:OPING WITH THE COLD
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In the Highlands they know about snow and cold weather. Karen Miles has been finding out how Scottish Road Services' Inverness depot copes with the worst the winter can throw at it
10 BE surrounded by snow, and part of a 30kin (19-mile) chain of lorries, all frozen to the spot, is ny haulier's nightmare. It is tirne, ustorner goodwill and money down the rain — notwithstanding any personal t4ornicnt of the driver.
Such scenes, thankfully, are not donn ionplace, but a few years ago the 'ors, happened as fitter Danny Groat at cott.sh Road Services' Inverness depot dxplained.
On the A82 south of Inverness near lelICOC there was mile upon mile of rrics with frozen fuel tanks and brakes, nd flat batteries showing driver rustration. That was in the particularly ard winter of 1981/82. But in a normal 'Car temperatures of —10°C are not nusual when the coldest spell begins round January and runs through to arch. Last year the thermometer topped as low as —27°C, and this
means trouble for commercial vehicle operators in the area.
Surprisingly, the National Freight Consortium-owned SRS does not even consider fitting its vehicles with many of the common measures suggested by manufacturers to beat the winter.
The Inverness depot serves the most northerly parts of Scotland with :1 fleet of 18 lorries, nine of which are offered for rental, the remainder on contract hire. These are supplemented by a further three operated by SRS's nearby Elgin depot on general haulage.
Of the velncles under Inverness jurisdiction none of them have ;iircooled engines, radiator shutters, fuel heaters, fuel line lagging, anti-lock braking systems or, ('or the drivers, cab heaters.
Cab heaters arc not provided because on the rare occasions when sleeping out is necessary — often because of road blocking by snow — it is too cold really to consider sleeping in the cab, says Inverness branch manager Colin Fraser, Drivers are expected to go into bed and breakfast accommodation and use their overnight subsistence allowance, "You can never beat winter. It's always going to be full of problems because of the intense cold which can easily wax the fuel. And if a road is blocked with snow there's not a lot you can do about it", Fraser stated.
But SRS believes it tries harder than most operators to combat or anticipate sonic of the problems that can arise. "We do regular preparation on our vehicles and don't need the expense of gadgetry", he said.
"You can lag fuel pipes and lag the fuel tank, but no-one ever does it. It doesn't cure the problem. If they freeze up then it can be very awkward to get to them to unfreeze'', workshop foreman Sandy Forbes added.
And fuel heaters are not used either in the fight against diesel waxing at cold temperatures. They are fitted to the fuel line when the trouble really starts in the fuel tank, Forbes said.
SRS's vehicles are to some extent protected from the elements by being kept in the yard overnight. This lessens freezing problems considerably, Forbes maintains.
Snow chains are also eschewed, as
according to branch manager Colin Fraser: The snow isn't a big enough problem. If a road is shut it is shut and that's it. It's nothing to have a 10-foot snow drift which even the snow ploughs can't get through".
SRS is obviously conscious of the cost of buying anti-cold and snow devices, or vehicles with specifications to combat the winter when the chances are that they will be needed only very rarely.
Instead, each vehicle is prepared up to three months ahead of the January-toMarch coldest period, as part of its normal servicing procedure.
This is an extension of periodic safety checks with the addition of commonsense" anti-freezing methods Fraser said. And the same winter servicing system is applied to the 300 other vehicks which the Inverness depot regularly services for customers under the Fleet Care banner.
From October vehicles will bc brought into the workshop to receive a booster dose of anti-freeze. Although the usual recommendation is 25 per cent strength. SRS decided to increase this a couple of years ago to 33 per cent to cope with Scotland's harsh conditions.
For vehicles which work night shifts, that concentration is taken higher to 50 per cent, said Forbes. And as fitter Danny Groat added later: You can have temperatures of —24°C and —27°C and there's still no bother with the antifreeze."
THE REAL problem areas are coping with the freezing of the fuel and air brakes, workshop manager Sandy Forbes said.
Putting methanol in the brake system certainly helps to stop the air valves freezing up, he added, but even though this is done every four to six weeks, the plan is by no means fool-proof Sometimes out on the road — or in a Fleet Care customer's yard in the morning — the valves have to be gently heated with a blow-torch to free them.
The biggest problem is the total wiping out of operations when temperatures fall to —9°C and diesel starts to wax at its cold filter plugging point. While the fuel companies put in their own additives in October to lower the temperature at which diesel waxes, SRS adds another anti-waxing additive in November — which the manufacturers claim will prevent waxing down to —24°C. Nevertheless, problems remain, Forbes said.
The fuel system can be regularly cleaned to remove water, but many operators — and especially those from south of the border — can easily be caught out, Fraser said.
On a cold morning the SRS fitters can be called out 40 times to unfreeze these kinds of operator.
Those 40 call outs can occur anywhere within the area the Inverness depot covers — the 177km (110 miles) up to the northern coast, 97km (60 miles) to the west and 160km (100 miles) to the south. With its four Fleet Care vehicles the depot's fitters attend any troubled vehicle in that area covered by the Fleet Care scheme, any National Freight Consortium vehicle, and any vehicle covered by the BRS Rescue breakdown scheme.
The blow torch is the first resort in any attempt to clear diesel waxing, and any frozen water in the tank, but sometimes it is necessary to change the fuel filter and bleed the air out of the system, Forbes said, This can take up to an hour.
Where the design does not allow the fitter to get the ice out of the feed pipe from the tank, the whole fuel tank has to be removed to sort the vehicle out, he added.
Of the 300 vehicles which Inverness covers under its Fleet Care scheme, around 100 of them are British Rail's. This is part of the deal whereby the Scottish Freight Company — which is made up of SRS, Scottish Parcels Service and, since October, ex-Unilever owned SPD — maintains all of BR's Scottish vehicles.
There are always two of Inverness depot's 10 fitters touring the area in a caravan which also serves as a mobile maintenance workshop. These fitters also undertake the winter preparation for BR.
DRIVERS themselves should also be properly prepared for the uncertainties which cold can bring, Fraser believes. At the worst "a driver can have a shovel out most of the time trying to get out of a snow drift", he said.
More generally, he added that managers should also make sure that their drivers have the money to cope with delays in these remote areas during winter — and warm clothing.
One mile away from the Inverness SRS depot, sister NFC company Scottish Parcels Services runs an 18vehicle operation running up to the extreme north to Wick and Thurso and to the extreme west too.
Here, blocked roads — especially the A9 which runs through Inverness southeast to Perth — can totally disrupt trunking and collection and delivery operations, SPS branch manager Jimmy Fraser said.
Although this may only happen for around seven days in total a year, trunkers may take around six to eight hours longer to reach Inverness because of re-routeing along the coastal Aberdeen road. And then other drivers have to be bought in to continue compliance with drivers' hours regulations, he said.
Generally, though, SPS does not base its scheduling on contingency for bad weather. Fraser maintains that the drivers, who all live locally, understand and know the conditions and often change their routeing to avoid known trouble spots. And the customers ''understand the situation' if had weather really hits, he added.
Certainly, transport operators and customers in the Inverness area seem to understand that winter can never be beaten. But with preparation and understanding its worst effects can be made less serious and costly.