Show us your milk floats?

[sierraman]

It's just dawned on me it must be about 10 years since I've seen a milk float, even then it must have been a 70's vintage. Do they still use the older type electric floats?

[worldofceri]

Yes. We have milk delivered here in Coventry by milkfloat.

 

Our old milkman retired last year after 37 years. He sold the milk float to a plate rapist. Should have got a picture before I saw it for the last time.

[overrun]

WE PUT THE BRICK

ON THE

ACCELERATOR

[NorfolkNWeigh]

What a quaint old fashioned idea ;

 

An electric zero emissions vehicle delivering a natural product in completely and easily recyclable packaging , delivered at a time it won't cause traffic congestion and sold to the consumer on a zero % credit deal.

 

If someone came up with this idea today the hipster green sandal weavers would wank themselves silly all over their hot desk meeting spaces.

[somewhatfoolish]

[Cleon-Fonte]

Go into Central Manchester of a morning and you can see a few of these Smith Cabacs belonging to Creamline Dairies milling around, occasionally holding up rush hour traffic.

 

 

I wish my local dairy would buy some of these, at present they use an Iveco Daily with the world's loudest diesel engine under the bonnet, from half a mile away it's capable of vibrating the house like a passing train at 0500 in the morning.

[Junkman]

We have a proper milk float around here, but I'm not getting up at 4am to take a pic.

[scruff]

We have a milkman but his float is a Transit these days. 

 

 I was down mercrocker's neck of the woods a few years back and there was a dairy full of out-of-use electric floats. Ringwood I think?

[sierraman]

They seem to last for bloody ages, you wouldn't find an R reg Transit milkfloat that's for sure

[worldofceri]

What a quaint old fashioned idea ;

An electric zero emissions vehicle delivering a natural product in completely and easily recyclable packaging , delivered at a time it won't cause traffic congestion and sold to the consumer on a zero % credit deal.

If someone came up with this idea today the hipster green sandal weavers would wank themselves silly all over their hot desk meeting spaces.

Sadly, in common with most Hipster enterprises, the product is twice the price you pay in Asda.

[worldofceri]

There's a firm in Leicester that still run antiquated machines with solid tyres!

 

https://goo.gl/images/2JioHf

 

Photo by Midlands Vehicle Photographer aka Billy_Medhurst on here.

 

Sorry, can't figure out how to embed the image bcos:iphone+flickr.

[DSdriver]

They use one in Chatham Historic Dockyard for moving stuff about, I'll pap it next time I'm there if I remember.

[adw1977]

I sometimes see a proper milk float trying (and failing totally) to keep up with the traffic on the A217 dual carriageway in South London.

[mercrocker]

We have a milkman but his float is a Transit these days. 

 

 I was down mercrocker's neck of the woods a few years back and there was a dairy full of out-of-use electric floats. Ringwood I think?

 

B&B Dairies - they are still visible on Google Earth (158 Christchurch Road, Ringwood BH24 3AP) 

 

Must check if they are still there in actual Earth next time I pass! 

[PiperCub]

Can't recall the last time I saw one around my way.

The last one I saw in the flesh was when on a training course at a company that was located in Pinewood studios, they had several laying about presumably to cart shit about the site. 

[0ldCh0d]

I Think we should do another Mass...

[tooSavvy]

I think milk floats have been done on here before... I seem to recall something about an antique looking trike on a P or something. The chassis are Forth Bridge & Smiths (or someone) refurbed a raft of them for A,,S,,Dairy, thinks, and they came out but re-registered.

 

 

mebbies 

 

 

TS

[Pillock]

I nearly hit the local electric milkfloat at 5am one morning, he was driving around in the dark with what appeared to be a 1W bulb on each side. Must have been in "battery conservation" mode.

 

When I was a nipper the milkman managed to tip his float over outside the house on a corner. Less than silent.

[John F]

My local milkman drives something that looks like this, but much earlier and infinitely worse. It's in a sort of dark yellow/orange colour and IIRC is 'P' reg. (i.e. 1975-ish):

 

[stormee]

Great things, never seen one. Our milkman had a very silent* Transit Mk1 V4 in dead-pigeon pale blue.

[Braddon81]

Great childhood memories of my local Unigate Milkman letting me steer with him one of these round the cul de sacs local to me when I was a kid! I used to get a wad full of Humphrey stickers too! Want level for one of these runs very high!

[De Selby]

Our milkman (Goodwins Dairy of Whitchurch RIP) had a knackered Sherpa. It was a rural area: we still had the old tall widemouthed milk bottles as late as the 1980s and even had the things the milk came out of looking over the hedge and mooing occasionally.

 

My grandparents on the other hand had "steri" delivered from a silent Express three-wheeled thing, both of which seemed unbelievably exotic and cosmopolitan to my infant yokel brain.

[johngarty]

Last time I had a milkman was 20 years ago, he drove a Transit.

 

Wasn't this fella was it?

[Hendry]

I dont think anyone does milk deliveries round here anymore, last time I saw one was around 10 years ago and it was a Grahams Dairies Merc Sprinter van, I think corner shops have killed it off. 

[Cavcraft]

I think these...

 

http://briscoesdairy.co.uk/

 

 

...still have one or two. Locally though they were using a Transit last time I saw them. I actually put in for (and got offered) a job there about 18 years ago, it was sadly not quite enough money at the time though.

[mercrocker]

Sadly our local milko uses a Sprinter.... 

 

The last estate I lived on was still served by electrics, one of which used to come down to our flats at the bottom of a long cul-de-sac and the driver would reverse all the way back up, hanging out of the float facing backwards.   That dairy is now, predictably, a car-wash.  We also, up until the early 2000s, still used to have a bloke come round in a Morris LD with groceries and heating oil!

 

Growing up, we had a South Coast Dairies depot in the village with Wales & Edwards trikes.   This was served by a daily delivery by artic (Commer TS2s originally, then TKs) and I seem to recall there being a licence entitlement at 16 for the trikes - several lads from school went straight there as rounds-men. 

 

I miss the whine and clink of early morning electric float deliveries, although one nearly caused me a catastrophe on my Suzuki Invader when a sack of spuds flopped off the back of the float I was about to overtake (the Invader must have just had a tune-up....) and bounced all over the road.

[sierraman]

I always wanted a bottle of that orange juice they did, but my folks wouldn't order any said it was too dear.

[sporty-shite]

THOSE WOMEN WERE IN THE NIP!!!

[0ldCh0d]

Awful lot of Hairy Babies on Craggy Island...

[Wilko220]

You milk float pervs might be interested in some of the surviving pics on this thread from the Autoshite vault.

 

http://autoshite.com/topic/12855-smith-electric-vehicles-and-general-milk-float-tat/?fromsearch=1