Out of the house for 8:00am for an 8:45am start at the depot and straight away realised that I had forgotten to add time in for the queuing traffic on the A500-M6-J16 (Barthomley) roundabout so nearly turned up late on my first day. A misty and wet Friday morning that made Stoke look even bleaker than it is, if that is possible.
Heading for the driver's canteen as arranged when I meet a driver in the mandatory uniform of black truckers' keks, fleece and hi-viz waistcoat. "You here for the Class 2* training?" he says. I indicate that I am and he says "Follow me" and so I do.
We end up in the Transport Office which is buzzing with drivers and staff. My host is in fact the Training Manager, whom I had spoken to over the phone several times in setting up the course. A likeable and smiley man I guess in his late fifties.
One of the characters looks as out-of-place as I feel, a lad in his late twenties, with a near-zero hair cut, multiple earrings and looking like he has never seen any sun in his life. But then this is
We chat about our motives for enforced career changes: Andy has been laid off from the factory where he worked manufacturing kitchens. Our instructor for the course can't be with us for this first day as he has to complete a couple of Class 1* trainees whose tests were cancelled due to the icy weather earlier in the week.
I breathe a sigh of relief as there is no sign of Colin, the instructor who took me for my initial assessment drive. Colin was fine technically but had the personality of a cold fish and a snappy temper when things went wrong. Which in the early parts of LGV/HGV* instruction is often!
We do the formalities of licence checks and photocopies then our host hands us each a new hi-viz waistcoat and says "Follow me".
There just off the fuelling bay is our home for the next-coming seven days. A Volvo FM7 18-ton Curtainsider, all in white. The engine is running to warm the cab through. This is the same but slightly newer model of the one I drove for the assessment, but the controls are all the same.
"Right, who's first?" says Mark. Andy and I look at each other. He has gone even whiter than his normal shade. I am about to say "I don't mind either way" but before I do he makes a dash for the passenger door. I had told him that I had had a 1-hour assessment drive (which is standard practise) but for some reason, he hadn't and had never driven anything bigger than a car.
So up I go, adjust the air-sprung seat and steering column, sort my mirrors out and familiarise myself with the dash, switches and stalks. All I really need at this stage is the green band on the rev-counter, indicators and wiper controls. Oh and of course there is that infamous gear lever with its range-change switch and splitter* switch. We won’t be using the latter for the course and the test, but believe me, the range-change alone is enough to completely shred the brain in a tight decision on a junction or roundabout.
Mark takes the middle seat that has been added to the bunk base behind the two front seats. This is a mod for training vehicles as only two seats are standard, so he is sat almost on my shoulder, his head touching the cab roof and feet on the engine box between driver and passenger.
Mark offers me the option of a circuit of the depot and I take it. Into second gear, mirrors, blind-spot check and off we go. Block-change (skipping a gear) to fourth, pick up speed, mind the manoeuvring shunter*, range-change switch up to High with its characteristic 'pop' of air (like opening a beer can) and into fifth (where first would be on a car). When I say High, we are now doing 15 mph which is the site speed limit. Once around the depot then out of the gate and onto the roads.
It's remarkable that after that first, frenetic assessment drive over two months ago now, it feels familiar and comfortable. First big roundabout on the A34 and I manage to handle the gear changes without problems and avoid the kerbs. Up the A34 north and left onto the A500 and off we head in the
Across the M6 at Junction 16 and hey – I am liking this! I feel in control, my road positioning is OK and I've finally sussed the gearbox. We turn off the A500 at the
It feels I've been driving for ages but I daren't glance at my watch. I know the A51 as it is a good option from Junction 15 of the M6 when it is bunged up northbound. Which is any evening of the week and without fail on Fridays. Mark asks me to pull in at the next convenient lay-bay but of course we roll on for mile after mile and there is no lay-by. "I know where we will go" says Mark, "Take a right at the next roundabout". This is the A519 towards Eccleshall and I know from my recce driving in the car that we are near the Test Centre where it will all start to happen in just over a week's time.
"Now take this next left hand junction but watch it – it is very tight. Get your speed down, no, down more, slower". I've changed down to fifth (from eighth) but I should be in third or fourth and that means a range-change again. I've cut the turn far too tight (a very tight hairpin junction that bends back on its self) and the rear wheels are going to mount the kerb so I stop. There's a car behind me – far too close – if only he knew!
"Handbrake on. Right, you'll have to head to your right and right across to the opposite kerb before you turn again. Do so when it is safe".
I get the truck into second, fumble the slight hill-start and start to roll back onto the car. I wish I could see his face! He's having no more of this and screams round my offside and away. I wait for a truck to pass and try again. This time, totally rattled I kangaroo start 18 tons of truck. "F**k, sorry about that lads" and finally get going.
Just when you think you've cracked it too. Its when the unexpected happens (I got my speed and position wrong and fluffed a gear-change) that there is too much for the brain to cope with in the split seconds that you have. "Don't worry, no problem" says Mark. "Just don't do it again"!
I turn onto the Raleigh Hall Industrial Estate and we end up at a dead-end though in a wide car-parking area. There are white vans all around me. "OK, full right lock and into reverse". This is the first time I've tried to reverse, let alone turn 35 feet of truck around. Distance judging behind is very difficult for me and I'm sure there is another van behind me and I can't see him. A couple of shunts* in second and we are around and I pull up alongside a wall out of the way. "Right, change over" says Mark. I climb down and walk around the front of the truck and meet Andy who gives me a manic grin and his eyes widen. I chat to Mark as a debrief as he has a smoke and apart from the last junction, I feel quite pleased with myself.
This guy is a saint compared to Colin who took me for my first drive. He never raises his voice or snaps, just calm and collected all the time with the occasional correction. "Come away from the kerb Neil" or dryly "That was very good – now get us off the kerb and we will be fine!"
Mark is back in the high seat and I am now on the passenger side and with Andy at the helm, off we go again. This time out of the estate and back to my infamously-tight junction.
For him of course, it his first drive and like me on my initial drive, the four-over-four gearbox* completely does his head in. We try to pull off in seventh and stall. Then on the first junction he gets it into first (only ever used fully-loaded up the side of a house) and we all brace ourselves against the windscreen. He finally gets going but makes an even worse hash of my infamous junction and leaves us blocking a busy main road junction in all directions. Nothing but calm, clear instruction from the seat behind me. Colin would have been in full-blown strop by now.
Andy drives like a twenty-year old but maybe that's just my perception. I am wincing and physically ducking as we pass so close to high road signs, branches of bushes and trees are clattering on the headboard* and curtains and I feel we a driving far too fast for the conditions. The rev counter is way off the green band (fuel-efficient) and into the amber and red! Surprisingly, Mark says very little but finally asks him to slow down a little and move away from the kerb. We re-trace our journey up the A519 on onwards to the A34 and up towards Stoke again. I take no pleasure in someone else struggling, but he is a lot worse than me and we have countless kangaroo starts on roundabouts and crunching of gears.
We finally come back down the A34 towards Stone and take a right towards Yarnfield and the Test Centre at Swynnerton ending up back at the same Raleigh Hall Industrial Estate. Andy turns her around (no vans in the way this time) and we de-camp into the café (erm - well – Portakabin actually) for a well-earned mug of tea and a bacon butty. And an excellent one too. Mark has his obligatory fag outside and spends all his time on the mobile phone before a quick nosh and a drink and it's my turn again.
"Right!" he says, with an evil glint in his eye. "It's Stone town centre and the one-way system next". Oh shit. I've driven this in the car and it is tight. He's put Andy in the high seat behind me and he is now in the passenger seat. I had wondered why he chose to be there in the morning (the central high seat) and had even offered to sit there but he had declined. As I pulled away heading for Stone, he said, "See how much I trust you now? I'm not sitting where I can get to the handbrake"! Ah, so that's why! The handbrake is to the driver's left in the dash and reachable from the bunk but not the passenger seat. And it's not a big lever like on a car, but just a small plastic handle. And if you set it to "On" it immediately dumps all the air out of the braking system and very powerful springs lock the brakes fully-on. So in a total crisis, it would stop the truck rapidly.
At the roundabout crossing the A34 into Stone I get the correct lane (middle of three) but then totally screw-up my positioning around the turning (no lane markings). Oh, there is so much to think about and so little time!
Stone one-way system is indeed tight but I knew it having driven it several times in the car as a recce. I managed my lane changes fine and the nasty sharp left-hander in the town centre where you have to take the entire road and straddle two lanes to get around without hitting the traffic lights. Passed a school with loads of parked cars, up the hill and finally out into the countryside heading north up the A518. And then probably the worst bit so far with some very narrow sections of "A" road where the road follows a river valley in a steep cutting with some hairpin bends. I have to run over the double whites to keep off the kerb and the sight of an oncoming artic doing the same spooks me. I move left a little and side-swipe the kerb. Damn! (That's an instant fail on the test). Mark says "Neil, the tyres on this thing cost £350 each. That's the last kerb I want you to hit today". I reply with a sheepish "Sorry boss, understood".
So onwards to the suburbs of Stoke and lots of urban driving without mishap, then finally back down the A34 towards Stone and
This time we do the whole circuit again with Andy driving and finally head up the A500 toward Stoke city centre and turn off into the city itself.
"Right, time for some tight city driving". And he's not kidding. We head up
Finally I turn onto the A500 going north then west, and off at the A34 and back into the yard. It was now three o'clock but felt like more like six. Mark gives us a debrief, the gist of which is for a pair of first-timers we have done very well and better than many. "Keep going like that and you should have no problems. You are both flapping at junctions but that is to be expected. And you both need to pay a lot more attention to your mirrors, especially you Neil". Oh and I thought that I was but there you go. A chance for a few questions and answers and with that we parted for an 8:30am start sharp on Monday morning. Then the real work starts!
*Class 2 – the old definition (but still widely used by truckers because everyone knows what it means) of rigid trucks (not articulated) up to 32 tonnes. Now known as LGV C
*Class 1 – the old definition of articulated trucks and those with trailers up to 44 tonnes. And a whole different can of worms to drive. Now known as LGV C+E
*LGV/HGV – was always HGV where LGV stood for "Light". Ah but then we got the EU stuff and apparently HGV means "I would like to have sex with your bottom" in Slovakian, so it all had to change. And of course it did.
*Splitter Switch – if your brain is not totally fried with a range-change concept, then a splitter switch "splits" each gear again into a high and a low. So you get a sort of three-and-half gear. OMG not now Kato!!
*Headboard – the hard bit at the front of the cargo space immediately behind the cab.
*Shunter – a special-purpose vehicle – and person(s) - for towing artic trailers around a depot or yard between loading bays without having to couple all the air lines and electrics each time and raise the legs. Look a bit like a smaller version of the things that tow aircraft off the gates at airports. Driven by "The Shunter" who is God and whose wrath one incurs unwisely.
*Shunt – not to be confused with the above. When reversing or doing a three-point turn, taking a short run in a forward gear to straighten up or get the truck/trailer pointing where you want it to be. This is how a three-point-turn becomes an eight-point turn.
*Four-over-four gearbox – like a normal car H-pattern with a slap-over reverse and crawler gear above it (the latter seldom used). But has a High-Low range change switch on the front of the lever (away from the driver). So In Low range we get gears 1 to 4 and in High 5 to 8. Sounds easy but it is very confusing at first when you have so much else to think about. An empty truck (as in training) will pull off on the flat in third but you need second on a hill. First would be needed if fully-loaded. You can pre-select the range (that is, move the switch but nothing happens until you put the gear lever in neutral when you get a painful crunch-clunk as the 'box shifts rages.
