Re: Home for Christmas
Postby Jazzandy » Sun Dec 21, 2014 10:29 am
Sorry for the delay S.D.U. the way this story is progressing Jazzandy will be lucky to be home for Easter. Unfortunately, I am unable to download Andy’s photos that he shared with his story.
Despondently I made my way back to my yellow twin stacked GMC with its black Dorsey trailer surmounted by its bright yellow tilt. It was eleven thirty. I had no way of contacting the office and for all the ‘powers that were’ cared I could sit there all day. The thought of the joys of Christmas at home was starting to fade. As I walked along the pavement towards the truck I looked down the several hundred feet drop to the road which skirted this side of the Bosphorus. In effect we were on a bridge leading up to the massive towers which held the bundles of suspension wires supporting the massive structure built by the Cleveland Bridge and Engineering Company. Just behind my truck the slip road wound down around a one hundred and eighty degree turn to the road below. Looking north I could see the lushly vegetated gorge of the Bosphorus narrowing on its way up to the Black Sea. Looking south across the two carriageways I could just make out the minarets and domes of the Blue Mosque and Santa Sophia on the far side of the Topkapi palace. However, looking down to the water in this direction I could also see the ferryboats criss-crossing between Europe and Asia and a plan began to formulate. If only I could jump on one of those, I could make my way up to the office on ■■■■■■■■■■■ Caddessi and obtain the toll money but I could not leave my truck. If I did, I knew that they would impound it and I would be in serious trouble. I was in another Catch 22.
Beaten but not down I regained my seat behind the large green GMC steering wheel weighing up my options which were actually none other than wait, lose a day or more and fail to meet that last train at Ludwigsburg. I jumped back down from the cab and once again looked over the precipitous drop. The slip road was single carriageway with a hard shoulder all the way down. There was nothing for it I decided other than to reverse the rig all the way down to the bottom hoping that the polis, overburdened with the massive build-up of traffic, would not notice.
Regaining my driving position I started the motor having observed that the polis were not looking in my direction and gently started to ease the rig back along the hundred metres of hard shoulder that remained between me and the slip road. After fifty metres I stopped, turned the engine off, jumped down and nonchalantly strolled about by the side of the truck. There was absolutely no movement from the direction of the Polis Kontrol so I once again started the motor and gingerly continued the reverse. Once I was on the slip road it was all or nothing so I continued in starts and stops as I re-aligned the rig until I had reached the bottom where I was able to reverse out onto the lightly trafficked Bosphorus road. As I changed from Reverse to Drive I looked up and I could swear I saw the polis officer looking over the bridge parapet directly down at me while scratching his head incredulously!
One thing with which I had always had no trouble was reversing. People were always impressed watching a big rig backed accurately through a narrow bend but what most of them didn’t realise was that the most difficult thing to reverse was a car and small single axle trailer. The longer the trailer and the further back the axles the easier it was to handle. With the axles right at the back my Dorsey was a doddle. In fact it was more difficult negotiating tight intersections forwards than backwards! However I was feeling pretty smug as I drove off underneath the pillars holding the bridge approach road and down to the side of the Bosphorus. I could already see the little white ferry boats with their yellow funnels and it was less than five minutes until I had arrived at the Kuzguncuk terminal for the Ortakoy passenger ferry. Luckily there was a Petrol Ofisi filling station a few hundred metres further on and a couple of packets of Rothmans sealed a parking deal.
The ferry itself was ridiculously cheap and an embarrassing amount of change rattled out at me from the cashier’s window in the white wooden single storey block that served as the IETT’s (Istanbul Municipal Transport Authority) local offices. Once on board I welcomed a glass of cay brought round on a circular tray suspended from a finger grip by a triangular arrangement of struts which meant it was almost impossible to spill the drinks however sharp the lurching of the vessel might be. Once on land at Ortakoy I was looking for a taxi when what should come along but a Leyland Royal Tiger with a signboard indicating it was en route to Taksim square. I guessed that this meant it would pass the OHS/Contex office in ■■■■■■■■■■■ Caddessi. “Oteli Hilton - Koc para?” (Hilton Hotel - How much?) I asked the conductor on board, “Bes Lira” he replied. Our office was almost directly opposite the Hilton hotel where I was able to alight half an hour of Istanbul traffic later. Crossing from the central reservation where the buses and trolleybuses ran, I entered the Istanbul Mahle Piston building and climbed the stairs.
After explaining my predicament I was furnished with sufficient funds for the toll and then ferried back in a company Tofas 124 down to Ortakoy. It was now two o’ clock and Madame Ira had established that so long as I was at the Soktas plant, situated just off the bypass to the bridge from Londra Asfalti, by four o’ clock they would load me.
Back in the cab the sun was shining brightly highlighting the constant dripping of water from the surrounding trees as the midday warmth melted the overnight freeze. I headed back up to the bridge terrified that the Kontol Polisi would be on the lookout for me but as I rode up the slip road ramp and circled back towards the bridge tolls I was able to join the melee with only a couple of hundred yards to go before the booths and absolutely nothing delayed me even though I took a sneaky look at the Kontrol building as I passed by. Hopefully there had been a shift change and my tormentors had been too lazy to log my transgressions! Through the tollgates the traffic eased considerably and I was around the ring around the city centre within half an hour.
The last exit before Londra Asafalti was the one I needed to take and by three fifteen I was there. Heading off to the right I was now on a busy old main road threading its way through new developments of illegal housing blocks, many of them stopped from completion standing with just their metal frames and a few infill bricks but still housing families by the look of the washing lines outside. I was on the lookout for a new mosque with a brick dome and a single minaret right by an intersection in a market area in the district of Gaziosmanpasa.
By three- thirty I was there carefully snaking the rig around parked delivery trucks and tradesmen’s horses and carts, I had difficulty hanging the right turn taking it very very carefully and slowly as carts had to be moved and the mass of pedestrian traffic scurried out of the way. The last thing I needed was an accident of any kind to cause further delay. A huge sign with the slogan Ak Bankasi was the next marker. Here I turned left onto a dirt or rather mud road which wound it’s way behind the shops and then more housing and then some low concrete factories before it deteriorated as Steve had warned into little more than a boggy trail as it turned into the Soktas compound.
The dodgy culvert was an obvious hump on the trail which I crossed delicately before a gentle left turn and then I was in the factory loading area. Necmettin with his dark blue Contex Mack and white Dorsey fridge was just coming off the loading ramp and a workman dressed in pale blue overalls signalled that I was immediately to take his place which I did more than willingly as you can imagine! Before I had leapt from the cab to undo the tilt cord the team on the bay had already commenced loading and my spirits were up as I waved goodbye to Necmettin. Load today, sleep at the BP, papers by lunchtime tomorrow and I’d be up to the border by the evening if I was lucky.
‘Ludwigsburg here I come’ I was humming to myself as I progressed round to watch the arbies manually loading the trailer with their bales of mohair. I sauntered over to the office and discovered that Madame Ira, as good as her word, had already progressed the
paperwork to enable me to be customs sealed at the factory. Life was looking sweet as I executed a truck check, kicked all the tyres, checked the bulbs, tested the susies and cleaned off all the running light lenses and headlights. Just as I had finished this chore who should come loping back into the yard but Necmettin. Horror overtook me and the hairs on my neck bristled. Something was amiss. He was caked in mud from his waist down. “Kamion problem,” was his explanation as he headed off towards the office. By the time I was loaded Necmettin had re-appeared spruced up a little bit but by no means his previous dapper self.
The Turkish customs officer was in the process of sealing up my truck when Necmettin managed to gesticulate to me that he would like a tow please. Luckily he had a length of chain and we attached it to the tow hook on the front of the GMC and the rear axle of his Fridge box. I eased back until the chain was taut, then blew my air horns as a signal for Necmettin to start reversing and gunned my motor. I had already selected the maximum diff lock option so the Hendrickson rear bogie was technically locked solid, all wheels relentlessly revolving. We made an infinitesimal progress but the basic problem was that I was as much in the mud as Necmettin and my wheels though locked were merely spinning. In addition my wheels although larger than the Turkish Mack’s were shod with highway tyres. If Necmettin’s were Town and Countries and his were equally useless we were on a hiding to nothing and after about fifteen minutes we disconnected. Luckily the truck was bogged down well before the culvert and even luckier I was able to reverse out of the mire and back onto the concreted loading bay area.
I rang the office from the Soktas despatch office and explained the situation. There was no way I could get enough purchase to pull Necmettin out so they would have to send a wrecker. Of course the other problem was that I was also stuck as there was no way I could driver around the Contex rig. “Nothing we can do until tomorrow Mr. MacLean,” Madame Ira explained, “You will have to sleep there but hopefully they will pull the truck out in the morning and we will send up your papers and running money so you will not have to come to the office.” I thanked her and returned to my cab. It was now dark.
The factory was still humming away spinning yarn on a twenty four hour shift basis. So I spent the evening reading and fell asleep listening to BBC world service. Next morning there was a tapping on my cab door and I looked down on one of the loaders who beckoned to me to come in for breakfast in the workers canteen. Wherever you were in Turkey you were always treated with great hospitality, a requisite of the Muslim religion, for the traveller had to be treated with respect. To refuse the offer would have been seen as a great insult and so the poor old British stomach had to put up with endless glasses of overstrong cay or small cups of coffee which contained more gunge in the bottom than liquid, but that was a small price to pay for the feeling of camaraderie thus engendered. Today’s breakfast was a fresh Turkish loaf, second only to French for taste, feta cheese and jam. Then it was back to the cab to await the return of Necmettin with the wrecker. It was eleven thirty before he showed his face but instead of a wrecker they had merely brought another Mack unit. This was duly chained to the front of Necmettin’s truck and with utter predictability it was unable to gain any purchase, it’s wheels spun uselessly and there was no progress.
I rang Madame Ira. By this time I was becoming agitated about the typically Turkish way of sorting out problems. This consisted of doing absolutely everything you knew would not work and then finally biting the bullet and agreeing to the obvious plan which would cost a little money. In this way the maximum amount of time would always be wasted and everyone involved would become as frustrated as humanly possible. “Madame Ira, we have got to have a wrecker.” I insisted. “But we are trying everything,” came the reply. “Abbas is there now.” “Yes I know,” I struggled to explain, “But the mud is making it impossible for him to tow. You need a wrecker with big wheels and tyres to grip the mud.” There was a pause. “You mean Abbas cannot tow him?” came the reply. “Yes” I emphasised. It was almost impossible to be angry with Madame Ira. She was such a refined and courteous lady but my patience was being sorely tried. She appeared to be consulting with someone and then she came back to me. “We cannot get a wrecker until tomorrow morning,” she explained, “In the meantime all your papers are ready and our messenger will bring them to you. Please be kind enough to sign for them and of course the running money. Oh!” she exclaimed and then another pause, “We are sending another truck so maybe he can help.” I thanked Madame Ira and wished her a Happy Christmas. Mine was now looking remote.
Needless to say the second tractor was no more help than the first even in tandem and the recovery was again abandoned and I had to sit out the day in the cab although I was asked in to the canteen for meals. Next morning the wrecker arrived. It looked a rather small affair, basically an old long nose Bussing rigid with a crane on the back. I was now going into deep depression. The driver sprang down from the cab and looked carefully at the situation before summoning Necmettin over for a deep and meaningful chat. It seemed that he felt that he could not tow the rig forwards as there was no available traction between the Mack and the culvert. So miraculously he jumped into his truck and disappeared only to re-appear five minutes later next to me in the loading yard from around the side of the building. He could just get round but there was no way a larger truck could have made it.
What he had which saved the day was a long length of wire which meant that he could hook up to Necmettin’s trailer while he was still on the concrete pad. It made all the difference in the world and within ten minutes the Mack was back on hard ground. It was then necessary to walk the route because both of us had to use it to exit the factory and it became obvious that my Turkish colleague had swung too far over to the left in order to line himself up for the culvert. We established what looked like a safer route and the wrecker and Necmettin set off and once they were safely over the slough of despond the wrecker came back for me. One small thing they had overlooked was the extra tracking on my Dorsey with the rear tandem set up and I nearly came a cropper as I watched the rear of my trailer almost but not quite not make it onto the culvert. However all was well in the end. My paperwork arrived, I signed for it and was on my way by lunchtime. However one more day had been lost. It was now the 17th. of December. I had five days to make it back to Ludwigsburg to catch the last train.
To be continued…
