The bad old day,s of T/A are worth remembering ,The heat will still be the same , or may be a little higher ? The smells of the dead animals ,the flies and Mozzies ,must be better now ? And hopefully more healthy, Jona,s photos of Trans Arabia workshops , looks first class the trucking and the equipment looks under worked , unlike the outfit that I remember , It was run with no limit. The Brit pioneers helped make Trans Arabia the most exciting trucking comp in Saudi , due to the heavy loads ,and breakdowns that I personally attended to , I can still feel the heat & smell of burning 140 oil ,in the hub reductions reaching far out in all terrains with just ones own ability to recover trucks that came to grief ,clutches ,brakes , burn outs, blow outs ,etc etc , I must admit that I was in my element, and have always been hands on, just to have done all that I have done , in my trucking life is rewarding enough , money can’t buy the fantastic time that I look back on in my life home and abroad, Ron
That is a good story Jim. I can imagine you all wondering what was going on before the announcement. Regards, Johnny
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Ron, you are right. Money can’t buy such experiences.
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ronhawk:
The bad old day,s of T/A are worth remembering ,The heat will still be the same , or may be a little higher ? The smells of the dead animals ,the flies and Mozzies ,must be better now ? And hopefully more healthy, Jona,s photos of Trans Arabia workshops , looks first class the trucking and the equipment looks under worked , unlike the outfit that I remember , It was run with no limit. The Brit pioneers helped make Trans Arabia the most exciting trucking comp in Saudi , due to the heavy loads ,and breakdowns that I personally attended to , I can still feel the heat & smell of burning 140 oil ,in the hub reductions reaching far out in all terrains with just ones own ability to recover trucks that came to grief ,clutches ,brakes , burn outs, blow outs ,etc etc , I must admit that I was in my element, and have always been hands on, just to have done all that I have done , in my trucking life is rewarding enough , money can’t buy the fantastic time that I look back on in my life home and abroad, Ron
Smells! From Turkey on down, animal and human excrement seemed to be something often pervading the air.
Can’t remember why but I spent a couple of nights in a hotel in southern Turkey. Maybe I was having some work done on the truck. There was a notice to put toilet paper in the bin, not the lavatory. The thought made me gag, but I got a bollocking the next morning in fast Turkish, which I didn’t understand. I had blocked the drains with loo paper!
Syria and even Jordan, which I always thought fairly civilised, had squat bogs and a tap. No bog paper. Even when you were desperate it was hard to squat over several piles of someone else’s… Yes.
Often in any of these countries and Saudi there seemed to be streams of foul smelling open drains.
Somewhere around Abqaiq on the Dammam - Riyadh road in about 1980, something bovine collapsed and died next to the highway. For a day or two (remembering that we were doing four or five Dammam-Riyadh trips a week) it was just a dead animal. Then it started to swell - and smell! By about day four, hot or not, you wound up your window and gagged! Flies by the million!
It got bigger and bigger and was a great talking point. We all called it the ‘Water Buffalo’. At some point it burst. Gradually the smell and the flies got less and eventually it became a sort of mummified landmark.
ronhawk:
money can’t buy the fantastic time that I look back on in my life home and abroad, Ron
I’m with you all the way on that, Ron! One of the greatest gifts we carry into old age is continuing to take pleasure in a shining past. I suspect it helps you live longer, into the bargain! Cheers, Robert 
Mohehamed Basher did tell me they still ran a number of trucks in Dammam but the rest were in Jeddah doing locals,which makes sense less wear and tear on the trucks, and usually the rewards work out higher. Frank Hicken of S Jones used to say further the distance greater the pain.
It used to amaze me on my many trips to the Middle East the locals were the only ones that could build a house today and make it look like Jesus had built it.
Some of the buldings had a lot to be desired.
Jona:
Mohehamed Basher did tell me they still ran a number of trucks in Dammam but the rest were in Jeddah doing locals,which makes sense less wear and tear on the trucks, and usually the rewards work out higher. Frank Hicken of S Jones used to say further the distance greater the pain.
It used to amaze me on my many trips to the Middle East the locals were the only ones that could build a house today and make it look like Jesus had built it.
Some of the buldings had a lot to be desired.
I still nurse the fantasy-suspicion that somewhere in an old transport compound in the Jeddah area there may a TA ERF NGC quietly merging into the sand! Robert
Well to see that TA is still a going concern is amazing I mean that after about 35 years that,s a wonder !!! but noticed that the tractors are now 4x2 not like thee early days … I,m sure there must be several “Skeletons” from the early era lying around the KSA somewhere !!!
The workshop may look better but I doubt it still looks hot and dusty …take a look at the SARAMAT workshop of 1978
Mah Salahm
Suddenly Trans Arabia has become just another ordinary trucking company in a foreign country, Even the livery has changed ,gone are the days when we rebuilt ERFs and Mac,s ,where they where left out there in the streets of Jeddah ,under the burning Sun, of 40+ deg ,pistons and liners ? No mean feat with no shade and certainly no Pit , the mechanics who read this thread will understand what is entailed to do this job . Jake brakes fitted to hold back the heavy loads coming down the mountain , Mac Engines ,Diffs , Cab,s gearbox ,brakes ,hubs , tyres by the dozen , breakdowns in far away places ,with just the black sand to lie on ground into our backs ,thats the 2 1/2 years that I remember At TRANS ARABIA , it was great ,even the locals looked at us as if to say you are a diferant breed, they could see how we worked under that sun blacked up like the ace of spades the . Ron.
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