Successful First London-Afghanistan Trunk Run by Road
Page 29
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
BY N. H. TILSLEY
REGULAR trunk running to the Far IN. East with goods vehicles was brought a stage nearer when, a little more than a week ago, a standard 1962 Guy Warrior, drawing a York Freightmaster van semi-trailer, arrived back in this country via the T.F.S. Tilbury/Rotterdam ferry, having completed a 10,000-mile round trip to Kabul, Afghanistan.
Altogether the vehicle is to make three round trips conveying linotype setting machinery valued at £84,000, and it is to the credit of 30-year-old Mr. Michael Woodman—an ex-R.A.F. dentistfoundec of the Great Britain-Afghanistan Express, and his co-driver, Bob Paul, that this first load was delivered completely undamaged. The actual outward running time was 25 days, which compares favourably with the alternative sea route to Karachi, and then transhipment .wice to rail and road vehicles for the iourney to land-locked Afghanistan via he Khyber Pass. It is this last stretch n the journey that results in loss and lamage, I understand,
As briefly described in The Commercial Vfotor, May 1, the outward journey was ria Holland, Germany, Austria, Yugoilavia and Bulgaria. The vehicle was !erried across the Bosporus and into furkey at Istanbul, whence followed the Black Sea coastline from Samsun, along .oads that were described by Mr. Woodnan as "absolutely terrible" to Trabzon.
After Trabzon, still in Turkey, the road :limbs until eventually an altitude of ',500 ft. above sea level was reached. Jnmade road surfaces, drifts, waddies, iigh passes, sand and mud were neountered through Iran (Persia), hrough which country a policeman had a be carried in the vehicle, from border a border, in accordance with the reguAtions. Tayyebat was the entry point of Oghanistan, in which cOuntry the Lussians and Americans between them re building roads. The return journey /as made via Baghdad.
In Kabul Mr. Woodman was assured by bankers, insurance brokers and traders that they could always backload vehicles going to_Bngland and, when roadworkings now in progress in Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan are completed, he considers that, providing the operator is careful in choosing his equipment, trunk running will be a practical proposition.
The tractor is now at Guy Motors, having—I was told by a spokesman for that company—some ordinary running repairs" completed. When these are completed the unit will be loaded for Kabul on its second journey.
What preparations were made for the journey; what difficulties did the company meet at the various borders through which it passed? This information will be given when a pictorial article describing the journey in more detail is published in The Commercial Motor shortly, More Liner Train Union Problems
(From Our Industrial Correspondent)
TilE future of Dr. Beeching's £100 m. liner train project looks as if it might become involved in the railwaymen's latest pay claim. Leaders of the National Union of Railwaymen seem unwilling in take any new .move on the question of allowing private road hauliers access to the proposed depots until the British Railways Board replies to their claim for a rise of nearly II per cent.
This means that Dr. Beeching is in the worse position. For unless he can reach some-early agreement with the union, his whole timetable for introducing the first stage of the liner train network early next year will be thrown out.
But the Outlook may not be as gloomy as,„ it appears. As reported in The Commercial Motor, Dr. &ceiling's offer of a two-year guarantee against redundancy among the railways' road cartage staff has had some effect on union leaders. and a renewed invitation to discuss the problem may get a better response from the union's executive council.