had just started to decend when he saw me in the middle of the road waving my arms frantically for him to pull over. He braked and his trailer started to slide sideways. He came off the brakes and the trailer straightened up. He repeated the procedure and the same happened again. By now he is almost as far down as to where I was parked. He panics and this time keeps his foot on the brake and his trailer jackknifes and in what seemed to be like slow motion, hits the back of my trailer. This brings him to a halt but by this time my trailer brakes have released (why does this happen, perhaps you experts can tell me?)and it’s only the drive axle which the parking brake is holding and my vehicle is set into motion and starts sliding forwards down the hill. I ran down to the cab and swung open the door and thrust my hand down onto the brake pedal applying all brakes which luckily brought my truck to a stop. (good job it was a left ■■■■■■!). Phew!! I could have lost the lot there over the side of the mountain!

It was really bad weather and we were on top of that mountain for the next two nights.

During that time, to top it all, I lost my keys between my truck and the one behind me. I never did find them and I ended up taking the back window out of my cab (yeah, this Scania had a window in the back of the cab) and getting in that way. I had to smash the steering lock off and for the rest of that particular trip had to start the engine by touching the two wires together.

Eventually the weather broke and we decided to pool our chains. I got my tractor and trailer chained up and with one of the other drivers in my cab(to make sure I didn’t do a runner :laughing: :laughing: ) we set off down the mountain. We unchained my trailer, dropped it on the side of the road and went back up to get the next one down.

This photo was taken on my second trip down the hill with just tractor unit.

We all got down safely and my next thoughts were what Tahir was going to be like. I can’t remember if this was one of the trips that I managed to go round on the ‘military road’…possibly so.

I managed to avoid Tahir by going round on the ‘military road’ at night successfully on two occasions. And there was one occasion when I got turned back. Just as a matter of interest, did any of you others do the military road?

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Excellent story and pics from back in the day Ron, keep em coming.

Its great to see how it was back then, especially as people are running new DAF 105`s down there now!!! :open_mouth: :open_mouth: :wink:

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Glad you like the stories and pics, Bullitt. Trouble is, they’re all true! Well, you couldn’t make this sh*t up really, could you?

I remember one trip to Iran. They said in the office that I wouldn’t get held up waiting to clear the load in Tehran this time as it was a load directly connected to the Shah. Of course, it didn’t work out like that. It was a load consisting of a marquee and all the framework , a floating buoy, furniture, fitted carpets etc. for one of the Shah’s summer palaces on the Caspian Sea. All this for just one afternoon’s party!! It was already loaded when I got to the yard and before they laced the trailer up they had to weld some new “D” hooks on the sides.

Had to clear at the Old Customs in Tehran and because the address had the name “Pahlavi” in it (Shah’s family name), officials didn’t want to put their stamps on it, for fear of doing anything wrong and apparently kept passing it up the chain to higher officials. I was told that the final stamp/signature was obtained from some high official who was just about to board a plane for France. Cannot verify the validity of that but it is what I was told by my agent.

I arrived at this place up on the Caspian Sea. It’s the only lush part of Iran I had ever seen. There was a hotel and casino in the confines of this complex. The croupiers were all Brits. My girlfriend Annie was with me and we were put up in a very smart room in the hotel but I was told that I couldn’t go into the casino as I didn’t have the appropiate clothes to wear.

When they came to the offloading, the rolled up carpet had bloomin’ great burn holes in it. Obviously it was up against the sideboards and done when they were welding the “D” hooks on back in Simon’s yard. :astonished: :open_mouth: I don’t know what the final outcome was. It wasn’t like they could just send for a replacement. Maybe they substituted a persian carpet :laughing: :laughing:

Couple more pics but not related to the above story.

My old Scania registration number PVW 529 M in Southern Turkey

Winter Wonderland Eastern Turkey

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Are there any stories about Simon International that do not include welding rods :laughing:

Keep them coming rondavies. I look forward to all your threads.

Great pictures too

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Wheel Nut:
Are there any stories about Simon International that do not include welding rods :laughing:
Great pictures too

What ever can you mean?(Snigger)

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Wheel Nut:
Are there any stories about Simon International that do not include welding rods :laughing:

Keep them coming rondavies. I look forward to all your threads.

Great pictures too

Ooh !!! Very uncalled for, Wheel Nut :laughing: :laughing: :laughing:

Before I was going to relate this next little saga I wanted to verify with Mike Sargent that it wasn’t him driving the roadtrain in the story as he used to drive one of them on Simons. He informs me that it wasn’t. It’s a shame that he doesn’t post on this site as he has just emailed me a story worthy of inclusion. By the way, for those that might remember him, he is currently living and working up in Lappland, Sweden.

Ok, returning empty back from m/e driving up to Austria to get a backload, travelling along the autoput between Belgrade and Zagreb. Driving under one of the bridges, I felt a “twitch”. Looked in my rearview mirror to see total devastation!! There were boards and debris all over the place. I anchored up and jumped out of the cab to see that the top half of the trailer had vanished! Another Brit who was following was able to brake just before the bridge. He ran up and we just looked at each other in amazement. We knew that the bridges on that road were high enough to allow a standard tilt trailer to pass under. What the hell had happened? On investigation we could see that a reinforcing rod from the bridge had been pulled out. It was still attached to the bridge at both ends and we could only surmise that a high load of some description had passed under the bridge before me and had caught the bridge gouging out a bit of the concrete and pulling a bit of reinforcing rod out which the top leading corner of my trailer had caught. It was pulled out a lot more now!!

I reversed back up to the bridge and we both started to throw my boards and bits of tilt canvas etc. onto the back of my trailer. The upright bars at the back were bent over like two gigantic bananas. Anyway,the other driver said that I ought to get going before the police arrive as they will blame me for damaging their bridge. So with that, off we sped.

On the winding road leading up to the border at Spielfeld I noticed a pile of what looked like bales of cotton in the ditch on one of the bends. When I reached the border on the Yugo side still, I spotted one of Simon’s road trains parked up with most of the right side missing from the drawbar trailer. I went and found the driver (can’t remember who it was now but NOT Mike Sargent) and he said that he was waiting for my arrival as he had tipped the drawbar trailer over on one of the bends back down the road and we were to load the bales of cotton into my trailer. “You better come and have a look at my trailer first” I said. Well, when he saw the state of it , he just collapsed in laughter. “Bloody hell, we better get on the phone to Jeffrey.Theres a team on it’s way out consisting of Jim Hayley (out of the office), Harry Johnson and a couple of others to get this load out of the ditch and into your trailer”. I said “not so much into it but onto it”. And that’s what eventually happened. It was good weather at the time and it turned out a right laugh with us all manhandling these bales of cotton ONTO my trailer. The running gear and floor were all OK. It was just that it didn’t have a roof any longer!

Jeffrey was never really convinced that I hadn’t hit a low bridge but he allowed me to keep my kneecaps intact! I don’t know why I didn’t take any photos at the time.

Just one photo this time taken in Turkey. Hardly needs any introduction as we all had to go up it on the way to Ankara. I always thought it looked very picturesque at the time of year when the Rhododendrons were in bloom.

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Yes keep them coming rondavies, tell us what you know about Black John, I fist met him in Saudi in 78, either before he got locked up for breaking into the supermarket or just after, cannot be sure of the timing. Jeff was also in Saudi at that time with Fred Topham. I also remember when John flipped the hanger going down Damascus hill, delivered Baghdad and got a clean CMR…You must know some funnies in detail about him, keep them coming :slight_smile:

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rondavies:
When they came to the offloading, the rolled up carpet had bloomin’ great burn holes in it. Obviously it was up against the sideboards and done when they were welding the “D” hooks on back in Simon’s yard. :astonished: :open_mouth:

absolutely priceless - the story, not the rug, hopefully :laughing: :laughing: :laughing:

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Reddesertfox:
Yes keep them coming rondavies, tell us what you know about Black John, I fist met him in Saudi in 78, either before he got locked up for breaking into the supermarket or just after, cannot be sure of the timing. Jeff was also in Saudi at that time with Fred Topham. I also remember when John flipped the hanger going down Damascus hill, delivered Baghdad and got a clean CMR…You must know some funnies in detail about him, keep them coming :slight_smile:

I’m sorry to have to disappoint you but I don’t have any stories about Black John as I’m pretty sure he started on Simons after I had left which was in December, 76.

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One little trick springs to mind that my mate Alvin taught me at the time. He showed me how to buy blackmarket ‘leva’ in Istanbul and then when you got to Bulgaria, not to purchase the fuel coupons that were for sale at the border but to buy the coupons at the kiosks within the country with leva. This way you were paying the price for fuel that the ‘locals’ were paying. Worked out a lot cheaper. Anyone else do that? I’m sure we weren’t the only ones.

Talking of Bulgaria, here’s a couple of photos that will bring back memories for a lot of you

Queueing to enter Turkey

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rondavies:
One little trick springs to mind that my mate Alvin taught me at the time. He showed me how to buy blackmarket ‘leva’ in Istanbul and then when you got to Bulgaria, not to purchase the fuel coupons that were for sale at the border but to buy the coupons at the kiosks within the country with leva. This way you were paying the price for fuel that the ‘locals’ were paying. Worked out a lot cheaper. Anyone else do that? I’m sure we weren’t the only ones.

Talking of Bulgaria, here’s a couple of photos that will bring back memories for a lot of you

Queueing to enter Turkey

I remember that queue,with those wallnut trees on either side of the road.

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rondavies:

Could that white frame hanging between the axles of that ‘spread axle’ tilt be to support the ‘toilet seat’ by any chance?? :laughing:

Ross. :wink: