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HARI) MAIN
Page 79
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Jimmy Yuill is not bothered by notoriety. His company helped to break the miners' strike in Scotland by supplying coal to Ravenscraig power station when other hauliers would not cross the picket lines. Now the pressure is from escalating fuel costs and rate-cutting rivals.
• Jimmy Yuill, of Yuill & Dodds, has a tough reputation. The company earned notoriety in Central Scotland during the miners' strike when its heavily-protected lorries continued to carry coal to Ravenscraig steel works after other hauliers dropped out.
Police escorted the trucks from the Hunterston terminal to Ravenscraig, which had become the focal point of the miners strike in Scotland, and Yuill & Dodds drivers had to run the gauntlet of pickets at the works entrance. The drivers were offered the option of not doing the work, but decided to carry on, and this kept Ravenscraig at a minimum operational level.
Notoriety doesn't worry Jimmy Yuill. "We simply carried on doing what we had done before," he says, "and we're still doing it now."
Coal remains an important part of the Yuill & Dodds business, in spite of the closure of most of Scotland's pits. The company is one of three contractors carrying coal from open-cast sites to Longannet power station. "Our share is usually about 600 tonnes a day," says Yuill, "but some days it can be a lot more, and other days a lot less. It's Very much a day-to-day business, and we have to live with that."
TRAILER FLEET
More than half of the Yuill & Dodds fleet of 86 trucks are artics, with 34 eightlegger tippers and four rigids. Tippers dominate the trailer fleet, but there are also flats for brick, pipe and coil carrying, and eight triaxle curtain-siders which are used to deliver display refrigerators to supermarkets.
After some bad problems with earlier tipper and bulk trailer bodies, Yuill has moved to South Derry Coachworks in Northern Ireland for his bodywork needs. "They're great," he says. "They're wellbuilt and they keep going — that's important to me."
Yuill's trucks are worked hard, with the eight-leggers clocking up 104,000km (65,000 miles) a year, and the artics 128,000km (80,000 miles). The fleet today is dominated by 50 Scanias, mostly R113s, with 20 MAN and a few Fodens and Dafs. He is enthusiastic about his Scanias and the back-up service from Reliable Vehicles, but wryly points out that "Scanias have their problems too".
He likes the high resale value of the Scanias, but has no vehicle buying and selling policy other than selling "when the price is right".
Air suspension is specified "wherever possible" on a number of his trucks, and on many of his trailers. "It costs a bit more at the start, but it is much cheaper and easier to replace air-bags than conventional springs".
The Yuill & Dodds tippers are also involved in carrying road surfacing materials, salt, sand, rock and muck.
The company operates out of two depots, a 1.2ha site at Strathaven, where the head office is situated, and a smaller yard 24km away at Rigside. The operation runs from a basically-furnished offices, with an open yard for the trucks and covered maintenance and workshop areas.
Yuill & Dodds employ 120 staff — 86 drivers including Eddie Bunce (left): eight in the office, four tyre-fitters, and some 20 mechanics and greasers. With much of the work on a Monday-to-Friday, working-day basis, the yards are empty for most of the week, and generally routine maintenance is done by the nightshift mechanics and at weekends.
The bulk of the work is concentrated in central Scotland, making the blue and red Yuill & Dodds tippers a familiar sight locally, but the specialist pipe post and coil carrying trailers are to be found anywhere in Britain. Yuill does not get involved in overseas work, preferring to concentrate on his existing markets.
Yuill and his wife are the only shareholders, and their children are involved in the business — their son at the Strathaven head office and their daughter at the smaller depot at Rigside. Both hold domestic as well as international CPCs.
CRAZY SITUATION
Yuill devotes most of his time to the business, but says there are times when he wonders why: "It's a crazy situation in road haulage today. I could sell up, put the money in a building society, and earn a better return than I do from the business — and with a lot less hassle.
"The profit margins in road haulage are rubbish," he says. "Haulage rates need to go up by 25%. Nobody else would accept the return on their money for their outlay."
Yuill, critical of the rate-cutting that loses him work, cites examples of what he regards as completely uneconomical rates quoted by other local hauliers: "I get through 22,500 litres of diesel every night, so the increase on diesel in the last budget is costing me an extra 2450 every night," he says, "and that's on top of the increase in road tax that I have to pay. My costs have really shot up, but I am still bound by contract rates for the Coal Board work that were agreed two years ago."
So. after 35 years, would he quit the business? "There are times when I've thought about it, but I have a staff of 120 relying on me, and I would like to pass something on to my children. But it's not the same as it used to be. There's not the jokes and laughs any more."
D by Gavin Booth