It isn't often that Commercial Motor gets the opportunity to
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test a haulier's claim for the efficiency of his service. But such a chance arose during CM's visit to Highland Haulage when our photographer accidentally locked his keys inside his car.
The vehicle is fitted with the latest thief proof devices so breaking in was out of the question and the nearest spare keys were many miles away at the photographer's Glasgow home.
Highland Haulage to the rescue. A phone call from director David Thompson to his Glasgow depot resulted in collection of the spare keys for shipment up to Inverness on that night's trunking service; Thompson personally dropped them off at CM's hotel later that evening. No express delivery firm could have done better.
Highland Haulage is celebrating its 40th birthday and is a respected name in Scottish haulage. But for a time in the late eighties the name disappeared and might never have resurfaced were it not for Thompson's willingness to take a risk. He had joined the firm as a junior in 1960 when it was privately owned but the next year HH was taken over by TDG. The name Highland Haulage survived for a further quarter of a century until TDG merged it with Glasgow operation, Connal, and it became Connal Highland. A further merger followed in 1991 when Connal Highland became part of Intercity, trading under that name.
Thompson does not comment on TDG's reputation north of the border for enforced rationalisation of the Scottish haulage industry, but it was at this point that he and another TDG employee, Neil Munro, decided to act. Between them they bought the now defunct Highland Haulage name from Companies House and raised the finance to relaunch the business in 1992.
Three years on, the phoenix is alive and well with a fleet of 35 vehicles, all purchased new. Eight new vehicles—five Scanias and three Volvo FH12s—joined the fleet last month. "We offer a next-day service as far north as Wick and Thurso from the central belt and we have connections to the Northern and Western isles," explains Thompson.
A quarter of the firm's business is timber, with an increasing amount coming through the port of Inverness although mills throughout Scotland's central belt still use timber forested in Scotland. Paper and pulp also enter through Inverness and the company has recently picked up a couple of contracts with Aberdeen paper mills.
Steel, building products and foodstuffs form a large part of the firm's backloads: the Glasgow trunking service meets the nightshift at Inverness where loads are broken down and assembled for delivery by rigids early next morning "to all points north, south, east and west".
The company is also the most northerly member of the Palletline consortium, picking up an average of six pallets a night from Glasgow—oh, and the odd set of car keys...