Originally posted by Twin Window
Here's my Uncle Roy's Leyland outside his house in Thrybergh, Rotherham, in 1960 with my cousins Alan and Maureen posing;
There must be others around somewhere, but as yet I can only find the following from a job I went on in 1974 which involved - from memory - collecting our loads from a Christian Salvesen ship in Wigan (?), taking the cargo to British Steel Corby and returning back to Rotherham...
I'm not sure where the above station is, although I suspect it might be Peterborough. Pete Fenelon would know... The nearest locomotive is a Class 47, or Brush Type 4 as it would've been known back then.
When you consider that this was taken on a Kodak Instamatic - probably the most basic camera on the planet - then you begin to appreciate just how bright the molten steel was as it was poured into ingots from a roof-crane within the Corby works. The scale too is hard to comprehend as this flow was massive, and the heat...
Proving I was there?
Is this Lincoln? Someone will know...
Twin Window,
Re Uncle Roy's Leyland. Was that a single axle Beaver or six wheel Hippo with the 600/680 engine?
My employer at the time bought two of the latter, six wheelers for prime moving work each with 20++ ton capacity tipping bodies.
In the Australian heat they were shockers to drive, we would almost go through a water bag every trip about 15 miles !
They were known as the "PP" model, Power Plus ? The boss referred to them as 'piss poor'.
Diabolical things to work on, typical English. The cabs were known as LAD's. Leyland. Albion. Dodge.
They were a slight improvement on the earlier box cabbed Hippo and Octopus. Only in that the gearbox was 'friendlier', still a 'crash' box but a lot more forgiving than the earlier type. If a change was missed in one of these it meant coming to a complete halt and starting all over.
After the PP we advanced to the "Ergomatic" Michelotti design tilt cab. Very comfortable working environment.
One slight problem, the over centre cab hold down let go as I went over a railway crossing. The cab tried to tilt, because the floor and drivers seat were fixed I could only push back on the seat trying to hold the cab until I rolled to a stop!
Years later I read in a Classic Transport mag that the pommy drivers called them "Widowmakers".
Cheers, Wily.