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ALLAN
Page 41
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There are five major players in the world oi' British walking floor operators, and one of them is Queensferry-based Allan Morris Transport. "We are Just inside the Welsh border, it's only 500m away," says operations manager Terry Axon. The firm's roots go back to 1893. Allan Morris Transport used to run horses and carts; after that it moved on to steam wagons. "As the years went by, the company got vehicle after vehicle," explains Axon. The firm went on to specialise in coal transport. In the 1970s, the company was bought by British Fuel.
And then In 1983, when British Fuel was considering closing down Allan Morris Transport, transport manager Brian Lee stuck his neck out and bought the company. He is currently managing director.
"At the time we got Into rock salt and coal," continues Axon. "A good BO% of work was in the rock salt—back then, local councils used to chuck the stuff down on the road. We carried a lot of coal, too." Allan Morris Transport used to be based in Chester city centre; it moved to Its current Queensferry site in 1985.
Today, the fleet consists of 25 tractive units, 15 walking flow trailers and 25 bulker trailers. The walking floor trailers, though, are the pride of the fleet. "We transport newspapers and magazines for recycling," explains Axon. There is no doubt that he is proud of the firm's specialist work—each 45ft walking floor trailer costs 140.000. That equates to the princely sum of E600.000 of investment. All the trailers are bought, whereas the units are on contract hire.
All the walking floor trailers are Legras. Thls French manufacturer is located in the Champagne region; It's an attractive location which Lee visits when he can. Then he can kill two birds with one stone: see the trailers and sup the local tipple. Not a bad working holiday, then.
"Recycling and running walking floors is a serious business," asserts Axon. "This Is a niche market and there are only five serious players In the UK.'' Spot hire is not a phrase you tend to hear in this sector. Axon says: "When a customer wants a job done with walking floor trailers, he may well ask If we can carry anything from 2.000 to 10,000 tonnes of newspaper and magazines In a year."
Each walking floor trailer contains 24 aluminium slats, and moyeable bulkheads In the Legras enable Allan Morris Transport to shift split loads. 3n a typical day, then, a Morris walking floor trailer could well be carrying pallets as well as a mass of glossy magazine paper.
"But it is Murphy's Law that one of the pallets will have a nail poking out of the bottom," remarks Lee. "We put down household carpets to avoid damaging the trailers."
The multi-coloured carpets are stored in tubes slung under the trailers, and are folded away when a section, or the entire trailer, is assigned to hauling paper. They are very versatile," he adds.
Astonishingly, different regions of the country throw out their own type of reading material. Our ears prick up as Lee rattles off the demographic list. He says: "Well, we find that The Lady, The Times and The Daily Telegraph are particularly popular in the Chilterns. They are so posh there that they even throw out the National Geographic!
"Swindon, Peterborough and Bristol have a lot of computer magazine readers, and there are a lot of tabloids coming out of Bournemouth. However, we do find that top-shelf magazines are thrown out across the country."
The piles of paper are taken to a large Deeside plant. explains Lee. "Our backloading actually goes out. We transport bagged fertiliser to 1,000 farms In the South of England, and then we bring the paper back. Sometimes we have got to make the heartbreaking decision to run empty on the way out."
The coveted Legras fleet accounts for 60% of turnover, with the remaining 40% generated by the bulkers. Five of these are assigned to one customer. Here, raw materials are picked up from a quarry and taken to a cement plant. The other twenty bulkers transport aggregates on a local basis.
Allan Morris Transport is a proud holder of the 1309002 quality certificate. Lee says: "We carry 100.000 tonnes of paper a year. I am pleased that we identified the walking floor trailers."
"We keep each one for between 10 and 12 years, and we treat them like pussycats."