A Poden for Portugal
Page 14
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• The first British-registered example of a sleeper-cab Foden 32-ton gross articulated truck left Britain for Portugal on Tuesday December 9. This tractive unit, designed originally for the Australian market, has been bought by Interoute Ltd., the international haulage division of F. C. Bennett and Sons Ltd., the road transport and warehousing concern based at Kingston Blount, in Oxfordshire.
The Foden (bearing the name Poden to avoid offending the Portuguese, in whose language "foden" is a rude word!) is joining
French Dairy Farmers Ltd. employ this Volvo F86/Brockhouse ran3D-ton-gross TIR outfit to carry dairy produce from Paris to London. The aluminium hoi4., was built by Silverdale Motor Bodies Ltd., York Road, Birmingham 28, and it insulated with 4in. of polyurethane material. It is refrigerated by a Thermo-King unit operating on propane gas, four propane bottles being carried on the tractive unit. Equipment includesJoloda tracks and a Ratcliffe tailboard lift. The body has an internal length of 32ft while the width and height are 7ft 6in. and 7ft respectively. Loading is through a side door.
two other units (Atkinsons) in Lisbon for shunting trailers between Portugal and the French railway terminal at Hendaye on the French-Spanish frontier. The customs-sealed trailers are sent by the French Railways' Kangaroo system for their journeys between Le Havre and Hendaye.
Since Interoute's road/rail service was introduced early this year, business has quadrupled. So far, Interoute has handled C1. 5m.-worth of British exports to Portugal.
The sleeper-cab Foden is taking the eighth Merriworth customs-sealed Kangaroo tandem-axle trailer with it to Lisbon. A cab with a sleeping compartment across the back was desirable because, in the words of Mr. 0. C. Bennett, managing director of Interoute Ltd., -The trip between Lisbon and the French border takes 36 hours and Portuguese drivers are inclined to sleep, in sleeping bags, under their trailers when they stop for the night. We felt they deserved more civilized and secure conditions if they insist on this practice of staying with the vehicle at night".
Being designed specially for operation over indifferent roads in hot climates, the export model Foden is well suited to Portuguese and Spanish operation. The cab roof is surmounted by a sun-deflector, spaced a few inches from the roof so that a continual draught of air is scooped over the roof when the vehicle is moving. A large ventilating hatch in the roof can be raised so that air can be either scooped into the cab or angled so that air is extracted from the cab. There are inlet and extractor vents in the front and the ears (behind the doors) of the cab, in addition to the swivelling quarter-lights in the doors. An electric fan is also fitted inside the cab. More room is provided in the full-width steel cab than in the narrower reinforced-plastics cab fitted to home-market Fodens.