Journey MAN reaches Journeys End

Posted on November 20, 2014 by truckbloguk

Well known to all the regular blog readers, here she is on her final delivery to mainland Europe. After 9 years service and 987,000KM under her belt, GB05 STE is seen above delivering to a new French Connection shop in Grenoble, France. I don’t think Steve Marsh could even begin to work out the amount of times he has driven GB05 over French soil but this the final trip was a nice little run to finish a fairly glamour career. This last trip started from Marshy’s Warrington base, with a run down to Leicester for 2 pickups, on to Purfleet for a 3rd collection before heading to Dover and then onward to Grenoble and the delivery point. Once empty it was time for a top up from the local Carrefour (see below),back up to Amiens to reload for Ellesmere Port, just a stones throw away from Warrington and home. A steady 2800KM later and the curtain was down on GB05’s European days. To say Steve and little MAN TGL have been some places is almost an understatement, having covered hundreds of thousands of miles together……..

Albania, Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Czech Rep, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Holland, Hungary, Isle of Man, Italy, Luxembourg, Majorca, Malta, Northern Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Ireland, Romania, Sardinia, Sicily, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Tenerife…….oh and the lsola del Giglio off the Italian Coast, you know the one where the captain parked his cruise ship on the rocks!

The days of Europe now over, there was still one more trip involving a ferry left to complete. Start, Warrington, load Worcester for same day delivery to Belfast and Newtownards in Northern Ireland. A typical job for Steve and GB05 STE completed with no fuss, pretty well the same since she was registered back in November 2005.

Finally Steve made the decision to update the ageing TGL for a newer Euro 6 version. It’s taken a year to put GB14 STE on the road (that’s another story!) but now she will be Steve’s new workhorse and GB05 is up for sale and available to go to a new home. If you have any genuine interest in buying Steve’s old steed then please email Steve; marshy@stevemarshexpress.co.uk or you can leave a comment below with your phone number and I can pass it on. Not a lot more to say other than I’m sure Steve will agree that GB05 has been a good truck in general and I’m sure Steve will be pleased if GB14 is as reliable. I’d like to say a thank you to GB05 as it’s the truck that got me and Marshy in touch and it’s also the truck that have given MAN trucks a lot of social media coverage as both the truck and Steve have developed quite a fan base here on the blog. IA blog on GB14 STE will follow soon.

Queen of the Outback

Posted on November 16, 2014 by truckbloguk

What an awesome looking rig! I think Australian trucks looks more imposing than the Americans, as in general the cabs sit higher due to the nature of some of the roads and tracks across the outback. This K’whopper is driven by a trucking mad woman called Clare. Last night I was Tweeting into the future and Clare was tweeting into the past. It was getting on for midnight Saturday night here in the UK but it was early Sunday morning down in Australia. I was lazing on the sofa watching the TV while @clarebear455 was trucking along some where 1200km north of Perth in Western Australia, the wonders of modern technology! Clare drives and polishes the gorgeous looking KW for her boss and who can blame her with such a fancy looking rig. The road train is powered by a 650hp Caterpilar power plant, pulling 3 articulated trailers, weighing in at approx 135,000kg and around 55 metres long, at this size Clare can still truck along at 100kph. Here in the UK it’s a different world entirely, max length is 18.75 metres on a drawbar (rigid truck with a trailer), 44,000kg on 6 axles, limited to 89kph. I know where I’d rather be, I’d happily swap 1000 cars on the M25 for 1000 kangaroos! If your on twitter follow Clare by searching for; @clarebear455

Photos of Jordan

Posted on November 1, 2014 by truckbloguk

Sorry, photos from Jordan. The one thing that never ceases to amaze me is who is actually reading the blog around the world. You can keep up with it on the www, twitter or Facebook in any country you can get the internet in. I recently had a message from Mahmoud Al Shogran from Jordan. Mahmoud sent across a few photos of some Mercedes-Benz trucks which seem to be quite popular in Jordan and quite nicely done up too.

The trucks look like they are from Holland and Germany as do some of the trailers. Plenty of lights and bull bars seem to be popular, probably good for stray livestock or camels. Not sure what VOSA would say to the screen full of flags and the like!

Doesn’t matter where in the world you are, but if you have your own or if you just love trucks I’d love to see them all. Email me, ben@truckblog.co.uk or tweet me @truckbloguk and I’ll post your photos of your local trucks. More the better!!

J777 RDF & J888 RDF

Posted on October 11, 2014 by truckbloguk

You will or won’t know that Richard Payne, Dion Anderson and myself are busy trying to track and trace as many of the original 100 Scania Centurions as possible. Any info please email: centurion@truckblog.co.uk

In my book the two best Centurions were #89 and #90, both belonging to Ralph Davies International. Bother trucks were LHD 143 450hp 6×2 tag axle Topline Streamlines, perfect. You can’t get a better looking wagon! What I really want to do is find out as much about these two as possible when they were in use in the UK. Do you know any of Davies drivers who piloted either of these trucks? How far have either truck travelled across Europe and Asia? Any photos, contact info or information will be highly appreciated.

I know where J777 is now but no one knows where J888 ended up. An acquaintance of mine owned J888 after Davies but we’re not sure where it went after he had it. Again any help would be great. Email me or leave a comment below.

Photos are from Facebook groups but credit to the photographers!

Wilson Wednesday & The Super Subs

Posted on September 10, 2014 by truckbloguk

We’ll start with a real belter from husband and wife team, Mr & Mrs Ramm. Loaded here with a Sugarbeet harvester from Germany. To move a truck with loaded with a harvester measuring 14.00 metres long, 3.30 metres wide and 4.00metres high and weighing 26 tons, takes some specialist equipment, permits and a lot of know how, especially with Europe’s 4 metre height limit, N5 HCW is an 8×4 Scania tractor unit with a 580hp V8 engine hitched up to a wafer bed low loader and a Dave Ramm in the hot seat, perfect.

Not all container jobs are are as simple as opening the rear doors of a metal box. Ian “Slim” Godfrey in Aberdeen this morning with an over height open top container. Slim is driving a Scania this week……yes he is!

Driver Gareth Rowlands seen here on a local drop with a little sweeper imported from the continent. Gareth’s big new V8, N6 HCW, looks awesome no matter what the load, or is it just me??!

Sister truck to the Gareth’s N6 is Geordie’s truck N7 HCW. Loaded with tower crane parts down near Bristol. As you can imagine building a tower crane requires lots of parts and lots of loads. N7 was one of many unloading today to get the crane built. Below we also have Jon Pryke unloading crane parts in X300 HCW.

Office waller, or not, James Cartwright was also on the crane job today in old faithful N200 HCW. Also the last contribution on the crane site is the first super sub of the day, one of Hewicks Haulage Scania’s with another piece of the tower.

Driver Little Terry Alderton and his Scania R480 loaded with some kind of hard-arsed looking machine loaded from deep in Southern Germany up to Warwick. Are all of HC Wilson’s loads colour coded??

Here we have a photo sent by driver Gladys of 3 Wilson trucks and another super sub in the form of a Tasker truck driven by Colin Waters. All 4 are heading down through France to Marseille having loaded in England.

Another Tasker truck is super sub number 3. This one driven by Mike Tasker himself. Another crane part loaded from Germany and also heading for Avonmouth.

Finally we have the last super sub off the bench for Wilson’s, a well known truck here on the blog, the one and only Steve Marsh Express! HC Wilson can cover any type of job including hot shot packing crates to Stoke on Trent. All 3 subbies are tried and tested and very reliable which is a must to keep the professionalism of Wilsons reputation on the right track and keeping those bloomin customers happy! Thanks to all drivers for this weeks photos.

Wilson Wednesday Lite

Posted on September 4, 2014 by truckbloguk

I only just realised that this didn’t publish last night! So a slightly delayed WW this time.

Above we have part time HC Wilson office staff James Cartwright out and about and Sheffield bound for a busy day. A loaded flat rack that as you can see isn’t too big but the Anvil weighs in at a hefty 33 tons. After tipping the flat rack was removed and the James went to load one of a number of pieces that are all destined for Antwerp. SW02 HCW is Wilsons spare 8×4 Scania tractor unit. Plated to 150 tons it’s a handy piece of kit to have as a spare.

The pieces being loaded to Antwerp are all over 4 metres wide and weigh over 30 tons each, so the extra axles help spread the weight. Below we also have R90 HCW a 6×4 Scania loaded with a similar piece. This photo is sent by Wilsons own escort driver Sully.

Centurion #82

Posted on August 26, 2014 by truckbloguk

As some of you will know #82 has been up for sale in Ireland for a little while. The truck looked in half decent condition as it is complete and comes with the badges. It looks to me like the original spec was as it is now, a flat top 143 with 6×2 tag axle. The new proud owner, Paul from Lancashire, has emailed to tell me about his recent acquisition.

Now on my sheet I have no information about #82 and Paul also says that he doesn’t have a lot of info about the truck. Do you know anything about the history of it? Truck reg is J422 SHN. All I can start with is that is was first registered on 1st June 1992. So if you can help Paul then please email me; ben@truckblog.co.uk and I’ll pass the information on to Paul. One of you must know something.

Martyn’s Maiden Mercedes-Benz 2028LS

Posted on August 18, 2014 by truckbloguk

As some of you will by now be aware I started working at Orwell Trucks Mercedes Benz at the beginning of July. Having always worked in transport and l haulage a move into trucks sales seems to have been a good move. When you start at any new workplace it seems there is always a “Martyn Beverly” character some where in the company. Mr Beverly is a quiet man who has learnt his trade from the ground up, he still earns his keep by supplying all the large fleets of East Anglian and beyond with the Mercedes Benz commercial vehicles. The wealth of knowledge Martyn has for MB trucks and vans having worked for Orwell Trucks for over 30 years is amazing. A couple of days sat with Martyn can teach you more than reading any brochure or book or even going on an MB training course. As we clearly have a shared interest in trucks I was keen to let Martyn see some of David Scarff’s MB truck photos, especially ones of local trucks. The above photo was taken by David Scarff outside Fred Archers yard one Saturday morning in the Mid 1980’s. As soon as Martyn saw this photo he said he sold the truck to Archers. Cue the flood gates for plenty more info and all I could want to know about the story of this particular truck. I asked Martyn to write down what he could remember so below is just that…….

With the impending introduction of 38 tonne GCW artics on 5 axles in 1983, operators with fleets of tandem axle trailers and 2 axle units, need a 3 axle tractor unit to comply with the new legislation. Some truck manufacturers had a problem as they nothing developed to meet this requirement. Luckily Mercedes-Benz already produced a suitable vehicle in Europe which could easily be modified to suit the UK market – Enter the 2028LS.

In 1982 Mercedes Benz decided to bring a single vehicle over to the UK to assess its suitability. I saw a picture of it in a Mercedes company brochure under the heading “An intriguing development for the future”. During one of my many meetings with Fred Archer, I told him about this truck and he was very interested as he had seen them whilst on his travels through Eastern Europe. I investigated and found out that this vehicle was at the Mercedes vehicle preparation centre at New Millerdam near Wakefield. I asked asked if I could borrow it and much to my surprise they said yes. Our driver Brian Booth picked the vehicle up and bought it back to Ipswich so we could have a look at the spec as there were no Data Sheets available.
– Left hand drive (enormous steering wheel!)
– L type sleeper cab with twin bunks
– Red orange cab
– Red oxide colour chassis
– Jost sliding 5th wheel
– MB 14.6 litre naturally aspirated V8 engine. 276hp.
– Fuller roadranger constant mesh 13 speed gearbox. 4 speed + range change + splitter on top 4 gears and a crawler. Very unusual as it would have normally been a ZF Ecosplit.
– 12R x 22.5 tyres
– Centre axle permanently steered with air suspension above a steel spring load transfer device.
– Rear axle. Hub reduction, full four bag air suspension with in cab level control
– GVW was 20,330kg
– 3,750mm outer axle spread – the prop shaft was as thick as a telegraph pole!

I took the vehicle down to Fred (Archer) and hitched it onto one of his trailers and we went for an extensive road test around Ipswich, after which Fred definitely wanted to buy it – if the price was right of course! I went away and got the numbers sorted and Fred ordered the vehicle. No records exist but I reckon it was around £30,000. This truck was very unique as it was the first of this model ever to be sold in England.

To prepare the vehicle we fitted the snorkel front air intake, a radio, cab heater, rear wings, alloy cat walk / fuel tank (from GB Engineering in Wisbech), sun visor, full chassis and cab paint and finally it was sign written by Rod Chapple using a good old brush and paint. When finished and delivered to Fred we did a photo shoot with one of his trailers all around Martlesham Heath and pictures were taken off the bridge over the A12. The driver was a chap called Mick Dade who had worked for Fred archer for some time (Mick Dade eventually worked for IST in Harwich as Transport Manager.

You can’t ask for a better write up than that all off the back of one photo. The other photos here are all copyright of Martyn Beverly and as ever please respect the copyright. Fred archer must have been impressed with the big German as I found another David Scarff photo of an A reg MB 2028, only visible differences being it’s right hand drive and no snorkel!

There are a few more old photos in the archives so you never know we might be able to get a few more snippets of the good old days from Martyn and Orwell Trucks back catalogue. Off you go driver, happy trucking……….

New MAN in Marshy’s Life

Posted on August 15, 2014 by truckbloguk

Your favourite international express light haulage expert, Steve Marsh Express, has been a little quiet of late I know but that’s partially down to the fact there is a new vehicle in production as a replacement for the little legend that is GB05 STE. The new truck is another MAN TGL 12.250 with a euroliner body. The truck has been fitted with a Kuda high roof cab conversion as Marshy likes maximum space in the cab, due to being rather a tall man and also sometimes he can be away for a couple of weeks at a time. As you’d expect for any owner driver machine it is a top of the range machine. A nice set of factory fit Speedline alloy wheels, twin long range fuel tanks, built in TV aerial, a nice sun visor with a pair of spot lights in, Dhollandia slider tailift, 12 speed auto with manual overide, rear air suspension, sleeping well cab cooler, xenon headlights, plenty of extras!! The visor also came from Kuda but was made by a firm from Finland by the name of www.vepro.fi it’s worth a look. No doubt we will be seeing a lot of this truck in the future.

Champion Centurion #14

Posted on August 13, 2014 by truckbloguk

The search for Scania Centurions and information on Centurions goes on and on. A few weeks back I was sent some photos of the 3 Langdons sub-contractors Centurions by Langdons commercial director Patrick Griffiths. At the time I couldn’t find any photos of #14, which was a 4×2 143 450 brand new to Derek Champion. So how do you find a link to the photo collection of a Langdons subbie you ask? Well it just so happens you ask the South West of England’s font of all knowledge, Tim Rigby. The oracle told me that Derek’s son Nigel is currently the general manager at Scania in Bridgwater. Rather than pester him I decided to send Nigel an email and with in a few days the email conversation started and I’m happy to say that Nigel has now sent some awesome photos of what someone claim’s to be the best looking of the 3 Centurions that pulled for Langdons! I couldn’t possibly comment.

Information on J981BYA. – Centurion Edition 14.

· Delivery date – 21.10.1991
· Chassis Number – 1178664
· Engine – DSC 14 03 / 450 hp
· Gearbox – R770
· Ratio – 3.27

Nigel said that he personally did the first trip out in the truck when it was new. A full load of juice from Bridgwater to Sainsburys in Hackney, London. Nigel also said; “Great memories of a great Truck. The best truck I ever drove!” The photo above was taken on 21st September 1993 as the great V8 came off the ferry in Portsmouth. The photos below were taken at the Truckline ferry in Poole Harbour.

Luckily for all of us this truck is still about. I have gained the following information about #14, if this is true, false or any different then please email or comment below.

Known Reg Numbers: J981 BYA. J500 SCA.
Known Owners: Derek Champion. Peter Orr, Plymouth. Sid Evans, Bridgend. West Kingsdown, Kent. Neil Johnston, Wales.
Current Owner: Shropshire Forestry Contractors

I have emailed Shropshire Forestry in the hope they can confirm that they are the current owners of number 14. As and when I hear from them I will let you all know. For those who are going to the Gathering of The Griffin truck show at Ipswich at the end of September, Richard Payne and myself are planning on having a good old Centurion session so we can combine all our info. You are all welcome to join in or contribute. Just make contact with myself or turn up at the show and we should be able to get a lot of info together.

PLEASE RESPECT THE COPYRIGHT ON THESE PHOTOS. THEY BELONG TO THE CHAMPION FAMILY AND THIS IS THE ONLY PLACE THEY ARE VISABLE, SO IF THEY APPEAR SOME WHERE ELSE YOU ALL KNOW WHERE THEY HAVE COME FROM.

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