I remember delivering Luis Gordon wines and spirits to this former Tesco RDC in Westbury in the 1970s and also to their HQ in Cheshunt which was vastly different to how it looks today. I can also recall that there were stories going around at the time about Sainsbury’s Hoddesden being very fussy about lorries leaking oil onto their floor.
Te company I worked for also regularly delivered to Colwall, but having never gone there myself who it was escapes me.
Any other recollections about these long gone RDCs ?
in the 80’s delivering to a storage company called a.i.d ■■ with good’s for asda. it was on the site that is now magna park. you actually drove down the runway to get to it. not a massive place as i remember it but it was a good tip with a nice canteen attached to it.
I remember delivering Luis Gordon wines and spirits to this former Tesco RDC in Westbury in the 1970s and also to their HQ in Cheshunt which was vastly different to how it looks today. I can also recall that there were stories going around at the time about Sainsbury’s Hoddesden being very fussy about lorries leaking oil onto their floor.
Te company I worked for also regularly delivered to Colwall, but having never gone there myself who it was escapes me.
Any other recollections about these long gone RDCs ?
We used to deliver 24 pallet loads of beer into Sainsbugs Hoddesden in the '70s. Waiting times were criminal; it was rumoured that lorries entered there and were never seen again. But then, Sainsbugs Basingstoke was ten times worse!!!
I remember delivering Luis Gordon wines and spirits to this former Tesco RDC in Westbury in the 1970s and also to their HQ in Cheshunt which was vastly different to how it looks today. I can also recall that there were stories going around at the time about Sainsbury’s Hoddesden being very fussy about lorries leaking oil onto their floor.
Te company I worked for also regularly delivered to Colwall, but having never gone there myself who it was escapes me.
Any other recollections about these long gone RDCs ?
We used to deliver 24 pallet loads of beer into Sainsbugs Hoddesden in the '70s. Waiting times were criminal; it was rumoured that lorries entered there and were never seen again. But then, Sainsbugs Basingstoke was ten times worse!!!
Steve
Yes! Sainsburys Hoddesden was a bit of nightmare into the mid-'80s. The loading bays were designed for an earlier generation of lorries and the reverse in was very tight with support pillars in the most awkward places. During '83/'84 the weight limit went up to 38-tonnes and the trailer length went from 12m to 13.6m. Operators were putting tag-axles on old units for the extra weight which put a lot of artics over length. Trying to get a 13.6m trailer in there was bad enough but if you had a tag-axle unit on the front you were in trouble. The new premises opened shortly afterwards IIRC! Robert
I would like to add SPD at Rotherham to the list, I did a delivery or should say TRIED to do a delivery that took TWO days once.
I got there around 0700 and was still in the queue at 1600 so I rang the boss and told him I was coming back to the yard to which oath’s were uttered. He wasn’t going to pay for a night out so I was wasn’t stopping so turned up next day and eventually got tipped.
cav551:
I can also recall that there were stories going around at the time about Sainsbury’s Hoddesden being very fussy about lorries leaking oil onto their floor.
And yet Sainsbury’s ran Gardner-engined Atkinsons on their own fleet…
ERF-NGC-European:
Yes! Sainsburys Hoddesden was a bit of nightmare into the mid-'80s. The loading bays were designed for an earlier generation of lorries and the reverse in was very tight with support pillars in the most awkward places. During '83/'84 the weight limit went up to 38-tonnes and the trailer length went from 12m to 13.6m. Operators were putting tag-axles on old units for the extra weight which put a lot of artics over length. Trying to get a 13.6m trailer in there was bad enough but if you had a tag-axle unit on the front you were in trouble. The new premises opened shortly afterwards IIRC! Robert
BOC/Gist (Gits) M&S depot at Thatcham was still like that when I worked there briefly in 2010, and I strongly suspect it still is. Great fun with their 13.6m close-coupled
tandems, with an evil rear swing.
240 Gardner:
BOC/Gist (Gits) M&S depot at Thatcham was still like that when I worked there briefly in 2010, and I strongly suspect it still is. Great fun with their 13.6m close-coupled
tandems, with an evil rear swing.
This is the current Google Earth photo of Gits at Thatcham: it must have been taken in the morning when most of the fleet was out. I worked an afternoon/late shift for a while, when most of the fleet was in. Just to compound things, units and trailers were largely left on the bays coupled up, and you would swap complete outfits during a shift, rather than dropping trailers.
The end bay in the red circle could be accessed only by going around the end of the building, then screwing the trailer around backwards through 180 degrees, but without clouting the unit on the adjacent bay, and avoiding the vehicles parked opposite the bays and into the bottom left hand corner.
The parking slots on the left hand around the corner were on the angle, but still a blind side reverse into a tight spot
The “toast rack” in the green circle was even more entertaining: tight, short little bays, with a building directly opposite. To exit from one of those bays, you had to go right up to the building and then turn very sharply, at which point the rear swing on the blind side would just miss the adjacent tractor. To reverse the process was something of a challenge, and which I failed on one occasion
I must admit, most of the drivers working there, and certainly the yard shunters, were pretty damned good at getting trailers where they needed to be
Wincanton had some close coupled 26 pallet tandem Schmitz sheds like the one in my photo.We had one or two “incidents” of vehicles getting clattered when drivers screwed those tandem abortions a bit tight.We had DL772 and DL773 at Maltby and also a couple more older 26 pallet sheds with underslung tail lifts that had never been used since Roman times.I’m glad I was shunting full time,I would have been ashamed to take some of the trailers we had ont road,but things did get better…
Colwall was a Tesco Fruit and Veg, in an old farm up a single track lane and Rats galore. Dates from the same era as their depots at Hainault and Romsey. superseded by Rainham, Corby, Aztec West etc. all pre the big RDCs’ In those days a couple of forklifts and plenty of banter and all mucked in to get away quicker as first come, first tipped. All gone now, Progress means that you are now held prisoner in a windowless waiting room with no idea of what is happening.
I remember delivering Luis Gordon wines and spirits to this former Tesco RDC in Westbury in the 1970s and also to their HQ in Cheshunt which was vastly different to how it looks today. I can also recall that there were stories going around at the time about Sainsbury’s Hoddesden being very fussy about lorries leaking oil onto their floor.
Te company I worked for also regularly delivered to Colwall, but having never gone there myself who it was escapes me.
Any other recollections about these long gone RDCs ?
We used to deliver 24 pallet loads of beer into Sainsbugs Hoddesden in the '70s. Waiting times were criminal; it was rumoured that lorries entered there and were never seen again. But then, Sainsbugs Basingstoke was ten times worse!!!
Steve
That’s an understatement, Argos at Whitwood they were a disgrace. Some of the big RDC’s could make Liverpool dockers look like amateurs.
