BIRD'S EYE VIEW
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BY THE HAWK
• The last lap of the busy A2 into Dover — named by truckers as "the cart track into Europe" — has been given a new name by the RAC. The "Seven Deadly Miles" have been slated by the RAC which says: "It is ludicrous and deplorable that it should be possible to drive on motorways and other dual carriageway roads all the way from Scotland to within seven miles of Dover, where traffic pours on to a single carriageway section of road. By the time drivers reach the busy A2 in Kent which carries the bulk of the coaches and cars heading for the ferry services at Dover, they may be tempted to make up for lost time only to be frustrated still further by slowmoving traffic on the last lap — the seven deadly miles," stormed Tony Lee, RAC director of public affairs, during a visit to Dover.
The RAC is calling for the elimination of the dangerous delays: "This could be an important addition to our Pinch Points Protest Campaign, and there cannot be a more important bottleneck to eliminate than that leading to the world's busiest ferry port," says Lee.
• A 1920s look-alike Fkur de Lys blushes bright pink as its engine compartment is exposed to Royalty, revealing not a nice little side valve nor an oil engine as befits a vehicle of this sort, but a less-than-rare two-litre petrol unit. The Duke of Kent was visiting the Newark, Nottinghamshire-based manufacturer of olde worlde vans, which has just won a contract to supply a Japanese company with 13 of these vehicles. When the Duke saw the colour he reeled back in horror, managing only a strangled "Gosh!". Quite right too, Your Grace.
use at the bottom of a holiday camp swimming pool. Quite right. It's the latter.
The Mrrun-thick panel will join others to diffuse light under the pool floor being built by vehicle bodybuilder Wilsdon and Co of Solihull.
Wilsdon's John Green (the ghostly looking one in the picture) says: "These panels may seem a bit of a departure from our usual work building vehicle bodies but our plant has a great deal of experience in producing high-quality GRP items and so it was easy for us to turn our hand to this product." • Credit where it's due: in last week's issue we carried a headline story reporting Terry Allan's retirement as leader of London's 20,000 TGWU-affiliated bus workers. The Hawk thinks it only fair to credit LRT New for the photograph used in the story and reproduced here. Happy retirement Terry; I trust a copy of that thriller novel you're working on will wing its way to my eyrie.
• Few vehicles outlive their engines — more often than noi it is the other way round.
A catering company recently changed one of its vehicles Car. rying a refrigeration unit powered by a small Kubota diesel engine which ran and rar for over 18,000 hours. The vehicle was replaced but the engine was in such good condition that Jim Buttner, who services Shropshire food company Sidoli and Sons' trucks, handed it over to Morris and Co (Shrewsbury), which supplies oils for all Sidoli's vehicles.
"We thought Morris's would like to take a look at how well their oil had performed," says Bunner.