Morton's deliver the goods in UK-Belgium 'Operation Ajax'
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MORTON'S (Coventry) Ltd., the Coventry haulage firm, is playing a vital role in the movement of Triumph 1300 bodies from Liverpool (where they are made) to a factory near Brussels where they are
assembled for the European market.
And Morton's is carrying tractor parts from the Midlands to a huge Ford factory in Antwerp where they are processed for onward transmission to another part of the Ford organization or for use in tractors built in the Antwerp factory.
Bodies for the Triumph 1300—code name Ajax—are delivered to the assembly plant at Malines, Belgium. within 48 hours of leaving the Standard-Triumph Liverpool factory and Mr. Noel Coplestone, the works manager at Liverpool, says: "We get an enthusiastic, helpful and courteous service from Morton's—we are more than satisfied. For an operation such as this, I think both sides can compliment themselves."
Straight-through delivery to Belgium, with its advantages of speed and minimized handling and damage risk, began about eight months ago. The Group had no special car body carrying equipment at that time so it devised special collapsible, tubular steel frameworks which can be erected in 10 minutes on an existing fleet of Merriworth flat trailers and which can carry six car bodies.
After being used to deliver bodies to Malines, the scaffolding is taken apart and stowed away and the trailer returned to Liverpool.
The tubular framework consists of 12 uprights and 12 cross beams, and the only modifications made to the trailers were holes for the rig to slot into chassis members.
The Morton depot at Bootle, near Liverpool, has seven tractive units and 18 trailers and these run a shuttle service to Coventry with the complete Belgian weekly quota of 72 bodies and another 100 for the home market, out of the factory's total weekly output of about 670.
The Morton operation begins at the end of the Speke (Liverpool) factory's production line. Bodies are brought by trolley to the loading area and transferred by an electrically operated fork-lift to the trailers.
One man is responsible for shunting into and out of the loading area and building up unrigged trailers, while other drivers take trailers from and back to the depot. The operation works on a continuous cycle. Trailers are loaded during the dayand shunted back to the depot. At 7 p.m. they are on the road for Coventry, arriving before midnight. After a meal break, the drivers transfer trailers, hitching an empty or loaded trailer for tilt north west, and return to Liverpool.
Al the Rowley Road, Coventry, headquarters of Morton's, the car body loads are integrated with cases containing engines and other components for the 1300 and, together with bodies for other Triumph models—the 2000, GT6 and
Heralds are hauled via M I to Harwich where they connect with special overnight car industry roll-on, roll-off ferry services operated by Wallenius Lines of Sweden.
The Harwich Dock Co., which is part of Mann and Son (London) Ltd., the Wallenius Line's sole UK agents, provides a dock service which is unique in Great Britain.
All its staff—l60 of them are on a full-time basis. They work on a group basis which gives them a five-day, 40-hour week. This scheme began in July 1965 and Morton's continental transport manager, Mr. Jack Worsley, says of it: "It is wonderful. This direct labour relationship means that, in effect, we can come in here 24 hours a day, seven days a week, if necessary."
The ferries leave Harwich at 4.30 p.m. and the trailers arrive in Antwerp at 8 a.m, the following day where they are taken over by one of Morton's continental associates, the India Transport Co., which has as one of its partners Mr. Harry Mutz. national president of Belgium's heavy transport federation and its Port of Antwerp branch.
After Customs clearance, the bodies and parts are hauled 20 miles by road to the Triumph factory at Malines, where the cars are being assembled.
The Ford traffic handled by Morton's is part of a triangular movement of tractor parts made in America, England and Belgium.
The parts carried by Morton's are collected direct from the factories where they are made, packed into special 33-ft. TIR trailers and despatched via Harwich to an Antwerp berth only a short distance from the Ford factory.
When Morton's entered the continental haulage market, hired trailers were used, but today the Group operates 40 33-ft. trailers which because of their greater carrying capacity, enable the Group to haul more traffic more quickly at more economical rates.
"Further additions to the trailer fleet are being made all the time to cope with the large number of new contracts for all types of cargo which we are undertaking," says Mr. Worsley, -The cargo varies greatly. It may be 50 footballs or engines for Austria; portable buildings for Greece or machine tools for Switzerland."
HAULIER FINED
CHARGED at Spilsby (Lines) Magistrates' Court with using three of his lorries without Excise licences, Joseph Stapleton, haulage contractor, of Main Road, Wainfleet, near Spilsby, was fined .£10 on each of the first two charges and £20 on the third. Pleas of guilty were submitted in a letter from Stapkton's solicitors, which also stated that he was receiving medical attention and asked for leniency.
LDOY Secretaries: New address for the Portsmouth area secretary of the Lorry Driver of the Year Competition is: Police Sergeant A. E. Twyman, Portsmouth Accident Prevention Council, 17/18, Portland Terrace, Southsea, Portsmouth. Tel. Portsmouth 22222, extn. 33. The New Londonderry area secretary is Mr. N. F. McCullagh. 57, Belmont Crescent, Londonderry, Northern Ireland. Tel. Brookhall 422.