newmercman:
I always did it the ‘proper’ way too, if it was tight enough that you need to mess around dropping the drag, trying to turn the prime mover around would’ve been a nightmare anyway
I once reversed one for about a mile after taking a wrong turn in France somewhere and finding myself in a dead end, only needed a couple of shunts
I must take my hat off to you “newmercman”. I had limited experience of driving wagon and drags…mostly when I lived in Sweden from late '76 to early '81. I freely admit that I was pretty useless at reversing them and with the drags being 40 foot (total length of vehicle being 24 meters), they should have been easier than the 18 meter wagon and drags seen in the rest of Europe. The Swedes seemed to be able to reverse them perfectly…and at speed too!! I put that down to practice. I do recall at a factory I loaded at regularly just north of Stockholm I would often see a Danish truck and the driver would unhitch the empty drag and steer it onto the loading bank ‘manually’. Just as the drag was about to make contact with the loading bank he would push a button on the ‘A’ bar and that would apply the brakes. Never saw that before(or since).
When i first started driving for J.Wyatt Jnr. (Fridged Freight),the ferry from Dover to Dunkirk was a back on back off so if you couldnt reverse a lorry & trailer you would incur the wrath of all the other drivers waiting to back off/on too.I think Folkestone to Calais was too.
LB76:
When i first started driving for J.Wyatt Jnr. (Fridged Freight),the ferry from Dover to Dunkirk was a back on back off so if you couldnt reverse a lorry & trailer you would incur the wrath of all the other drivers waiting to back off/on too.I think Folkestone to Calais was too.
I seem to remember that that was the case on one of the Irish ferries too, but can’t remember which now.
Quite agree about reversing, not pushing, drags. When I changed over to them at Toray I told the drivers they weren’t to do it that way and had them all properly trained to do it correctly. For one thing it’s safer, pushing all but a flat trailer you are blind 90% of the time.
BTW LB, were you thinking of Schiaffino Ferries, used to run off the harbour wall at the far end, which Speedferries used a few years ago?
If so I think you mean drive on reverse off or reverse on drive off. Wouldn’t have fancied turning it round in the ship just for the chance of a bit of showing off.
Hiya Spardo, no it wasnt them i was thinking of , it was another one which used to do Dover to Dunkirk and take the train carriages also they were always in a hurry (dont recall trains ever being in a hurry) and always wanted you to drive in so they could get under way , worry about getting off when we get there! it was quite a way when you came to reverse off too.
LB76:
Hiya Spardo, no it wasnt them i was thinking of , it was another one which used to do Dover to Dunkirk and take the train carriages also they were always in a hurry (dont recall trains ever being in a hurry) and always wanted you to drive in so they could get under way , worry about getting off when we get there! it was quite a way when you came to reverse off too.
Never took that one, the Schiaffino was a nightmare as the space was so limited that there was barely enough room to open doors and thus mirrors had to be pulled in for the last 50 feet or so. , imagine reversing a drag blind with only a sailor’s directions to help . That’s why it was slightly better to drive on and trust that you could persuade the one(s) alongside to leave first at Ostende.
Despite the Italian name the ships were French with food to match , I always got there early to make sure of a berth. The alternative was to leave loading and unloading your wagon to the tender cares of dockers
Hi Spardo. Your were right, the Europic Ferry (TT)from Cairnryan to Larn you had to back on the bottom deck but when the top deck was empty you could drive on and swing round but as it filled up you had to back on as well and the ramp had a bend in it. It was very interesting observing the antics of some of the wagon and drags going on the boat.
Cliff
Spardo:
LB76:
When i first started driving for J.Wyatt Jnr. (Fridged Freight),the ferry from Dover to Dunkirk was a back on back off so if you couldnt reverse a lorry & trailer you would incur the wrath of all the other drivers waiting to back off/on too.I think Folkestone to Calais was too.
I seem to remember that that was the case on one of the Irish ferries too, but can’t remember which now.
Quite agree about reversing, not pushing, drags. When I changed over to them at Toray I told the drivers they weren’t to do it that way and had them all properly trained to do it correctly. For one thing it’s safer, pushing all but a flat trailer you are blind 90% of the time.
BTW LB, were you thinking of Schiaffino Ferries, used to run off the harbour wall at the far end, which Speedferries used a few years ago?
If so I think you mean drive on reverse off or reverse on drive off. Wouldn’t have fancied turning it round in the ship just for the chance of a bit of showing off.
hiya,
I was a “proper” wag and drag driver the on old 8 leggers with no power steering, and anyone who says they’ve never marked the paint on the front towing eye and has delivered multi drops around Manchester and London is in my opinion superman/woman, and say they have never had to nose “one in” on the odd occasion the alternative being transhipping it and taking it back solo having dumped the trailer with the second man to guard until your return if you had valuables on it.
thanks harry long retired.
Well the one in my avatar had no power steering and i used to go everywhere in her,Aberdeen to the South of France and back again on a regular basis,and that is the one i used to keep the front pin painted on, but we never had multi-drops usually one or two but the ferries were the testing ground of a driver then, when you had to back on or off.I did try nosing the trailer in once but decided that it was easier to reverse!
harry_gill:
hiya,
I was a “proper” wag and drag driver the on old 8 leggers with no power steering, and anyone who says they’ve never marked the paint on the front towing eye and has delivered multi drops around Manchester and London is in my opinion superman/woman, and say they have never had to nose “one in” on the odd occasion the alternative being transhipping it and taking it back solo having dumped the trailer with the second man to guard until your return if you had valuables on it.
thanks harry long retired.
You have my sympathy with armstrong steering Harry, I was fortunate enough to have good power when kitted out with drags in the 80s, although I can’t remember about the Mack I had in the 60s in OZ. Would that have had power? I don’t know, perhaps it made a difference being an artic with drags and thus perhaps not so much weight on the steering.
As regards transhipping, my other big idea at Toray was to go over to demount bodies, interchangeable between wagon and drag, so if a place was impossible (and this was city centre multi drops) the driver had to swap the bodies. We knew all the drops and what was possible and carefully worked out the loading of the 2 bodies accordingly.
I do apologise i didnt realise the photo in my avatar was the Scania-Vabis ! The one i use for facebook is this one MkV AEC no power steering, no heater!no windscreen washers
Demount boxes were another way to sort the men from the boys, the ones that used to uncouple and pick up the back box then hook up, drop the box and drag the trailer underneath should’ve been made to wear short trousers The real drivers backed the complete outfit under both boxes
To be honest backing up in a straight line is pretty easy, if you don’t get it bent too much that is, but backing around a corner is the difficult bit, the trailer goes around ok, but then you’ve got the prime mover exactly where you don’t want it to be and it’s usually at all kinds of funny angles, by the time that’s in a straight line the trailer is nowhere near where you want it to be
The wagon and drag did me a bit of a favour really, when I started at TRUCK mag, my first assignment was to fly down to Spain and play around in some new Scanias I had to write about them too, which was a small price to pay, anyway there I was the new bloke and all the other Brit testers were there watching me, trying to see what they were up against. When we arrived at the starting point I spotted an A frame wagon and drag, almost identical to one I’d driven, except it was a 4 series rather than a 143, so I chose that as my ride for the test, that in itself raised a few eyebrows, but it was when we got back and I pulled in after everyone else that I enjoyed the most, I did a lap of the car park and backed the thing straight into its parking space I could’ve easily made myself look a right ■■■, but it all went right for me luckily, to round off the day I also beat them all at a game of pool too
Many of you will remember the Karageorgis line which ran from Ancona to Patras where you drove in through a side ramp near the bows , swung left and then reversed down into the depths whilst being directed by the first officer; an immaculately dressed man who would shout at you if you so much as glanced in your mirrors. If a you followed his signals implicitly then you ended up inch perfect and the mirrors had to be pulled in anyway so I used to pull them in before I started backing down. Back in the eighties the journey used to take about 36 hrs ( I think ) and the alternative was to drive all the way to Bari or Brindisi which was about 14-15 hrs but the boats were not the most luxurious compared to the Karageorgis and Minoan Lines which operated out of Ancona at the time. I know Minoan are still going but what happened to Karageorgis who were not the most ethical ferry operator when it came to honouring bookings, I’m sure quite a few drivers can remember being left on the docks waiting for the next ferry because the port office had bumped them after a greek with no reservation had slipped a handful of Drachma into someones sweaty palm; I had actually loaded on the ship in Patras when the loading officer asked me to back off so that they could load a fridge near a plug in point, next thing the ramp was up and I was left sitting on the dock.
One pure pig to reverse onto if you had to go down that tunnel & to the back behind the engine.
It was low too going up the front to manouvre about, but if you watched the Load Master & ignored your own ideas it was OK & absolutely smashing when on board if a little slower than the competition. No hazardous though
newmercman:
Demount boxes were another way to sort the men from the boys, the ones that used to uncouple and pick up the back box then hook up, drop the box and drag the trailer underneath should’ve been made to wear short trousers The real drivers backed the complete outfit under both boxes
You must be talking about trunkers’ changovers. But when swapping the front box for the back the best way is to drag it through, no point in doing otherwise. Drop both, pull trailer under front and pull them out of the way, collect the rear box and recouple.
Our one trunk at Toray was Nottingham-Hyde, twice a day. Empty large metal stillages up, reverse in a dead straight line into the bay and onto the dock. Open both sets of rear doors and the front doors on the 2nd box. The forkie would then lift a plate into place to bridge the gap and the whole outfit was tipped and loaded straight through. Back at base where there was no dock, both bodies were tipped from one side with a long reach fork truck.
Other outfits that had been doing multi drops around Manchester and Lancs. used to go in there for a backload.
The drivers had the skill but the forkies lacked the courage. I found out later that, after one troublemaker lost his nerve, he roused up the others and they refused to cross the bridge (specially designed, built and tested) and made the drivers drop the trailer on one bay and put the wagon on the other.
LB76:
When i first started driving for J.Wyatt Jnr. (Fridged Freight),the ferry from Dover to Dunkirk was a back on back off so if you couldnt reverse a lorry & trailer you would incur the wrath of all the other drivers waiting to back off/on too.I think Folkestone to Calais was too.
At risk of making myself sound a bit of a ■■■(wouldnt be the first time)
“back on back off” . . cant get my head around why you would have to do that?
You dont sound a ■■■ at all mate for asking that, the reason being not all the ferries were capable of opening at both ends so usually you had to back on and drive off, but when they were in a hurry they wanted the lorries on quickly so you had to drive on and back off at the other end, this caused a bit of a laugh when driver wasnt too good at reversing!
Bill would it be around the mid 70s when you could drive on then off at the other end as I seem to remember reversing on for a few years and the draw bar boys were usually better than the artic boys at not holding others up. It could have been because I had to use freighters mostly though as they were generally older. cheers Johnnie
, imagine reversing a drag blind with only a sailor’s directions to help 
. That’s why it was slightly better to drive on and trust that you could persuade the one(s) alongside to leave first at Ostende. 
