Dick

[holbeck]

I had reason to visit Halewood in 1994 and coincidentally a large batch of Telecom grey vans were going down the line. Seemingly in batches of 10, then with a couple of random cars in between then another 10 grey vans.

[tooSavvy]

.... More recently, at Halewood, I was confronted with a vast sea of Evoqes sans rear bumpers - with the camera/reversing sensors dangling - there had been a fire at the Bumper Making Plant!!

 

Oh... the roffles

 

 

TS

[simmo]

My old Ex Telecom Maestro

 

[scruff]

Top thread.

 

My dad was a brickie has was my grandad, other grandad was a joiner so there was always a bit of commercial chod about. Escort 55 van, original Trafic, a Sherpa, Datsun cabstar, Datsun 4x4 pickup? B699 MCD!

 

Dad had a absolutely shit Chevanne which I can't really remember and then an ex-Gas Board HA which I absolutely can. Our other car was a Mini so with dogs and young children the van was often the transport of choice. 

 

 

In later years there were a brace of P100s and when dad moved to sparky-ing an ex Telecom Transit, J431 VOM, in grey with the standard racking/roof rack/roof tube/sink/bombproof engine. An absolutely EXCELLENT vehicle.

 

We have a spare van at work as we are a mobile-fitter-down at the mo, but it's an iveco daily so I'm not posting a picture of it for everyone to make fun of.

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

A friend of mine who is now in his seventies started with Redifusion in 1970 and had a Mini Van, moving onto an HB Viva and ending with Mark 4/5 Cortina Estates. 

[mercrocker]

I can't see a Telecom HA without thinking of the Bix Beiderbecke Affair......

 

 

 

 

 

 

Perfect piece of casting!     

 

Playing spot-the-livery on cast-off vans was all part of the street furniture a few years ago, you certainly don't see many now except for Postman Pat's old crap.   Even then, the number of roller-door hand-painted Convoys with the rear slats flaking back to red are much less common on steam rally fields than they used to be, or Oxford registered pale grey smileys for that matter.

 

Somebody at a rock and roll weekend recently carted their gear up in an ex-RM Maxus which had pogweasled to a perfect Fifties pink on the roof and bonnet.   The rest of the van had been wrapped in gloss cream vinyl but couldn't quite hide its heritage!    

 

Like many other posters, I miss this stuff.   A complete layer of shite motoring has been wiped out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[scruff]

Barry in Auf Wiedershen Pet had a HA too.

[bramz7]

As promised:

 

1985 Ford Transit 120 SWB. by Sam Osbon, on Flickr

 

Ex Telecom Transit, still in use! Still MOT'd too, impressive.

 

1990 Ford Transit Popular. by Sam Osbon, on Flickr

 

Ex Telecom, again.

 

1989 Ford Transit Popular. by Sam Osbon, on Flickr

 

1986 Freight Rover Sherpa 250. by Sam Osbon, on Flickr

 

1985 Freight Rover Sherpa Ex-British Telecom Box Van. by Sam Osbon, on Flickr

 

1986 Freight Rover Sherpa Ex-British Telecom Box Van. by Sam Osbon, on Flickr

 

1993 Leyland Daf 400 Series Luton. by Sam Osbon, on Flickr

 

dunno if this counts but here it is anyway

 

1996 LDV 400 Series 2.5 Diesel Campervan. by Sam Osbon, on Flickr

 

Frozen in time. by Sam Osbon, on Flickr

 

1989 Austin Maestro 500 City Van. by Sam Osbon, on Flickr

 

1989 AUSTIN MAESTRO 500 CITY VAN 1.3 by Sam Osbon, on Flickr

 

1990 Rover Maestro 500 City Van. by Sam Osbon, on Flickr

 

1988 Austin Maestro 500 City Van. by Sam Osbon, on Flickr

 

1984 Bedford CF 2.3 LWB Van. by Sam Osbon, on Flickr

 

1986 Bedford CF 2.0 SWB Van. by Sam Osbon, on Flickr

 

The last one is actually reg'd as a Fleet van. Not sure who though.

[martc]

What was BRITISH Gas doing with a fleet of VW vans anyway? 

I often see transporters loaded with them coming off Grimsby Docks - painted in the current pale blue waiting for the Union Flag and Royal Coat of Arms transfers to be applied in some yard somewhere!

 

Today it was a transporter of AA yellow VW vans heading down the A180...

 

Why don't they go to Luton for a British built foreign van? Or to SAIC for the authentic foreign built British van?

[simmo]

I am guessing this is Ex fleet.  Brit entry for Hot Rod Mag's Drag Week.

 

[Hendry]

Glasgow City Council still have their own unique dark green shade all their vans come in from new, making them easy to spot after theyve been defleeted.

 

I think they are one of the few, well other than most other councils, to buy their vans outright rather than lease or contract hire them. Usually always VW Crafters be it chassis cabs or LWB panel vans. 

[Yoss]

I can vouch for not buying ex Royal Mail vans. Not now anyway. I work for them and these Peugeots we have now are utter shit (not shite). Though to be fair the way we work has changed and they are just not designed for it. It used to be that the main posties went out on a bike and then a driver with a Sherpa or Tranny would service 8 or 9 posties dropping out extra bags and doing all the larger packets. So whilst it was stop start work you only stopped for a minute or so each time.

 

Now we have pairs of posties going out in small Peugeots. But they stop in one place and each postie does a 'loop'. Then half an hour later they get back in the van, move it a couple of hundred yards and repeat the process so the engines never warm up. Not good for a diesel with a dpf. The van I was in today has only done 14k miles in five years but it only does six miles a day, never goes more than two miles from the office and barely ever reaches fourth gear, let alone fifth.

 

It's a ridiculous way of working but someone upstairs decided this was better than bikes. Apparently the next lot of vans will be petrol which will be interesting. I didn't think anyone even made petrol vans anymore.

[martc]

Now we have pairs of posties going out in small Peugeots. But they stop in one place and each postie does a 'loop'. Then half an hour later they get back in the van, move it a couple of hundred yards and repeat the process so the engines never warm up. Not good for a diesel with a dpf. The van I was in today has only done 14k miles in five years but it only does six miles a day, never goes more than two miles from the office and barely ever reaches fourth gear, let alone fifth.

 

Isn't this the ideal argument for electric vehicles - short distances, low speeds, quiet, fewer moving parts etc?

[tooSavvy]

Isn't this the ideal argument for electric vehicles - short distances, low speeds, quite, fewer moving parts etc?

Perfect.....

 

However (a bean counter may opine later!) Capital vs Revenue will play here.

 

A capital expensive/economical to operate van vs Cheap throw away shite on fossil.

 

Unless 'massive support/green subsidy'? Shite ftw

 

 

TS

[xkjagnz]

In Auckland the posties have started using these electric paxters

[tooSavvy]

I recall somewhere hearing that some coachwork firm tooled up those 'all in one/shower tray' fibreglass Luton's, with roller door.

 

No one would buy the van... Too expensive to do f/glass 'benders' vs poprivet alloy.

 

I recall a fleet joblot went out (slashed likely) and that was it!

 

TS

[mercrocker]

In Auckland the posties have started using these electric paxters

paxster.jpg

 

Southampton Dock Post Office had a fleet of these.....help the environment, keep fit, all in the unenlightened 1950s-70s of course.  

 

[Yoss]

Isn't this the ideal argument for electric vehicles - short distances, low speeds, quite, fewer moving parts etc?

Yes, absolutely. I'd love to have a go in an electric van but Royal Mail planning moves at glacial speeds (we're in the middle of an office revision at the moment that they've been planning for about five years. It seems as soon as one revision goes in they start thinking about the next one but it takes that long to implement). Maybe after we've had petrol vans for five years electric ones will be more viable. By viable I mean cheap of course, as I said we only do six miles a day and the technology is already there for that. We could use old milk floats.

[alf892]

Father Alf and his mate used to buy batches of anglia vans from Baxters butchers in Northampton.......they would get a quick blow over and sold on........carried on into mk1 Escort vans as well.

 

Nowadays you have a job to get special colours. We used to have garnet red Fords.....then they dropped the colour but to keep our business they paid 2k per unit for us to get them painted. They actually got a cheap blow over for a grand and (allegedly) the sales bloke at the ford dealer and (then) business unit md split the balance. We took a over 1000 vehicles a year then.......and that little scam probably ran for 5 years.

[Felly Magic]

A lot of big fleets now source their vans from the likes of Northgate, especially councils. You rarely see 2nd hand supermarket home delivery vans for sale because normally they go straight for scrap, because they are rarely serviced, and are treated worse than anything Postman Pat can do. The local Tesco had a dead van parked on the entrance to a patch of land by the store to stop Do As You Likeys setting up camp, it was an absolutely rotten Iveco Daily

[danthecapriman]

My mk2 Transit is ex fleet, being ex BBC.

 

IMG_0231 by Dan Clark, on Flickr

 

You can still see the remnants of the old BBC logo and numbers on it in places where it was all removed.

This is what it looked like back in its service days:

 

BBC Radio Manchester O.B. Ford Transit (1985) by Robin Vanags, on Flickr

 

They are/were mobile radio studios and some (like mine) had pretty long service lives. Once retired they were stripped down and flogged off. Mine still had most of its sound and recording gear inside when I got it.

 

 

You can still tell SSE vans easily too if you know what to look for.

Transits and Sprinters are blue, with old fashioned beacon lights on the roof and they often still retain their enormous yellow rear steps.

My old Sprinter was actually metallic blue! God knows why they spent money on metallic paint?

Our older vans were silver, but otherwise the same identifiable features.

Our depot had an A reg Dodge 50 until not that long ago too, still in the original SEB green livery. It lasted so long as it was a test van full of built in instruments which made it expensive to replace hence its long life.

It was getting very rusty at the end though and it got scrapped, despite my best efforts to buy it! I'd love to have an ex SEB Dodge 50, it'd be nice to work for them and have one of their old vans!

[sierraman]

A lot of big fleets now source their vans from the likes of Northgate, especially councils. You rarely see 2nd hand supermarket home delivery vans for sale because normally they go straight for scrap, because they are rarely serviced, and are treated worse than anything Postman Pat can do. The local Tesco had a dead van parked on the entrance to a patch of land by the store to stop Do As You Likeys setting up camp, it was an absolutely rotten Iveco Daily

Iceland sell them off, usually at 100-120k.

[Ghosty]

Glasgow City Council still have their own unique dark green shade all their vans come in from new, making them easy to spot after theyve been defleeted.

 

I think they are one of the few, well other than most other councils, to buy their vans outright rather than lease or contract hire them. Usually always VW Crafters be it chassis cabs or LWB panel vans. 

 

Derbyshire Country Council used to specify all their vehicles in orange. 

 

 

 

 

 

This colour pogweaseled to a really weird flat apricot/peach shade.

They've stopped doing it now (as of late last year), when vehicles get replaced they order white ones.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

A mate was an apprentice sparky with EMEB and got his own van at 18, a brand new Ital. we went all over the country buying cars from Motoring News and Exchange and Mart. He wasn't supposed to use it privately, let alone tow Escorts and Capris from hundreds of miles away with a bit of string, so we used to cover the logos on the side with masking tape!

For a low compression 1275 it went pretty well, usually keeping a steady 80 with me sitting behind it in a rotten old Ford , we even plumbed a trailer socket inside the rear light for a light board, bet that confused whoever bought it when it was de-fleeted.

[Timewaster]

Dad worked for BT and there was always a HA with buzby stickers or an Ital van outside when I was a kid.

When I used to sell aerosol paints, hycote launched a range of van colours. BT yellow, BT grey, Post Office red and a few other van specific colours.

That was when we realised that Ford BT grey wasn't quite the same as Vauxhall BT grey or Austin BT grey.

The colour matched the resprayed yellow vans but not the ones that were factory grey.

Post Office red never matched because the vans were all Pogweasel pink.

 

We also dealt with Ferraris Pistons whose horrid pea green vans can be seen around East Anglia.

It must cost them a fortune to paint every van and also kill any resale value.

No one could ever explain why they did it.

[overrun]

I suspect it was a matter of the buyer saying "this is our yellow, we want 300 in it please."  Or whatever the other colour might be.  Before the vinyl graphics took off any two-toning (such as the Escort above) would have to be done in paint, making the ex-fleet easy to recognise.

The last of this lot has to be City Link Transit's.

You can spot them a mile off with their half yellow, half green paint scheme.

[Tayne]

Isn't this the ideal argument for electric vehicles - short distances, low speeds, quite, fewer moving parts etc?

 

 

Its starting.

 

 

https://www.zap-map.com/royal-mail-buys-100-peugeot-partner-electric-vans/

[vulgalour]

If it wasn't the weird apricot Derbyshire Council vans, it was utterly knackered Blue Arrow transits that almost always looked like this once they left service.

 

[Ghosty]

The last of this lot has to be City Link Transit's.

You can spot them a mile off with their half yellow, half green paint scheme.

 

 

Remember these?!

 

Securicor Omega Express by Graham Richardson, on Flickr

[paulplom]

My 1st work van was a t reg ex royal mail escort in 2003. When I put it in for an m.o.t. at 4 years old it needed brake pipes and a patch on the passenger sill. I watched him poke his pokey thing straight through it. It was the slowest vehicle I've ever driven as well. I reckon it was restricted.