BIRD'S EYE VIEI V
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BY THE HAWK
• A bemused National Breakdown controller thought someone was taking the mickey when he took down these breakdown details: Vehicle: The Diamond Location: Lime House Wharf, Rochester Owner: Sanara Shipping Company, Rotterdam Problem: Broken gasket The call was quite genuine. The merchant ship Diamond was loaded up and due to sail on the afternoon tide when it developed engine problems. The Saab Scania DN8 engine received prompt attention from the versatile NB which tells me that it is always getting calls like this: "Oh yes. We have come to the rescue of merchant ships, private boats and combine harvesters."
• ". . . and here we have the smaller version. It's only a single-decker, but you will notice the rounded, aerodynamic form and the lightweight construction using multi-tubular cellulose structural elements in • Long-suffering lorry drivers who endured the siege of Dover will have bags of sympathy for would-be holidaymakers stranded in airport lounges from Manchester to Gatwick.
They will look less kindly, however, on madcap proposals to coerce transport workers to unblock the airlanes by banning strikes.
This knee-jerk, illconsidered, "solution" comes from the London Evening Standard which declares: "There is a good case for making strikes by workers in all transport in a unique interlocking pattern. It's fully-insulated, and produced in an environmentallyfriendly neutral shade. It has a capacity of some six lesser. spotted ovoidal yolk containers, and fits neatly into the wheelbox of our bigger model. . ." (Tony Barber of Tidd with one of the more unusual extras to be found in the latest doubledeck reefers for Glass Glover).
• Those poor folk in Yorkley, Gloucestershire are well and truly fed up with our rainy weather. Last week, in the middle of a downpour, several drenched souls could not even find refuge in a bus shelter as it was full of sheep who refused to move. Baaad show, methinks.
dustries unlawful." That kind of glib comment ignores the complexity of the problems facing many areas of transport, not least the crowded airways.
Surely the lesson emerging from the great majority of industrial disputes is that there has, more often than not, been a breakdown of communication, if not a failure in management. The road transport industry needs no lectures from the likes of leader writers in what is left of Fleet Street. . . the Channel ferries dispute is a case in point. • The world's grandest opera, Verdi's Aida, has been a major hit for quite a few years now. This is surprising because so vast is the production, both in cost and size, that very few producers have had the guts to take it on. The mammoth production at London's Earl's Court entailed importing a cast of over 600, two orchestras and a 10-metre-high stage of Switzerland.
Enter Danzas and a quintet of 12-metre containers, hauled by east London haulier Sperling. The chosen route was by rail from Switzerland to Zeebrugge, via Intercontainer, and then by sea to Felixstowe. The containers were then moved by rail to Stratford for delivery to Earl's Court.
Does anyone seriously believe that those involved in that fight would have been deterred by laws that belong only in totalitarian regimes? If the jeremiahs in the Street of Shame want to lick their lips over a real, full-blooded snarlup in the transport industry, they should hang around near Cheriton or Ashford terminals around the time that train drivers on the Channel Tunnel decide they have had enough and walk off the job. At least there won't be any newspaper trains involved in that strike. • Traction in Action, the Shropshire and West Midlands Agricultural Society's fifth trade demonstration of off-road and 4X4 vehicles, is to take place on 23-24 September at Hidden Valley, GuilsfieId near Welshpool, in Powys.
Here's your chance to get behind the wheel of some of the strangest vehicles around: a key part of the event is the test-driving of various machines.
As well as conventional 4 x4s the event is open to other types of farm transport, including ATVs, pickups, trailers and general equipment and accessories.
A woodland management demo by ADAS (Agricultural Development and Advisory Service) will provide a suitable testing ground for the exhibition of forestry, timber handling and fencing equipment and related accessories.