Old truckers manifest yourself

[Assurancetourix]

Are there any old truckers on this forum?
I never understood why Thai trucks and road units have crates or trailers dating from before the French Revolution.( 1789 - 1793 )
Everything is made of wood and heavy steel;

a semi-trailer in Europe weighs between 6 and 7 tonnes with two spare wheels; (  without the tractor which weighs approximately the same weight)
here it seems to me to easily weigh 3 to 4 tonnes more (without spare wheels).
In 14 years in Thailand I saw  only one semi-trailer with its axles in simple assembly, thing which exists has more than 90% in Europe.
Even when I was driving my "exceptional" ensemble in Italy, years 1977-1980
I had at my disposal two road tractors:
a Saviem 340 CV in 4x2 and a registration card indicating that I could drive at 70 tonnes
and a Berliet 350 CV in 6X2 and a gray card indicating 120 tonnes;
well the axles of my semi were in simple assembly with, it is true, tires radically different from those used on trucks traveling in 38/44 tons

 

Two axles in single assembly; photo taken at Lotus de Sawang Daen Din on October 15, 2008;
I have never seen it since.

 

A white LINFOX, I think it's exceptionnal !! They are all garnet and yellow

 

Edited March 30, 2020 by Assurancetourix

[Olmate]

DO you know much about the LinFox company ?

[Nyezhov]

Nice rig. Did you ever drive a real truck like we have in the states? A tandem?

[Olmate]

4 minutes ago, Nyezhov said:

Nice rig. Did you ever drive a real truck like we have in the states? A tandem?

[Assurancetourix]

2 minutes ago, Olmate said:

DO you know much about the LinFox company ?

I only know what Wikipedia tells me.
It's a huge Australian company that has several thousand trucks

 

https://www.linfox.com/

 

As you get older, you start to get interested in carriers on the other side of the world.
When I was a truck driver in France, I drove to almost all European countries, including behind the iron curtain;

I started driving line  buses between towns, like in Thailand and tourism coaches  in 1971;
then in 1973 I joined a small company which mainly transported petroleum products ...
40 years behind "the piece of the wood", the term colloquially used to designate the steering wheel;

I lived well even if now I regret (a little bit ) not to have been more "greedy" by going to see elsewhere, in the USA or Australia and driving double trains and sometimes much longer ...

for answering to Nyezhov 

[Nyezhov]

2 minutes ago, Olmate said:

Yeah dude. Thats one thing I never take away from Ozzies, even when Im debating my old silly brother @Lacessit, you guys got some BOMB heavy equipment. I watch the videos here and there and dream. Cool stuff!

 

[Assurancetourix]

11 minutes ago, Nyezhov said:

Nice rig. Did you ever drive a real truck like we have in the states? A tandem?

In the petroleum company I sometimes drove a double train which transported gas cylinders;
when we arrived in a factory we had a very definite route to follow because a reverse was impossible with 4 vehicles hooked one behind the other .

Eh ! It was nearly 50 years ago, 

We did not have the electronics currently available which makes it possible to temporarily block the axes in order to be able to make back steps in complete safety.

[Nyezhov]

2 minutes ago, Assurancetourix said:

I lived well even if now I regret (a little bit ) not to have been more "greedy" by going to see elsewhere, in the USA or Australia and driving double trains and sometimes much longer ...

for answering to Nyezhov

I knew a dude back in AK, his job was to drive a tandem from the Anchorage docks to Fbks (6-12 hours depending on weather, 2 lane paved road) then lay over and drive Fbks to Deadhorse (Prudhoe), 500 miles on the two lane gravel. You got one stop in Coldfoot about 300 miles up. No other services. Sometimes it hits -45 F. Then turn around and go back. $300,000 a year.

[Lacessit]

1 minute ago, Nyezhov said:

Yeah dude. Thats one thing I never take away from Ozzies, even when Im debating my old silly brother @Lacessit, you guys got some BOMB heavy equipment. I watch the videos here and there and dream. Cool stuff!

 

I remember a TV program called Ice Truckers, or something like that. Transporting heavy equipment up to the Arctic Circle for oil rigs, driving over frozen lakes during the spring thaw etc. Those drivers really were crazy.

Australia has bulldust. It's like very fine flour, dark brown. When you hit a patch of it at speed, it splashes up over the windscreen and blinds you - our version of whiteout.

Everybody looks silly to pot smokers. A little less of the old, thank you.

[Assurancetourix]

About huge transport company, there is one near Rennes in France which name is STG ;

When i began to drive trucks STG was at the end of a dead end in a narrow street in the city center of Rennes.
They quickly moved to Noyal sur Vilaine between Rennes and Vitre.
They have a few thousand vehicles and specialize in refrigerated transport

 

https://www.stg-logistique.fr/en/

 

They mainly have Volvo.
When my "petroleum" boss bought 5 Volvo F89 with all possible options, STG drivers who had a reputation as a "lead shoe" couldn't believe their eyes!
We overtook them all on the road when they themselves were already well above the authorized speeds.
It was a fantastic time where you could still have great freedom;
it also resulted in high road mortality;
I was very lucky to go through all of this and be able to remember it;

many of my work colleagues have long been six feet underground or in wheelchairs.

[Nyezhov]

1 minute ago, Assurancetourix said:

who had a reputation as a "lead shoe" couldn't believe their eyes!

Its a "lead foot". Lead Foot Louis.

[Lacessit]

27 minutes ago, Olmate said:

DO you know much about the LinFox company ?

Lindsay Fox started off with a secondhand truck doing deliveries in Melbourne. He's now the patriarch of a sprawling business empire, his trucks are even in Thailand.

Certainly no snowflake, he got the reputation of being a tough nut in a hard business.

[Assurancetourix]

Anecdotes .. I have a thousand and many more;
both those concerning me and those concerning my friends in other transport companies.
I remember the first time I entered East Germany;
it was night and yet it was almost like in broad daylight with these hundreds of projectors which lit far around.
If you remember, in the movie Apocalyspse Now, there is a sequence happening on the bridge built on the 17 * // bridge always lights up.
In fact it is fiction because when we were in Vietnam, this bridge actually exists on the mandarin road but it is tiny ...

 

once crossed this border, the motorway on the other side, to go to Berlin was limited to 80 km / h;
at the beginning I wondered why ? since it was deserted apart from the trucks ..
I quickly understood; it was because of the " elephant nests "  that there were everywhere .. as soon as I passed the 80 an hour my road unit no longer held the road

[Assurancetourix]

8 minutes ago, Nyezhov said:

Lead Foot Louis

 

[Lacessit]

1 minute ago, Assurancetourix said:

 

Do you have an English translation?

[Assurancetourix]

6 minutes ago, Lacessit said:

Lindsay Fox started off with a secondhand truck doing deliveries in Melbourne. He's now the patriarch of a sprawling business empire, his trucks are even in Thailand.

Certainly no snowflake, he got the reputation of being a tough nut in a hard business.

My boss Louis Gelin, near Fougeres in France, started out in a similar way;

he was coming back from Algeria where he had just done his military service.
he buys a cattle truck and is called back to Algeria for a few more months.
He put his cattle truck on wedges by removing the battery;
his brother a little older than he paid the bills of the immobilized truck.
When he returned, he was finally able to start working for himself.
When I entered his company there were 43 ensembles in 1976;
now there are about 600 , more huge warehouses, more, more ...man other things ..

[Assurancetourix]

4 minutes ago, Lacessit said:

Do you have an English translation?

Maybe we must ask an english member ?

me, I'm french, I cannot help 

 

It reminds me of an anecdote that happens in the middle of winter on the A4 motorway between Venice and Milan, so a return to Mt Blanc and France.
And UK for the driver of the Harding Bros. roadworks complex;
There was a fog to "cut with a knife" we did not see at 5 meters and it was really cold, the mirrors covered very quickly with frost, therefore unusable.
But my English friend had the wheel on the right on a road where we are driving on the right ...
So he couldn't clean his left mirror
(Now it is done by itself with the built-in resistance)
So we stopped;
I "loaned" my wife  who was traveling with me and it was she who opened the window regularly to clean the left rearview mirror of my friend's tractor unit.

[Assurancetourix]

I unfortunately lost all my films taken before the digital age;
However, I continue to photograph the trucks that drive along  in Thailand.
I can write that they are for the most part recent, which is not the case of the line and tourist coaches which date almost all from Mathusalem.
To embellish this thread, I will illustrate it with trucks that drive in Thailand;
sometimes we have nice surprises like this set registered in Saigon; not Saigon, 30 isn't one of the number of that province , it's Hanoi 
photo taken at Nakon Phanom before the construction of the Friendship Bridge # 2

 

 

Edited March 30, 2020 by Assurancetourix

[Lacessit]

1 minute ago, Assurancetourix said:

Maybe we must ask an english member ?

me, I'm french, I cannot help 

 

 

Vive la France. Memories of a 7-course lunch in Metz. With 5 wines. Not sure how you guys get any work done in the afternoon.

Lindsay Fox at last count was worth about 22 billion USD.

My hairiest drive was between Euabalong and Cobar, outback of New South Wales. 200 odd km. Drought had broken, record rainfall. Wiping the sump on the wheel ruts of the trucks. Every so often there would be a seam of clay in the dirt road, which felt like driving on wet soap.

 

 

[canthai55]

[Olmate]

54 minutes ago, Lacessit said:

Lindsay Fox started off with a secondhand truck doing deliveries in Melbourne. He's now the patriarch of a sprawling business empire, his trucks are even in Thailand.

Certainly no snowflake, he got the reputation of being a tough nut in a hard business.

Certainly a dinkum hard man...see below and note  a couple of his battling Ozzie mates..

[Assurancetourix]

For a few years I drove "foot to the floor" avoiding the radars; in fact there were almost none in those blessed years ..
especially avoiding cars that were too slow for me on French and Italian motorways.
I remember this reflection that a biker from the Italian police once gave me;
I had passed it on the A4 motorway on my way to Brescia;
and at the next toll, he catches me, knocks gently on my door;
I opened the window and the guy said to me laughing: Volvo buon macchine;

 

actually be overtaken on the highway by a 38 tonnes while you drive yourself at 110/120 per hour .....

I never tell things that I can't prove;
obviously I no longer have the daily tachograph records;
but it will be enough to get information from the Volvo company which will answer you that the road tractors delivered to the Lebreton-Shell company in Rennes in January 1973 were somewhat special;
1200 wheels whereas today they are only 1000;
long couple; 2x4 stage gearbox and overdrive on all gears, making it 16 in front and 4 in rear;
and at the same time you will contact the company Fruehauf who had installed on the last axle of our semi-trailer with x-spaced axle a false bridge on which was mounted an electromagnetic retarder of the Telma brand.
We could therefore use all the studs in any atmospheric condition; what the drivers with the Telma on the tractor drive shaft could obviously not do otherwise they would find the trailer passing in front of the tractor; this is called "putting yourself in a wallet" or in addition image: being passed by the stepmother  .

 

What never happened to me;
In about 6 million km traveled on the roads of almost all the countries of Europe, I have always returned home without scratches, and my road units like me.

[digbeth]

The wooden cage trucks has to do double duty as bulk carrier for things like sand/gravel and even livestock while they can also transport good with a canvas cover. I doubt the steel bucket trucks from the west can still haul other goods economically.

 

But even modern material goods hauler with light bodies still has wooden floors, they're hard wearing and light and easy to work with. the trucks get delivered from manufacturer as a cab and bare chassis, then the body builders build to customers' spec whether it be refrigerated body or simple box for goods carrying.

 

One kind of body type I rarely see in Thailand is the open with canvas sides, maybe too susceptible to theft, plus in many place there aren't loading ramp/forklift that handles pallets/cage so they're loading most goods by hands still

[Nyezhov]

1 hour ago, canthai55 said:

wheres the snow picture from?

 

Never mind, got to be from Alaska or the NWT or Nunavit or BC/Yukon...dude has Bunny Boots on! Memories!

Edited March 30, 2020 by Nyezhov

[canthai55]

40 minutes ago, Nyezhov said:

wheres the snow picture from?

Ekati Diamond Mine

[Nyezhov]

18 minutes ago, canthai55 said:

Ekati Diamond Mine

Nice, you go out of Hay River across the Great Slave Lake?

[canthai55]

In those days Ekati fuel was loaded in Yellowknife.

Snap Lake loaded in Hay River, then Ice bridge across Mackenzie, road to Yellowknife, then Ice Road Northward.

Have a bridge across the Mac now.

[Assurancetourix]

2 hours ago, digbeth said:

One kind of body type I rarely see in Thailand is the open with canvas sides, maybe too susceptible to theft, plus in many place there aren't loading ramp/forklift that handles pallets/cage so they're loading most goods by hands still

I don't think Isaan is the place where the most trucks circulate but we see quite a few of this type on route 22 between Udon Thani and Nakon Phanom ;

On the other hand your answer concerning the lift trucks is certainly the right one; I very rarely see this type of material in traders who receive large trucks such as those transporting fertilizer or cement in bags;
most of the handling is still done by hand; what a waste of time !

 

[Assurancetourix]

1 hour ago, canthai55 said:

In those days Ekati fuel was loaded in Yellowknife.

Snap Lake loaded in Hay River, then Ice bridge across Mackenzie, road to Yellowknife, then Ice Road Northward.

Have a bridge across the Mac now.

Can you make us dream with photos or even small videos that you took during these trips to extreme countries?

[canthai55]

No video - but some pics