Classic Diesel locomotive D123 at Loughborough station.

This was actually D163 away back in the mists of time when I was a Lad loco spotting with my Ian Allans combined volume of 1969, the class were known as "Peak" after quite a few of the class were named after Peaks as in.....D1 Scafell Pike. D2 Helvellyn. D3 Skiddaw. D4 Great Gable. D5 Cross Fell. D6 Whernside. D7 Inglebrough..

It wasn't until you got to D49 did the class names change to regiments such as D50 The Kings Shropshire Light Regiment.

 

Heres some stuff from Wikki.

 

The Class 45s became the main traction on the Midland Main Line from 1962, and their introduction allowed considerable acceleration of the previous steam-powered service. The Class 45s remained the main source of power on the Midland Main Line up to 1982, when they were relegated to secondary services following introduction of HSTs on the route. From 1986 Class 45s virtually disappeared from the line.[1] From the early 1980s until their withdrawal c.1988, the class were regular performers on the North Trans-Pennine line working services from Liverpool Lime Street to York, Scarborough or Newcastle via Manchester Victoria, Huddersfield and Leeds. These trains were usually formed of early British Railways Mark 2 carriages, of up to seven in a typical train.

  

The engine of the Class 45 was a marine-type, slow-revving diesel, a Sulzer 12LDA28B with a bore of 280 mm (11.024 in) and a stroke of 360 mm (14.173 in). This gave 22 litres (1,300 cu in) per cylinder, or 264 litres (16,100 cu in) for the whole engine. The unit was turbocharged and intercooled and gave 2,500 hp (1,900 kW) at 750 rpm. The engine was of the double bank type with two parallel banks of 6 cylinders, geared together to a single output shaft.[6] Six-cylinder versions of the engine were fitted in the Class 25 locos (amongst others) and eight-cylinder versions in Class 33s.[7] Class 45s were the updated versions of the Class 44 locomotives, the latter having a 2,300 hp (1,700 kW) non-intercooled version of the same engine; i.e. the 12LDA28A. The later Class 47 had a modified version of the same engine, a 12LDA28C.

 

Train heating[edit]

 

When initially put into service, the locomotives were fitted with multi-unit working and steam-heating boilers for passenger service. In the early 1970s, fifty were fitted with electric train supply in place of their steam-heating boilers and assigned to work services on the Midland Main Line from London St Pancras to Nottingham, Derby and Sheffield. These locomotives were renumbered as Class 45/1.[8]

 

Auxiliary machines[edit]

 

The Class 45 is unusual in having a 220 volt electrical system for driving auxiliary machines and battery charging.[9] Most British Railways diesels of the same era had 110 volt auxiliaries.

 

Withdrawal[edit]

 

The great majority of Class 45s were withdrawn between 1981 and 1988, and the last was withdrawn from service by 1989.[10]

  

Fleet details[edit]

  

Number(s)

 

Name

 

Withdrawn

 

Disposal details

 

D11 45122 04/1983 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (02/1994)

D12 45011 05/1981 Scrapped at BREL Derby Works (09/1981)

D13 45001 01/1986 Scrapped at BREL Derby Works (11/1988)

D14 45015 03/1986 Sold into preservation but unrestored.

Stored at The Battlefield Line

D15 45018 04/1981 Scrapped at BREL Swindon Works (10/1982)

D16 45016 11/1985 Scrapped at Vic Berry Leicester (12/1986)

D17 45024 10/1980 due to fire damage Scrapped at BREL Swindon Works (08/1983)

D18 45121 Pegasus (unofficial name) 19 November 1987 Scrapped by Thomas Hill at BREL Crewe Works (09/1993)

D19 45025 05/1981 Scrapped at BREL Derby Works (11/1981)

D20 45013 Wyvern (unofficial name) 04/1987 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (02/1994)

D21 45026 04/1986 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (11/1988)

D22 45132 09:39 on 11/05/1987 Preserved at Epping Ongar Railway

D23 45017 08/1985 Training Loco ADB 968024 Toton September 1985-00.1988[clarification needed] Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (11/1991)

D24 45027 05/1981 Scrapped at BREL Swindon Works (09/1983)

D25 45021 12/1980 Scrapped at BREL Swindon Works (04/1983)

D26 45020 12/1985 Scrapped at Vic Berry Leicester (08/1988)

D27 45028 01/1981 Scrapped at BREL Swindon Works (04/1983)

D28 45124 Unicorn (unofficial name) 12:34 on 22 January 1988 withdrawn due to bogie fire Leicester 29 December 1987 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (10/1991)

D29 45002 09/1984 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (11/1988)

D30 45029 07/1987 reinstated as 97 410 September 1987 withdrawn August 1988 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (10/1991)

D31 45030 11/1980 Scrapped at BREL Derby Works (03/1981)

D32 45126 27 April 1987 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (04/1992)

D33 45019 09/1985 Scrapped at Vic Berry Leicester (01/1987)

D34 45119 07/05/1987 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (04/1994)

D35 45117 12/05/1986 Scrapped at Vic Berry Leicester (02/1987)

D36 45031 05/1981 Scrapped at BREL Derby Works (10/1981)

D37 45009 09/1986 Scrapped at Vic Berry Leicester (08/1988)

D38 45032 12/1980 Scrapped at BREL Swindon Works (09/1983)

D39 45033 Sirius (unofficial name) 02/1988 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (02/1992)

D40 45133 10/05/1987 Preserved at Midland Railway – Butterley Owned by the Class 45/1 Preservation Society

D41 45147 04/01/1985 due to damage in Salford accident 4 December 1984 Scrapped at Patricroft by Vic Berry Leicester (03/1985)

D42 45034 07/1987 reinstated September 1987 as 97411 withdrawn July 1988 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (05/1992)

D43 45107 Phoenix (unofficial name) 15:19 on 27 July 1988 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (03/1990)

D44 45035 05/1981 Scrapped at BREL Derby Works (11/1981)

D45 45036 05/1986 Scrapped at Vic Berry Leicester (08/1988)

D46 45037 Eclipse (unofficial name) 07/1988 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (03/1992)

D47 45116 22 December 1986 Scrapped at Vic Berry Leicester (09/1988)

D48 45038 06/1985 Scrapped at Vic Berry Leicester (12/1986)

D49 45039 The Manchester Regiment 12/1980 Scrapped at BREL Swindon Works (04/1983)

D50 45040 The King's Shropshire Light Infantry 07/1987 reinstated as 97412 September 1987 withdrawn August 1988 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (10/1991)

D51 45102 9 September 1986 Scrapped at Vic Berry Leicester (10/1988)

D52 45123 The Lancashire Fusilier 22 July 1986 Scrapped at Vic Berry Leicester (11/1988)

D53 45041 Royal Tank Regiment 08/06/1988 Preserved at Great Central Railway

D54 45023 The Royal Pioneer Corps 09/1984 Scrapped at Vic Berry Leicester (10/1986)

D55 45144 Royal Signals 21 December 1987 Scrapped at Vic Berry Leicester (06/1988)

D56 45137 Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment (TA) 16 June 1987 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (03/1994)

D57 45042 04/1985 Scrapped at Vic Berry Leicester (11/1986)

D58 45043 The King's Own Royal Border Regiment 09/1984 Scrapped at Vic Berry Leicester (01/1987)

D59 45104 The Royal Warwickshire Fusilier 13 April 1988 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (02/1992)

D60 45022 Lytham St Annes 07/1987 reinstated September 1987 as 97409 withdrawn July 1988 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (10/1991)

D61 45112 Royal Army Ordnance Corps 14:43 on 07/05/1987 Main Line Operational

D62 45143 5th Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards 1685–1985 14:43 on 07/05/1987 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (03/1994)

D63 45044 Royal Inniskilling Fusilier 06/1987 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (11/1988)

D64 45045 Coldstream Guardsman 05/1983 due to collision at Saltley 10 February 1983 Scrapped at Vic Berry Leicester (10/1986)

D65 45111 Grenadier Guardsman 14:43 on 07/05/1987 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (04/1992)

D66 45146 07/04/1987 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (03/1992)

D67 45118 The Royal Artilleryman 08/05/1987 Preserved; under repair at Derby works

D68 45046 Royal Fusilier 08/1988 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (02/1992)

D69 45047 08/1980 Scrapped at BREL Derby Works (02/1981)

D70 45048 The Royal Marines 06/1985 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (11/1988)

D71 45049 The Staffordshire Regiment (The Prince of Wales' Own) 10/1987 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (11/1988)

D72 45050 09/1984 Scrapped at Vic Berry Leicester (03/1987)

D73 45110 Medusa (unofficial name) 15:19 on 27 July 1988 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (03/1990)

D74 45051 04/1987 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (11/1988)

D75 45052 Satan and Nimrod (unofficial names) 06/1988 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (09/1991)

D76 45053 11/1983 Scrapped at Crewe Works by A Hampton (10/1988)

D77 45004 Royal Irish Fusilier 12/1985 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (11/1988)

D78 45150 Vampire (unofficial name) 10:40 on 04/02/1988 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (12/1991)

D79 45005 03/1986 Scrapped at Vic Berry Leicester (12/1988)

D80 45113 Athene (unofficial name) 02/08/1988 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (03/1990)

D81 45115 13 June 1988 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (03/1990)

D82 45141 Zephyr (unofficial name) 04/08/1988 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (03/1992)

D83 45142 19 June 1987 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (03/1994)

D84 45055 Royal Corps of Transport 04/1985 Scrapped at Vic Berry Leicester (11/1986)

D85 45109 27 January 1986 Scrapped at Vic Berry Leicester (11/1986)

D86 45105 16:25 on 11/05/1987 Preserved at Barrow Hill

D87 45127 14:43 on 07/05/1987 Scrapped at Crewe Works by J&S Metals (03/1994)

D88 45136 14:43 on 07/05/1987 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (03/1992)

D89 45006 Honourable Artillery Company 09/1986 Scrapped at Vic Berry Leicester (10/1988)

D90 45008 12/1980 Scrapped at BREL Swindon Works (09/1983)

D91 45056 12/1985 Scrapped at Vic Berry Leicester (11/1986)

D92 45138 22 December 1986 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (04/1994)

D93 45057 01/1985 Scrapped at Vic Berry Leicester (03/1987)

D94 45114 15:35 on 17 February 1987 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (02/1994)

D95 45054 01/1985 Scrapped at Toton MPD by Vic Berry (11/1985)

D96 45101 13 November 1986 Scrapped at Vic Berry Leicester (10/1988)

D97 45058 09/1987 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (03/1994)

D98 45059 Royal Engineer 03/1986 Scrapped at Vic Berry Leicester (11/1988)

D99 45135 3rd Carabinier 09/03/1987 Preserved at East Lancashire Railway

D100 45060 Sherwood Forester 12/1985 Preserved at Barrow Hill

D101 45061 08/1981 Scrapped at BREL Swindon Works (04/1982)

D102 45140 Mercury (unofficial name) 11:47 on 29 March 1988 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (09/1991)

D103 45062 07/1987 last run was HRT "Baker's Dozen" Railtour 27 June 1987. Loco failed at MP10 WCML[clarification needed] and was rescued by 31305 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (03/1994)

D104 45063 05/1986 Scrapped at Vic Berry Leicester (11/1988)

D105 45064 01/1985 Scrapped at Vic Berry Leicester (11/1988)

D106 45106 Vulcan (unofficial name) 15:19 on 27 July 1988, reinstated 04/08/1988. Finally withdrawn 02/1989 after catching fire on 07:12 Derby to St Pancras 3 February 1989 Scrapped at CF Booth Rotherham (04/1992)

D107 45120 24 March 1987 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (11/1991)

D108 45012 Wyvern II (unofficial name) 07/1988 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (03/1992)

D109 45139 27 April 1987 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (03/1994)

D110 45065 03/1985 Scrapped at Vic Berry Leicester (12/1988)

D111 45129 11/06/1987 Scrapped at Vic Berry Leicester (12/1988)

D112 45010 03/1985 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (11/1988)

D113 45128 Centaur (unofficial name) 02/08/1988. reinstated 02/1989 but not used after failed load test then finally withdrawn 04/1989. Reinstated to haul two railtours which had a class 45 booked for haulage, after 45106 caught fire and was withdrawn.[11] Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (03/1992)

D114 45066 Amethyst (unofficial name) 07/1987. Reinstated September 1987 as 97413 then finally withdrawn on 26 July 1988 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (10/1991)

D115 45067 07/1977 after collision at Ilkeston 8 July 1977 11:50 Glasgow-Nottingham Scrapped at BREL Derby Works (06/1980)

D116 45103 Griffon (unofficial name) 02/08/1988 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (03/1990)

D117 45130 10/05/1987 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (03/1992)

D118 45068 01/1986 Scrapped at Allerton MPD by Vic Berry (04/1986)

D119 45007 Taliesin (unofficial name) 07/1988 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (03/1992)

D120 45108 11:27 on 04/08/1987 Preserved at Midland Railway – Butterley

D121 45069 07/1986 Scrapped at Vic Berry Leicester (10/1988)

D122 45070 01/1987 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (11/1988)

D123 45125 14:43 on 07/05/1987 Preserved at Great Central Railway

D124 45131 16:00 on 03/09/1986 Scrapped at Vic Berry Leicester (11/1988)

D125 45071 07/1981 Scrapped at BREL Swindon Works (07/1983)

D126 45134 Neptune (unofficial name) 12:16 on 17 September 1987 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (11/1991)

D127 45072 04/1985 Scrapped at Vic Berry Leicester (11/1986)

D128 45145 Scylla (unofficial name) 9 September 1987. Reinstated 19 October 1987 then finally withdrawn 11:11 on 23 February 1988 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (12/1991)

D129 45073 10/1981 Scrapped at BREL Derby Works (11/1982)

D130 45148 11:43 on 11/02/1987 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (04/1992)

D131 45074 09/1985 Scrapped at Vic Berry Leicester (10/1988)

D132 45075 01/1985 Scrapped at Vic Berry Leicester (03/1987)

D133 45003 12/1985 Scrapped at Vic Berry Leicester (04/1987)

D134 45076 11/1986 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (03/1994)

D135 45149 Phaeton (unofficial name) 16:00 on 14 September 1987 Preserved at Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway

D136 45077 08/1986 Scrapped at MC Metals Glasgow (09/1988)

D137 45014 The Cheshire Regiment 03/1986 collision with 31 436 Chinley 9 March 1986 Scrapped at Ashburys by Vic Berry (08/1986)

 

Preservation[edit]

 

Eleven locomotives survive in preservation. A quick summary of these is as follows (a more detailed study can be found in the table above):

45041 – In operational condition at the Great Central Railway

45060 – Undergoing engine overhaul at Barrow Hill Roundhouse

45105 – Awaiting completion of restoration at Barrow Hill roundhouse

45108 – In operational condition at Midland Railway – Butterley.

45112 – Burton upon Trent. Operational.

45118 – Formerly at the Northampton & Lamport Railway. Currently undergoing repairs at RVEL in Derby

45125 – In operational condition at the Great Central Railway

45132 – Under overhaul at the Epping Ongar Railway[12]

45133 – In operational condition at the Midland Railway – Butterley

45135 – Under heavy repair at the East Lancashire Railway

45149 – In operational condition at the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway

 

A twelfth example, 45015, was also sold into preservation, but not restored. Withdrawn in March 1986 with a seized traction motor, for which repair was not authorised,[13] 45015 was heavily cannibalised for spares to keep other Class 45s working. It remained at Toton, its home shed, until at least 1999.[14] The locomotive was moved to Shackerstone, on the Battlefield Line Railway, in 2002, still with the intention of restoration to mainline standard, despite requiring a replacement engine to be found.[15] In 2010 the host railway gave notice to the locomotive's owner that the still-unrestored 45015 needed to move to a new site. Having failed to find a buyer, it is likely that 45015 will be sold for scrap, although, as at November 2010, the derelict loco was still at Shackerstone.[16]

 

I did a fairly extensive photo shoot with my Fodens the other day. Having dug the Fodens out for the first time in ages I gave them a wash to get rid of eight months’ worth of dust. I wanted something to photograph with the new gear to start and get a feel for it, there are some photographs with the EOS M but most are with the 5D. They will appear repetitive but for my own reasons I have decided to upload most of the shoot.

M462LYL was one of the 400 or so 4000 series gritters that were supplied to the Highways Agency over a period of years to replace the S80 series Fodens, that we had five of. This wagon would have been scrapped along with most of the others but for the intervention of Stuart Kaye. Although it is in exceptional condition so were most of them, regardless, they had to be scrapped and not sold back onto the UK market. A scandalous waste of money, many had been extensively (and expensively) refurbished to a very high standard – total rebuilds – they were still scrapped. A Cummins 325 and six speed auto box makes this wagon very nice to drive empty! I very much doubt that the auto box and gearing would get up our local hills fully loaded and certainly not if pushing a plough. The wagon has covered 85,000 km and other than corrosion caused by salty hands the cab interior is very good.

 

I bought a second 4000 series, but just the chassis cab. The scrapping contract allowed for chassis or gritter bodies to be sold separately. Once separated the body takes a lot of refitting. There are hundreds of wires in plastic trunking and they just hacked through them, you couldn’t overstate the scale of the job of refitting, cost effectively, a body back onto one of the original chassis. I had sourced a dump truck body from an MOD Foden Alpha that would fit nicely on the 4000 chassis. We use this around the yard alongside our 1960’s Foden dumper.

 

It was whilst looking at the chassis cabs with Stuart in Geesons at Ripley that we saw OYE779Y, parked up with a plough fitted, it was minus 11 during this period and almost every motor in the yard had flat batteries, which the frost had then killed completely. We didn’t get to see a motor running but I ended up buying two including OYE. As soon as I saw this motor I knew that there was something strange about it. A Paccar (Kenworth) chassis, Cummins L10 250, Eaton Twinsplitter and Rockwell axles, with a 4000 series cab. As a regular buyer and driver of Fodens in the 80’s and 90’s I knew that these components weren’t available in 1982, when it was allegedly built. I had a new Foden the same month as this motor was supposed to have been built, December 1982. BYG167Y had Foden chassis and S10 cab, the Twinsplitter hadn’t been invented at this point. The serial number stamped on the chassis relates to an S80 series gritter, one of the previous generation, with Foden Gearbox, chassis, axles and Rolls Royce 265L engine. This is what the Foden Microfiche build sheet still shows for this serial number.

 

OYE779Y seems to have been built to replace the original, which was written off in a serious accident. The strange thing is the allocation of the same serial and registration numbers to a totally different vehicle. We have seen a black and white photograph of the wagon, when new with a conventional Atkinson gritter body. This was replaced with the French body now fitted. This has water tanks and can spread the salt with water, made of plastic and stainless steel, it appears unused. The wagon itself was unloved and un driven, we think, because of the Twin splitter gearbox, which wasn’t suitable for the drivers employed on the motorway gritting teams. With 30,000 km on the clock, mostly service miles, the wagon is like new. Other than sag in the roof lining material the cab interior is like new. I’m guessing that it saw very little actual work, subsequently it doesn’t have the fantastic paint job of the newer 4000 series, the result of being sandblasted and two pack painted. OYE has been touched up, a bit of a splodge here and there. There is a total lack of corrosion, it just needs a good respray and it would be like new. A new set of tyres fitted in 2003 still have the stickers on them. The long and the short of it is that this is a much newer wagon. The 4000 series cab was available in 1987, I bought one on an E plate, the last generation of S10 was still available in 1986 on a D plate so I reckon it would be built around this time.

 

There are only a few 4000 series gritters survived in the UK but some went to Ireland and others to Eastern Europe. Presumably Roger Geeson was allowed to export to countries where it wouldn't affect the sales of the suppliers of the new gritting fleet - this appeared to be why there was a restriction on sales in the UK.

 

If anyone has more to add regarding this story please let me Know.

 

I couldn’t resist adding my other two Fodens to the line-up, customers were coming and going at the same time hence some other motors in there. I decided to add some cab interior shots a day or two later, just for the record as it were.

 

To see more about J B Schofield and Sons and the history of the business and its 33 years as a gritting contractor, look here www.jbschofieldandsons.co.uk/

 

I did a fairly extensive photo shoot with my Fodens the other day. Having dug the Fodens out for the first time in ages I gave them a wash to get rid of eight months’ worth of dust. I wanted something to photograph with the new gear to start and get a feel for it, there are some photographs with the EOS M but most are with the 5D. They will appear repetitive but for my own reasons I have decided to upload most of the shoot.

M462LYL was one of the 400 or so 4000 series gritters that were supplied to the Highways Agency over a period of years to replace the S80 series Fodens, that we had five of. This wagon would have been scrapped along with most of the others but for the intervention of Stuart Kaye. Although it is in exceptional condition so were most of them, regardless, they had to be scrapped and not sold back onto the UK market. A scandalous waste of money, many had been extensively (and expensively) refurbished to a very high standard – total rebuilds – they were still scrapped. A Cummins 325 and six speed auto box makes this wagon very nice to drive empty! I very much doubt that the auto box and gearing would get up our local hills fully loaded and certainly not if pushing a plough. The wagon has covered 85,000 km and other than corrosion caused by salty hands the cab interior is very good.

 

I bought a second 4000 series, but just the chassis cab. The scrapping contract allowed for chassis or gritter bodies to be sold separately. Once separated the body takes a lot of refitting. There are hundreds of wires in plastic trunking and they just hacked through them, you couldn’t overstate the scale of the job of refitting, cost effectively, a body back onto one of the original chassis. I had sourced a dump truck body from an MOD Foden Alpha that would fit nicely on the 4000 chassis. We use this around the yard alongside our 1960’s Foden dumper.

 

It was whilst looking at the chassis cabs with Stuart in Geesons at Ripley that we saw OYE779Y, parked up with a plough fitted, it was minus 11 during this period and almost every motor in the yard had flat batteries, which the frost had then killed completely. We didn’t get to see a motor running but I ended up buying two including OYE. As soon as I saw this motor I knew that there was something strange about it. A Paccar (Kenworth) chassis, Cummins L10 250, Eaton Twinsplitter and Rockwell axles, with a 4000 series cab. As a regular buyer and driver of Fodens in the 80’s and 90’s I knew that these components weren’t available in 1982, when it was allegedly built. I had a new Foden the same month as this motor was supposed to have been built, December 1982. BYG167Y had Foden chassis and S10 cab, the Twinsplitter hadn’t been invented at this point. The serial number stamped on the chassis relates to an S80 series gritter, one of the previous generation, with Foden Gearbox, chassis, axles and Rolls Royce 265L engine. This is what the Foden Microfiche build sheet still shows for this serial number.

 

OYE779Y seems to have been built to replace the original, which was written off in a serious accident. The strange thing is the allocation of the same serial and registration numbers to a totally different vehicle. We have seen a black and white photograph of the wagon, when new with a conventional Atkinson gritter body. This was replaced with the French body now fitted. This has water tanks and can spread the salt with water, made of plastic and stainless steel, it appears unused. The wagon itself was unloved and un driven, we think, because of the Twin splitter gearbox, which wasn’t suitable for the drivers employed on the motorway gritting teams. With 30,000 km on the clock, mostly service miles, the wagon is like new. Other than sag in the roof lining material the cab interior is like new. I’m guessing that it saw very little actual work, subsequently it doesn’t have the fantastic paint job of the newer 4000 series, the result of being sandblasted and two pack painted. OYE has been touched up, a bit of a splodge here and there. There is a total lack of corrosion, it just needs a good respray and it would be like new. A new set of tyres fitted in 2003 still have the stickers on them. The long and the short of it is that this is a much newer wagon. The 4000 series cab was available in 1987, I bought one on an E plate, the last generation of S10 was still available in 1986 on a D plate so I reckon it would be built around this time.

 

There are only a few 4000 series gritters survived in the UK but some went to Ireland and others to Eastern Europe. Presumably Roger Geeson was allowed to export to countries where it wouldn't affect the sales of the suppliers of the new gritting fleet - this appeared to be why there was a restriction on sales in the UK.

 

If anyone has more to add regarding this story please let me Know.

 

I couldn’t resist adding my other two Fodens to the line-up, customers were coming and going at the same time hence some other motors in there. I decided to add some cab interior shots a day or two later, just for the record as it were.

 

To see more about J B Schofield and Sons and the history of the business and its 33 years as a gritting contractor, look here www.jbschofieldandsons.co.uk/

 

I did a fairly extensive photo shoot with my Fodens the other day. Having dug the Fodens out for the first time in ages I gave them a wash to get rid of eight months’ worth of dust. I wanted something to photograph with the new gear to start and get a feel for it, there are some photographs with the EOS M but most are with the 5D. They will appear repetitive but for my own reasons I have decided to upload most of the shoot.

M462LYL was one of the 400 or so 4000 series gritters that were supplied to the Highways Agency over a period of years to replace the S80 series Fodens, that we had five of. This wagon would have been scrapped along with most of the others but for the intervention of Stuart Kaye. Although it is in exceptional condition so were most of them, regardless, they had to be scrapped and not sold back onto the UK market. A scandalous waste of money, many had been extensively (and expensively) refurbished to a very high standard – total rebuilds – they were still scrapped. A Cummins 325 and six speed auto box makes this wagon very nice to drive empty! I very much doubt that the auto box and gearing would get up our local hills fully loaded and certainly not if pushing a plough. The wagon has covered 85,000 km and other than corrosion caused by salty hands the cab interior is very good.

 

I bought a second 4000 series, but just the chassis cab. The scrapping contract allowed for chassis or gritter bodies to be sold separately. Once separated the body takes a lot of refitting. There are hundreds of wires in plastic trunking and they just hacked through them, you couldn’t overstate the scale of the job of refitting, cost effectively, a body back onto one of the original chassis. I had sourced a dump truck body from an MOD Foden Alpha that would fit nicely on the 4000 chassis. We use this around the yard alongside our 1960’s Foden dumper.

 

It was whilst looking at the chassis cabs with Stuart in Geesons at Ripley that we saw OYE779Y, parked up with a plough fitted, it was minus 11 during this period and almost every motor in the yard had flat batteries, which the frost had then killed completely. We didn’t get to see a motor running but I ended up buying two including OYE. As soon as I saw this motor I knew that there was something strange about it. A Paccar (Kenworth) chassis, Cummins L10 250, Eaton Twinsplitter and Rockwell axles, with a 4000 series cab. As a regular buyer and driver of Fodens in the 80’s and 90’s I knew that these components weren’t available in 1982, when it was allegedly built. I had a new Foden the same month as this motor was supposed to have been built, December 1982. BYG167Y had Foden chassis and S10 cab, the Twinsplitter hadn’t been invented at this point. The serial number stamped on the chassis relates to an S80 series gritter, one of the previous generation, with Foden Gearbox, chassis, axles and Rolls Royce 265L engine. This is what the Foden Microfiche build sheet still shows for this serial number.

 

OYE779Y seems to have been built to replace the original, which was written off in a serious accident. The strange thing is the allocation of the same serial and registration numbers to a totally different vehicle. We have seen a black and white photograph of the wagon, when new with a conventional Atkinson gritter body. This was replaced with the French body now fitted. This has water tanks and can spread the salt with water, made of plastic and stainless steel, it appears unused. The wagon itself was unloved and un driven, we think, because of the Twin splitter gearbox, which wasn’t suitable for the drivers employed on the motorway gritting teams. With 30,000 km on the clock, mostly service miles, the wagon is like new. Other than sag in the roof lining material the cab interior is like new. I’m guessing that it saw very little actual work, subsequently it doesn’t have the fantastic paint job of the newer 4000 series, the result of being sandblasted and two pack painted. OYE has been touched up, a bit of a splodge here and there. There is a total lack of corrosion, it just needs a good respray and it would be like new. A new set of tyres fitted in 2003 still have the stickers on them. The long and the short of it is that this is a much newer wagon. The 4000 series cab was available in 1987, I bought one on an E plate, the last generation of S10 was still available in 1986 on a D plate so I reckon it would be built around this time.

 

There are only a few 4000 series gritters survived in the UK but some went to Ireland and others to Eastern Europe. Presumably Roger Geeson was allowed to export to countries where it wouldn't affect the sales of the suppliers of the new gritting fleet - this appeared to be why there was a restriction on sales in the UK.

 

If anyone has more to add regarding this story please let me Know.

 

I couldn’t resist adding my other two Fodens to the line-up, customers were coming and going at the same time hence some other motors in there. I decided to add some cab interior shots a day or two later, just for the record as it were.

 

To see more about J B Schofield and Sons and the history of the business and its 33 years as a gritting contractor, look here www.jbschofieldandsons.co.uk/

 

I did a fairly extensive photo shoot with my Fodens the other day. Having dug the Fodens out for the first time in ages I gave them a wash to get rid of eight months’ worth of dust. I wanted something to photograph with the new gear to start and get a feel for it, there are some photographs with the EOS M but most are with the 5D. They will appear repetitive but for my own reasons I have decided to upload most of the shoot.

M462LYL was one of the 400 or so 4000 series gritters that were supplied to the Highways Agency over a period of years to replace the S80 series Fodens, that we had five of. This wagon would have been scrapped along with most of the others but for the intervention of Stuart Kaye. Although it is in exceptional condition so were most of them, regardless, they had to be scrapped and not sold back onto the UK market. A scandalous waste of money, many had been extensively (and expensively) refurbished to a very high standard – total rebuilds – they were still scrapped. A Cummins 325 and six speed auto box makes this wagon very nice to drive empty! I very much doubt that the auto box and gearing would get up our local hills fully loaded and certainly not if pushing a plough. The wagon has covered 85,000 km and other than corrosion caused by salty hands the cab interior is very good.

 

I bought a second 4000 series, but just the chassis cab. The scrapping contract allowed for chassis or gritter bodies to be sold separately. Once separated the body takes a lot of refitting. There are hundreds of wires in plastic trunking and they just hacked through them, you couldn’t overstate the scale of the job of refitting, cost effectively, a body back onto one of the original chassis. I had sourced a dump truck body from an MOD Foden Alpha that would fit nicely on the 4000 chassis. We use this around the yard alongside our 1960’s Foden dumper.

 

It was whilst looking at the chassis cabs with Stuart in Geesons at Ripley that we saw OYE779Y, parked up with a plough fitted, it was minus 11 during this period and almost every motor in the yard had flat batteries, which the frost had then killed completely. We didn’t get to see a motor running but I ended up buying two including OYE. As soon as I saw this motor I knew that there was something strange about it. A Paccar (Kenworth) chassis, Cummins L10 250, Eaton Twinsplitter and Rockwell axles, with a 4000 series cab. As a regular buyer and driver of Fodens in the 80’s and 90’s I knew that these components weren’t available in 1982, when it was allegedly built. I had a new Foden the same month as this motor was supposed to have been built, December 1982. BYG167Y had Foden chassis and S10 cab, the Twinsplitter hadn’t been invented at this point. The serial number stamped on the chassis relates to an S80 series gritter, one of the previous generation, with Foden Gearbox, chassis, axles and Rolls Royce 265L engine. This is what the Foden Microfiche build sheet still shows for this serial number.

 

OYE779Y seems to have been built to replace the original, which was written off in a serious accident. The strange thing is the allocation of the same serial and registration numbers to a totally different vehicle. We have seen a black and white photograph of the wagon, when new with a conventional Atkinson gritter body. This was replaced with the French body now fitted. This has water tanks and can spread the salt with water, made of plastic and stainless steel, it appears unused. The wagon itself was unloved and un driven, we think, because of the Twin splitter gearbox, which wasn’t suitable for the drivers employed on the motorway gritting teams. With 30,000 km on the clock, mostly service miles, the wagon is like new. Other than sag in the roof lining material the cab interior is like new. I’m guessing that it saw very little actual work, subsequently it doesn’t have the fantastic paint job of the newer 4000 series, the result of being sandblasted and two pack painted. OYE has been touched up, a bit of a splodge here and there. There is a total lack of corrosion, it just needs a good respray and it would be like new. A new set of tyres fitted in 2003 still have the stickers on them. The long and the short of it is that this is a much newer wagon. The 4000 series cab was available in 1987, I bought one on an E plate, the last generation of S10 was still available in 1986 on a D plate so I reckon it would be built around this time.

 

There are only a few 4000 series gritters survived in the UK but some went to Ireland and others to Eastern Europe. Presumably Roger Geeson was allowed to export to countries where it wouldn't affect the sales of the suppliers of the new gritting fleet - this appeared to be why there was a restriction on sales in the UK.

 

If anyone has more to add regarding this story please let me Know.

 

I couldn’t resist adding my other two Fodens to the line-up, customers were coming and going at the same time hence some other motors in there. I decided to add some cab interior shots a day or two later, just for the record as it were.

 

To see more about J B Schofield and Sons and the history of the business and its 33 years as a gritting contractor, look here www.jbschofieldandsons.co.uk/

 

I did a fairly extensive photo shoot with my Fodens the other day. Having dug the Fodens out for the first time in ages I gave them a wash to get rid of eight months’ worth of dust. I wanted something to photograph with the new gear to start and get a feel for it, there are some photographs with the EOS M but most are with the 5D. They will appear repetitive but for my own reasons I have decided to upload most of the shoot.

M462LYL was one of the 400 or so 4000 series gritters that were supplied to the Highways Agency over a period of years to replace the S80 series Fodens, that we had five of. This wagon would have been scrapped along with most of the others but for the intervention of Stuart Kaye. Although it is in exceptional condition so were most of them, regardless, they had to be scrapped and not sold back onto the UK market. A scandalous waste of money, many had been extensively (and expensively) refurbished to a very high standard – total rebuilds – they were still scrapped. A Cummins 325 and six speed auto box makes this wagon very nice to drive empty! I very much doubt that the auto box and gearing would get up our local hills fully loaded and certainly not if pushing a plough. The wagon has covered 85,000 km and other than corrosion caused by salty hands the cab interior is very good.

 

I bought a second 4000 series, but just the chassis cab. The scrapping contract allowed for chassis or gritter bodies to be sold separately. Once separated the body takes a lot of refitting. There are hundreds of wires in plastic trunking and they just hacked through them, you couldn’t overstate the scale of the job of refitting, cost effectively, a body back onto one of the original chassis. I had sourced a dump truck body from an MOD Foden Alpha that would fit nicely on the 4000 chassis. We use this around the yard alongside our 1960’s Foden dumper.

 

It was whilst looking at the chassis cabs with Stuart in Geesons at Ripley that we saw OYE779Y, parked up with a plough fitted, it was minus 11 during this period and almost every motor in the yard had flat batteries, which the frost had then killed completely. We didn’t get to see a motor running but I ended up buying two including OYE. As soon as I saw this motor I knew that there was something strange about it. A Paccar (Kenworth) chassis, Cummins L10 250, Eaton Twinsplitter and Rockwell axles, with a 4000 series cab. As a regular buyer and driver of Fodens in the 80’s and 90’s I knew that these components weren’t available in 1982, when it was allegedly built. I had a new Foden the same month as this motor was supposed to have been built, December 1982. BYG167Y had Foden chassis and S10 cab, the Twinsplitter hadn’t been invented at this point. The serial number stamped on the chassis relates to an S80 series gritter, one of the previous generation, with Foden Gearbox, chassis, axles and Rolls Royce 265L engine. This is what the Foden Microfiche build sheet still shows for this serial number.

 

OYE779Y seems to have been built to replace the original, which was written off in a serious accident. The strange thing is the allocation of the same serial and registration numbers to a totally different vehicle. We have seen a black and white photograph of the wagon, when new with a conventional Atkinson gritter body. This was replaced with the French body now fitted. This has water tanks and can spread the salt with water, made of plastic and stainless steel, it appears unused. The wagon itself was unloved and un driven, we think, because of the Twin splitter gearbox, which wasn’t suitable for the drivers employed on the motorway gritting teams. With 30,000 km on the clock, mostly service miles, the wagon is like new. Other than sag in the roof lining material the cab interior is like new. I’m guessing that it saw very little actual work, subsequently it doesn’t have the fantastic paint job of the newer 4000 series, the result of being sandblasted and two pack painted. OYE has been touched up, a bit of a splodge here and there. There is a total lack of corrosion, it just needs a good respray and it would be like new. A new set of tyres fitted in 2003 still have the stickers on them. The long and the short of it is that this is a much newer wagon. The 4000 series cab was available in 1987, I bought one on an E plate, the last generation of S10 was still available in 1986 on a D plate so I reckon it would be built around this time.

 

There are only a few 4000 series gritters survived in the UK but some went to Ireland and others to Eastern Europe. Presumably Roger Geeson was allowed to export to countries where it wouldn't affect the sales of the suppliers of the new gritting fleet - this appeared to be why there was a restriction on sales in the UK.

 

If anyone has more to add regarding this story please let me Know.

 

I couldn’t resist adding my other two Fodens to the line-up, customers were coming and going at the same time hence some other motors in there. I decided to add some cab interior shots a day or two later, just for the record as it were.

 

To see more about J B Schofield and Sons and the history of the business and its 33 years as a gritting contractor, look here www.jbschofieldandsons.co.uk/

 

I did a fairly extensive photo shoot with my Fodens the other day. Having dug the Fodens out for the first time in ages I gave them a wash to get rid of eight months’ worth of dust. I wanted something to photograph with the new gear to start and get a feel for it, there are some photographs with the EOS M but most are with the 5D. They will appear repetitive but for my own reasons I have decided to upload most of the shoot.

M462LYL was one of the 400 or so 4000 series gritters that were supplied to the Highways Agency over a period of years to replace the S80 series Fodens, that we had five of. This wagon would have been scrapped along with most of the others but for the intervention of Stuart Kaye. Although it is in exceptional condition so were most of them, regardless, they had to be scrapped and not sold back onto the UK market. A scandalous waste of money, many had been extensively (and expensively) refurbished to a very high standard – total rebuilds – they were still scrapped. A Cummins 325 and six speed auto box makes this wagon very nice to drive empty! I very much doubt that the auto box and gearing would get up our local hills fully loaded and certainly not if pushing a plough. The wagon has covered 85,000 km and other than corrosion caused by salty hands the cab interior is very good.

 

I bought a second 4000 series, but just the chassis cab. The scrapping contract allowed for chassis or gritter bodies to be sold separately. Once separated the body takes a lot of refitting. There are hundreds of wires in plastic trunking and they just hacked through them, you couldn’t overstate the scale of the job of refitting, cost effectively, a body back onto one of the original chassis. I had sourced a dump truck body from an MOD Foden Alpha that would fit nicely on the 4000 chassis. We use this around the yard alongside our 1960’s Foden dumper.

 

It was whilst looking at the chassis cabs with Stuart in Geesons at Ripley that we saw OYE779Y, parked up with a plough fitted, it was minus 11 during this period and almost every motor in the yard had flat batteries, which the frost had then killed completely. We didn’t get to see a motor running but I ended up buying two including OYE. As soon as I saw this motor I knew that there was something strange about it. A Paccar (Kenworth) chassis, Cummins L10 250, Eaton Twinsplitter and Rockwell axles, with a 4000 series cab. As a regular buyer and driver of Fodens in the 80’s and 90’s I knew that these components weren’t available in 1982, when it was allegedly built. I had a new Foden the same month as this motor was supposed to have been built, December 1982. BYG167Y had Foden chassis and S10 cab, the Twinsplitter hadn’t been invented at this point. The serial number stamped on the chassis relates to an S80 series gritter, one of the previous generation, with Foden Gearbox, chassis, axles and Rolls Royce 265L engine. This is what the Foden Microfiche build sheet still shows for this serial number.

 

OYE779Y seems to have been built to replace the original, which was written off in a serious accident. The strange thing is the allocation of the same serial and registration numbers to a totally different vehicle. We have seen a black and white photograph of the wagon, when new with a conventional Atkinson gritter body. This was replaced with the French body now fitted. This has water tanks and can spread the salt with water, made of plastic and stainless steel, it appears unused. The wagon itself was unloved and un driven, we think, because of the Twin splitter gearbox, which wasn’t suitable for the drivers employed on the motorway gritting teams. With 30,000 km on the clock, mostly service miles, the wagon is like new. Other than sag in the roof lining material the cab interior is like new. I’m guessing that it saw very little actual work, subsequently it doesn’t have the fantastic paint job of the newer 4000 series, the result of being sandblasted and two pack painted. OYE has been touched up, a bit of a splodge here and there. There is a total lack of corrosion, it just needs a good respray and it would be like new. A new set of tyres fitted in 2003 still have the stickers on them. The long and the short of it is that this is a much newer wagon. The 4000 series cab was available in 1987, I bought one on an E plate, the last generation of S10 was still available in 1986 on a D plate so I reckon it would be built around this time.

 

There are only a few 4000 series gritters survived in the UK but some went to Ireland and others to Eastern Europe. Presumably Roger Geeson was allowed to export to countries where it wouldn't affect the sales of the suppliers of the new gritting fleet - this appeared to be why there was a restriction on sales in the UK.

 

If anyone has more to add regarding this story please let me Know.

 

I couldn’t resist adding my other two Fodens to the line-up, customers were coming and going at the same time hence some other motors in there. I decided to add some cab interior shots a day or two later, just for the record as it were.

 

To see more about J B Schofield and Sons and the history of the business and its 33 years as a gritting contractor, look here www.jbschofieldandsons.co.uk/

 

I did a fairly extensive photo shoot with my Fodens the other day. Having dug the Fodens out for the first time in ages I gave them a wash to get rid of eight months’ worth of dust. I wanted something to photograph with the new gear to start and get a feel for it, there are some photographs with the EOS M but most are with the 5D. They will appear repetitive but for my own reasons I have decided to upload most of the shoot.

M462LYL was one of the 400 or so 4000 series gritters that were supplied to the Highways Agency over a period of years to replace the S80 series Fodens, that we had five of. This wagon would have been scrapped along with most of the others but for the intervention of Stuart Kaye. Although it is in exceptional condition so were most of them, regardless, they had to be scrapped and not sold back onto the UK market. A scandalous waste of money, many had been extensively (and expensively) refurbished to a very high standard – total rebuilds – they were still scrapped. A Cummins 325 and six speed auto box makes this wagon very nice to drive empty! I very much doubt that the auto box and gearing would get up our local hills fully loaded and certainly not if pushing a plough. The wagon has covered 85,000 km and other than corrosion caused by salty hands the cab interior is very good.

 

I bought a second 4000 series, but just the chassis cab. The scrapping contract allowed for chassis or gritter bodies to be sold separately. Once separated the body takes a lot of refitting. There are hundreds of wires in plastic trunking and they just hacked through them, you couldn’t overstate the scale of the job of refitting, cost effectively, a body back onto one of the original chassis. I had sourced a dump truck body from an MOD Foden Alpha that would fit nicely on the 4000 chassis. We use this around the yard alongside our 1960’s Foden dumper.

 

It was whilst looking at the chassis cabs with Stuart in Geesons at Ripley that we saw OYE779Y, parked up with a plough fitted, it was minus 11 during this period and almost every motor in the yard had flat batteries, which the frost had then killed completely. We didn’t get to see a motor running but I ended up buying two including OYE. As soon as I saw this motor I knew that there was something strange about it. A Paccar (Kenworth) chassis, Cummins L10 250, Eaton Twinsplitter and Rockwell axles, with a 4000 series cab. As a regular buyer and driver of Fodens in the 80’s and 90’s I knew that these components weren’t available in 1982, when it was allegedly built. I had a new Foden the same month as this motor was supposed to have been built, December 1982. BYG167Y had Foden chassis and S10 cab, the Twinsplitter hadn’t been invented at this point. The serial number stamped on the chassis relates to an S80 series gritter, one of the previous generation, with Foden Gearbox, chassis, axles and Rolls Royce 265L engine. This is what the Foden Microfiche build sheet still shows for this serial number.

 

OYE779Y seems to have been built to replace the original, which was written off in a serious accident. The strange thing is the allocation of the same serial and registration numbers to a totally different vehicle. We have seen a black and white photograph of the wagon, when new with a conventional Atkinson gritter body. This was replaced with the French body now fitted. This has water tanks and can spread the salt with water, made of plastic and stainless steel, it appears unused. The wagon itself was unloved and un driven, we think, because of the Twin splitter gearbox, which wasn’t suitable for the drivers employed on the motorway gritting teams. With 30,000 km on the clock, mostly service miles, the wagon is like new. Other than sag in the roof lining material the cab interior is like new. I’m guessing that it saw very little actual work, subsequently it doesn’t have the fantastic paint job of the newer 4000 series, the result of being sandblasted and two pack painted. OYE has been touched up, a bit of a splodge here and there. There is a total lack of corrosion, it just needs a good respray and it would be like new. A new set of tyres fitted in 2003 still have the stickers on them. The long and the short of it is that this is a much newer wagon. The 4000 series cab was available in 1987, I bought one on an E plate, the last generation of S10 was still available in 1986 on a D plate so I reckon it would be built around this time.

 

There are only a few 4000 series gritters survived in the UK but some went to Ireland and others to Eastern Europe. Presumably Roger Geeson was allowed to export to countries where it wouldn't affect the sales of the suppliers of the new gritting fleet - this appeared to be why there was a restriction on sales in the UK.

 

If anyone has more to add regarding this story please let me Know.

 

I couldn’t resist adding my other two Fodens to the line-up, customers were coming and going at the same time hence some other motors in there. I decided to add some cab interior shots a day or two later, just for the record as it were.

 

To see more about J B Schofield and Sons and the history of the business and its 33 years as a gritting contractor, look here www.jbschofieldandsons.co.uk/

 

I did a fairly extensive photo shoot with my Fodens the other day. Having dug the Fodens out for the first time in ages I gave them a wash to get rid of eight months’ worth of dust. I wanted something to photograph with the new gear to start and get a feel for it, there are some photographs with the EOS M but most are with the 5D. They will appear repetitive but for my own reasons I have decided to upload most of the shoot.

M462LYL was one of the 400 or so 4000 series gritters that were supplied to the Highways Agency over a period of years to replace the S80 series Fodens, that we had five of. This wagon would have been scrapped along with most of the others but for the intervention of Stuart Kaye. Although it is in exceptional condition so were most of them, regardless, they had to be scrapped and not sold back onto the UK market. A scandalous waste of money, many had been extensively (and expensively) refurbished to a very high standard – total rebuilds – they were still scrapped. A Cummins 325 and six speed auto box makes this wagon very nice to drive empty! I very much doubt that the auto box and gearing would get up our local hills fully loaded and certainly not if pushing a plough. The wagon has covered 85,000 km and other than corrosion caused by salty hands the cab interior is very good.

 

I bought a second 4000 series, but just the chassis cab. The scrapping contract allowed for chassis or gritter bodies to be sold separately. Once separated the body takes a lot of refitting. There are hundreds of wires in plastic trunking and they just hacked through them, you couldn’t overstate the scale of the job of refitting, cost effectively, a body back onto one of the original chassis. I had sourced a dump truck body from an MOD Foden Alpha that would fit nicely on the 4000 chassis. We use this around the yard alongside our 1960’s Foden dumper.

 

It was whilst looking at the chassis cabs with Stuart in Geesons at Ripley that we saw OYE779Y, parked up with a plough fitted, it was minus 11 during this period and almost every motor in the yard had flat batteries, which the frost had then killed completely. We didn’t get to see a motor running but I ended up buying two including OYE. As soon as I saw this motor I knew that there was something strange about it. A Paccar (Kenworth) chassis, Cummins L10 250, Eaton Twinsplitter and Rockwell axles, with a 4000 series cab. As a regular buyer and driver of Fodens in the 80’s and 90’s I knew that these components weren’t available in 1982, when it was allegedly built. I had a new Foden the same month as this motor was supposed to have been built, December 1982. BYG167Y had Foden chassis and S10 cab, the Twinsplitter hadn’t been invented at this point. The serial number stamped on the chassis relates to an S80 series gritter, one of the previous generation, with Foden Gearbox, chassis, axles and Rolls Royce 265L engine. This is what the Foden Microfiche build sheet still shows for this serial number.

 

OYE779Y seems to have been built to replace the original, which was written off in a serious accident. The strange thing is the allocation of the same serial and registration numbers to a totally different vehicle. We have seen a black and white photograph of the wagon, when new with a conventional Atkinson gritter body. This was replaced with the French body now fitted. This has water tanks and can spread the salt with water, made of plastic and stainless steel, it appears unused. The wagon itself was unloved and un driven, we think, because of the Twin splitter gearbox, which wasn’t suitable for the drivers employed on the motorway gritting teams. With 30,000 km on the clock, mostly service miles, the wagon is like new. Other than sag in the roof lining material the cab interior is like new. I’m guessing that it saw very little actual work, subsequently it doesn’t have the fantastic paint job of the newer 4000 series, the result of being sandblasted and two pack painted. OYE has been touched up, a bit of a splodge here and there. There is a total lack of corrosion, it just needs a good respray and it would be like new. A new set of tyres fitted in 2003 still have the stickers on them. The long and the short of it is that this is a much newer wagon. The 4000 series cab was available in 1987, I bought one on an E plate, the last generation of S10 was still available in 1986 on a D plate so I reckon it would be built around this time.

 

There are only a few 4000 series gritters survived in the UK but some went to Ireland and others to Eastern Europe. Presumably Roger Geeson was allowed to export to countries where it wouldn't affect the sales of the suppliers of the new gritting fleet - this appeared to be why there was a restriction on sales in the UK.

 

If anyone has more to add regarding this story please let me Know.

 

I couldn’t resist adding my other two Fodens to the line-up, customers were coming and going at the same time hence some other motors in there. I decided to add some cab interior shots a day or two later, just for the record as it were.

 

To see more about J B Schofield and Sons and the history of the business and its 33 years as a gritting contractor, look here www.jbschofieldandsons.co.uk/

 

I did a fairly extensive photo shoot with my Fodens the other day. Having dug the Fodens out for the first time in ages I gave them a wash to get rid of eight months’ worth of dust. I wanted something to photograph with the new gear to start and get a feel for it, there are some photographs with the EOS M but most are with the 5D. They will appear repetitive but for my own reasons I have decided to upload most of the shoot.

M462LYL was one of the 400 or so 4000 series gritters that were supplied to the Highways Agency over a period of years to replace the S80 series Fodens, that we had five of. This wagon would have been scrapped along with most of the others but for the intervention of Stuart Kaye. Although it is in exceptional condition so were most of them, regardless, they had to be scrapped and not sold back onto the UK market. A scandalous waste of money, many had been extensively (and expensively) refurbished to a very high standard – total rebuilds – they were still scrapped. A Cummins 325 and six speed auto box makes this wagon very nice to drive empty! I very much doubt that the auto box and gearing would get up our local hills fully loaded and certainly not if pushing a plough. The wagon has covered 85,000 km and other than corrosion caused by salty hands the cab interior is very good.

 

I bought a second 4000 series, but just the chassis cab. The scrapping contract allowed for chassis or gritter bodies to be sold separately. Once separated the body takes a lot of refitting. There are hundreds of wires in plastic trunking and they just hacked through them, you couldn’t overstate the scale of the job of refitting, cost effectively, a body back onto one of the original chassis. I had sourced a dump truck body from an MOD Foden Alpha that would fit nicely on the 4000 chassis. We use this around the yard alongside our 1960’s Foden dumper.

 

It was whilst looking at the chassis cabs with Stuart in Geesons at Ripley that we saw OYE779Y, parked up with a plough fitted, it was minus 11 during this period and almost every motor in the yard had flat batteries, which the frost had then killed completely. We didn’t get to see a motor running but I ended up buying two including OYE. As soon as I saw this motor I knew that there was something strange about it. A Paccar (Kenworth) chassis, Cummins L10 250, Eaton Twinsplitter and Rockwell axles, with a 4000 series cab. As a regular buyer and driver of Fodens in the 80’s and 90’s I knew that these components weren’t available in 1982, when it was allegedly built. I had a new Foden the same month as this motor was supposed to have been built, December 1982. BYG167Y had Foden chassis and S10 cab, the Twinsplitter hadn’t been invented at this point. The serial number stamped on the chassis relates to an S80 series gritter, one of the previous generation, with Foden Gearbox, chassis, axles and Rolls Royce 265L engine. This is what the Foden Microfiche build sheet still shows for this serial number.

 

OYE779Y seems to have been built to replace the original, which was written off in a serious accident. The strange thing is the allocation of the same serial and registration numbers to a totally different vehicle. We have seen a black and white photograph of the wagon, when new with a conventional Atkinson gritter body. This was replaced with the French body now fitted. This has water tanks and can spread the salt with water, made of plastic and stainless steel, it appears unused. The wagon itself was unloved and un driven, we think, because of the Twin splitter gearbox, which wasn’t suitable for the drivers employed on the motorway gritting teams. With 30,000 km on the clock, mostly service miles, the wagon is like new. Other than sag in the roof lining material the cab interior is like new. I’m guessing that it saw very little actual work, subsequently it doesn’t have the fantastic paint job of the newer 4000 series, the result of being sandblasted and two pack painted. OYE has been touched up, a bit of a splodge here and there. There is a total lack of corrosion, it just needs a good respray and it would be like new. A new set of tyres fitted in 2003 still have the stickers on them. The long and the short of it is that this is a much newer wagon. The 4000 series cab was available in 1987, I bought one on an E plate, the last generation of S10 was still available in 1986 on a D plate so I reckon it would be built around this time.

 

There are only a few 4000 series gritters survived in the UK but some went to Ireland and others to Eastern Europe. Presumably Roger Geeson was allowed to export to countries where it wouldn't affect the sales of the suppliers of the new gritting fleet - this appeared to be why there was a restriction on sales in the UK.

 

If anyone has more to add regarding this story please let me Know.

 

I couldn’t resist adding my other two Fodens to the line-up, customers were coming and going at the same time hence some other motors in there. I decided to add some cab interior shots a day or two later, just for the record as it were.

 

To see more about J B Schofield and Sons and the history of the business and its 33 years as a gritting contractor, look here www.jbschofieldandsons.co.uk/

 

After World War II, the Soviet Union followed the example of most postwar navies, and extensively copied the advanced Type XXI U-boat. The Soviet version of this was the Project 611 class, codenamed Zulu-class by NATO. However, the Zulus were not very structurally sound, so a better version was needed, which became the Project 641s, codenamed Foxtrot-class.

 

The Foxtrots were diesel-electric attack submarines, with emphasis given on endurance rather than speed or range: with huge battery compartments, the Foxtrots could stay submerged for 10 days without difficulty. However, the need for such large batteries also made the ship heavier than probably necessary, and crew comfort suffered--Foxtrot crews actually had fewer crew amenities than World War II-era US fleet submarines. The Foxtrots were also found to be less hydrodynamic than contemporary submarines, due to its wartime-style hull design, were abysmally slow submerged, and noisy--all of which might prove lethal in a shooting war.

 

Nonetheless, the Foxtrots were reliable, and safer than early Soviet nuclear-powered submarines; only one was lost, B-37, and that was due to crew error rather than a fault of the design. It was also cheaper to operate. 74 would be built from 1957 to 1983. Although they were probably obsolete by the late 1960s, their reliability, and the fact that they were still useful in the shallower waters of the Baltic and North Seas, kept the Foxtrots in production. 56 were built for the Soviet Navy, while the others were split between Poland, Libya, Cuba, and India. The last was withdrawn from Russian service in 2000, while Cuba may still have its three in commission. Six are currently preserved as museum ships. None are known to have fired a shot in anger.

 

This particular boat is B-427, buit in 1971; it served in both the Soviet and Russian Navies, mainly in the Pacific, until 1994. After retirement, it was leased to the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney, from 1995 to 1998. (Because B-427 was leased rather than sold, it was still technically in commission with the Russian Navy. The caretaker, a former Royal Australian Navy submariner, had to be commissioned into the Russian Navy to keep the lease legal under maritime law.) In 1998, B-427 was sold to the company which owned the RMS Queen Mary in Long Beach, California. B-427 was subsequently shipped to Long Beach and put on display forward of the Queen Mary's berth. It was nicknamed "Scorpion," though the submarine never had that name--the Soviet Union rarely if ever named its submarines, though the Russian Navy does.

 

Unfortunately for B-427, the submarine was not maintained (an issue the company had with the Queen Mary), and the submarine began to deterioriate. By 2012, rust had broken through and B-427 began to list to starboard, enough that the submarine was closed to the public. By 2015, the damage was enough that the hull itself was holed, and a family of raccoons was found living in the control room. After reacquiring the Queen Mary in 2021, the city of Long Beach has been looking for buyers to scrap B-427.

 

B-427 is probably not much longer for the world. When we saw it in June 2023, it was obviously in extremely poor shape, with severe rusting at the waterline which has spread across the ship, and its paint faded. It would take far more money to repair it than it would be to simply tow it out of the Queen Mary's breakwater and scrap it--incidentally, a fate shared with B-39, a Foxtrot that used to be displayed just down the coast in San Diego, which was scrapped in 2022. For now, B-427 is barely afloat, a testament to what happens when a museum ship is not well maintained.

I did a fairly extensive photo shoot with my Fodens the other day. Having dug the Fodens out for the first time in ages I gave them a wash to get rid of eight months’ worth of dust. I wanted something to photograph with the new gear to start and get a feel for it, there are some photographs with the EOS M but most are with the 5D. They will appear repetitive but for my own reasons I have decided to upload most of the shoot.

M462LYL was one of the 400 or so 4000 series gritters that were supplied to the Highways Agency over a period of years to replace the S80 series Fodens, that we had five of. This wagon would have been scrapped along with most of the others but for the intervention of Stuart Kaye. Although it is in exceptional condition so were most of them, regardless, they had to be scrapped and not sold back onto the UK market. A scandalous waste of money, many had been extensively (and expensively) refurbished to a very high standard – total rebuilds – they were still scrapped. A Cummins 325 and six speed auto box makes this wagon very nice to drive empty! I very much doubt that the auto box and gearing would get up our local hills fully loaded and certainly not if pushing a plough. The wagon has covered 85,000 km and other than corrosion caused by salty hands the cab interior is very good.

 

I bought a second 4000 series, but just the chassis cab. The scrapping contract allowed for chassis or gritter bodies to be sold separately. Once separated the body takes a lot of refitting. There are hundreds of wires in plastic trunking and they just hacked through them, you couldn’t overstate the scale of the job of refitting, cost effectively, a body back onto one of the original chassis. I had sourced a dump truck body from an MOD Foden Alpha that would fit nicely on the 4000 chassis. We use this around the yard alongside our 1960’s Foden dumper.

 

It was whilst looking at the chassis cabs with Stuart in Geesons at Ripley that we saw OYE779Y, parked up with a plough fitted, it was minus 11 during this period and almost every motor in the yard had flat batteries, which the frost had then killed completely. We didn’t get to see a motor running but I ended up buying two including OYE. As soon as I saw this motor I knew that there was something strange about it. A Paccar (Kenworth) chassis, Cummins L10 250, Eaton Twinsplitter and Rockwell axles, with a 4000 series cab. As a regular buyer and driver of Fodens in the 80’s and 90’s I knew that these components weren’t available in 1982, when it was allegedly built. I had a new Foden the same month as this motor was supposed to have been built, December 1982. BYG167Y had Foden chassis and S10 cab, the Twinsplitter hadn’t been invented at this point. The serial number stamped on the chassis relates to an S80 series gritter, one of the previous generation, with Foden Gearbox, chassis, axles and Rolls Royce 265L engine. This is what the Foden Microfiche build sheet still shows for this serial number.

 

OYE779Y seems to have been built to replace the original, which was written off in a serious accident. The strange thing is the allocation of the same serial and registration numbers to a totally different vehicle. We have seen a black and white photograph of the wagon, when new with a conventional Atkinson gritter body. This was replaced with the French body now fitted. This has water tanks and can spread the salt with water, made of plastic and stainless steel, it appears unused. The wagon itself was unloved and un driven, we think, because of the Twin splitter gearbox, which wasn’t suitable for the drivers employed on the motorway gritting teams. With 30,000 km on the clock, mostly service miles, the wagon is like new. Other than sag in the roof lining material the cab interior is like new. I’m guessing that it saw very little actual work, subsequently it doesn’t have the fantastic paint job of the newer 4000 series, the result of being sandblasted and two pack painted. OYE has been touched up, a bit of a splodge here and there. There is a total lack of corrosion, it just needs a good respray and it would be like new. A new set of tyres fitted in 2003 still have the stickers on them. The long and the short of it is that this is a much newer wagon. The 4000 series cab was available in 1987, I bought one on an E plate, the last generation of S10 was still available in 1986 on a D plate so I reckon it would be built around this time.

 

There are only a few 4000 series gritters survived in the UK but some went to Ireland and others to Eastern Europe. Presumably Roger Geeson was allowed to export to countries where it wouldn't affect the sales of the suppliers of the new gritting fleet - this appeared to be why there was a restriction on sales in the UK.

 

If anyone has more to add regarding this story please let me Know.

 

I couldn’t resist adding my other two Fodens to the line-up, customers were coming and going at the same time hence some other motors in there. I decided to add some cab interior shots a day or two later, just for the record as it were.

 

To see more about J B Schofield and Sons and the history of the business and its 33 years as a gritting contractor, look here www.jbschofieldandsons.co.uk/

 

I did a fairly extensive photo shoot with my Fodens the other day. Having dug the Fodens out for the first time in ages I gave them a wash to get rid of eight months’ worth of dust. I wanted something to photograph with the new gear to start and get a feel for it, there are some photographs with the EOS M but most are with the 5D. They will appear repetitive but for my own reasons I have decided to upload most of the shoot.

M462LYL was one of the 400 or so 4000 series gritters that were supplied to the Highways Agency over a period of years to replace the S80 series Fodens, that we had five of. This wagon would have been scrapped along with most of the others but for the intervention of Stuart Kaye. Although it is in exceptional condition so were most of them, regardless, they had to be scrapped and not sold back onto the UK market. A scandalous waste of money, many had been extensively (and expensively) refurbished to a very high standard – total rebuilds – they were still scrapped. A Cummins 325 and six speed auto box makes this wagon very nice to drive empty! I very much doubt that the auto box and gearing would get up our local hills fully loaded and certainly not if pushing a plough. The wagon has covered 85,000 km and other than corrosion caused by salty hands the cab interior is very good.

 

I bought a second 4000 series, but just the chassis cab. The scrapping contract allowed for chassis or gritter bodies to be sold separately. Once separated the body takes a lot of refitting. There are hundreds of wires in plastic trunking and they just hacked through them, you couldn’t overstate the scale of the job of refitting, cost effectively, a body back onto one of the original chassis. I had sourced a dump truck body from an MOD Foden Alpha that would fit nicely on the 4000 chassis. We use this around the yard alongside our 1960’s Foden dumper.

 

It was whilst looking at the chassis cabs with Stuart in Geesons at Ripley that we saw OYE779Y, parked up with a plough fitted, it was minus 11 during this period and almost every motor in the yard had flat batteries, which the frost had then killed completely. We didn’t get to see a motor running but I ended up buying two including OYE. As soon as I saw this motor I knew that there was something strange about it. A Paccar (Kenworth) chassis, Cummins L10 250, Eaton Twinsplitter and Rockwell axles, with a 4000 series cab. As a regular buyer and driver of Fodens in the 80’s and 90’s I knew that these components weren’t available in 1982, when it was allegedly built. I had a new Foden the same month as this motor was supposed to have been built, December 1982. BYG167Y had Foden chassis and S10 cab, the Twinsplitter hadn’t been invented at this point. The serial number stamped on the chassis relates to an S80 series gritter, one of the previous generation, with Foden Gearbox, chassis, axles and Rolls Royce 265L engine. This is what the Foden Microfiche build sheet still shows for this serial number.

 

OYE779Y seems to have been built to replace the original, which was written off in a serious accident. The strange thing is the allocation of the same serial and registration numbers to a totally different vehicle. We have seen a black and white photograph of the wagon, when new with a conventional Atkinson gritter body. This was replaced with the French body now fitted. This has water tanks and can spread the salt with water, made of plastic and stainless steel, it appears unused. The wagon itself was unloved and un driven, we think, because of the Twin splitter gearbox, which wasn’t suitable for the drivers employed on the motorway gritting teams. With 30,000 km on the clock, mostly service miles, the wagon is like new. Other than sag in the roof lining material the cab interior is like new. I’m guessing that it saw very little actual work, subsequently it doesn’t have the fantastic paint job of the newer 4000 series, the result of being sandblasted and two pack painted. OYE has been touched up, a bit of a splodge here and there. There is a total lack of corrosion, it just needs a good respray and it would be like new. A new set of tyres fitted in 2003 still have the stickers on them. The long and the short of it is that this is a much newer wagon. The 4000 series cab was available in 1987, I bought one on an E plate, the last generation of S10 was still available in 1986 on a D plate so I reckon it would be built around this time.

 

There are only a few 4000 series gritters survived in the UK but some went to Ireland and others to Eastern Europe. Presumably Roger Geeson was allowed to export to countries where it wouldn't affect the sales of the suppliers of the new gritting fleet - this appeared to be why there was a restriction on sales in the UK.

 

If anyone has more to add regarding this story please let me Know.

 

I couldn’t resist adding my other two Fodens to the line-up, customers were coming and going at the same time hence some other motors in there. I decided to add some cab interior shots a day or two later, just for the record as it were.

 

To see more about J B Schofield and Sons and the history of the business and its 33 years as a gritting contractor, look here www.jbschofieldandsons.co.uk/

 

Motor Transport

 

NEW TRUCKS FROM OLD

 

8th July 1993, Page 26

 

Reconditioned components are an established part of the haulage industry. Scania main dealer Keltruck has taken truck recycling to its ultimate conclusion.

 

Chris Kelly chooses his words carefully. And he likes other people to do the same. Describe the Scania main dealer's growing parts reclamation and truck recycling operation as a "sophisticated breakers" and he'll query your terminology in a voice which is slow, measured and deliberate.

 

"I don't like the word breakers," he says. "It's got traditional connotations of a dirty yard, swimming in oil, often with a loose Alsation, operated by people with little regard for the environment — I'd say we're none of those."

 

It's difficult to argue with him: Kelly has spent more money on the recycling operation at Keltruck's West Bromwich site than many breakers see in profit in a lifetime (at the last count it was a cool £250,000).

 

Pass through the 2,800m recycling area with its neatly binned components, steam cleaned engines and newly painted cabs (shrink-wrapped to keep the dust off) and you could easily be in the new parts department.

 

WRITTEN OFF

But these parts aren't new They've all been used before, some on trucks up to eight years old and since written off for scrap. Others come off vehicles that have ended their working life in a road accident. But whatever the source, if the component has life left in it and a potential buyer — it won't be wasted.

 

Keltruck's recycling operation kicked off in earnest some two years ago, spurred on by a number of factors, not least the arrival of the current recession, as Kelly explains: "We kept registering a need, particularly from local operators who at the start of the recession were unable to afford major unit repairs and if we couldn't provide them with a component at a price they could afford they were quite prepared to go away and visit breakers instead."

 

According to Kelly those breakers (with or without Alsatians) weren't used to dealing with Scanias: "They were still into the tailend of the AFL, Bedford era. I felt it was much better for our customers to be buying used Scania components from us than introducing another element and buying them from someone else."

 

While the potential revenue from competitively-priced reconditioned components seems obvious, the message appears to have been missed by many franchised truck dealers.

 

It was an area of business that traditionally is lost to a distributor; the bottom slice if you like, of the business that we wanted to take account of," says Kelly.

 

The potential buyer of recycled, or reconditioned parts has traditionally been the small haulier looking to save money over a factory reconditioned or "new" spare part. However, Kelly believes the market has moved on.

 

"That bottom slice isn't always the small haulier, it's sometimes the larger operator with a vehicle that's got a fixed life whether for accounting reasons or whatever — and if there's a major component failure within six months of the end of that total period, one way or another they've got to get it back on the road for it to complete that accounting period." Rather than pay a premium price for the durability of a new spare part for a vehicle that is due to be sold on, many large operators are now buying recycled components at lower prices to see them through that final operating period.

 

"We've got major public companies who've bought components from us for that very reason", says Kelly. "Not because they can't afford the component but because it would be largely uneconomical for them to go down the route of new, only to sell the vehicle six months later."

 

While cynics might accuse Kelly of simply trying to beat the breakers at their own game he insists there is a quality issue which goes beyond simple price considerations. "There was an onslaught of spurious parts over the past three years and this was also a way to counter it. Operators by and large see a spurious part and think it's the same specification as a genuine part. But they're not. There are a number of people who offer "reconditioned" major components. When we've opened them up and looked inside they're nothing more than a paint job on the outside of the casing. What we offer with our reconditioned gearboxes and splitters is an assurance that only genuine Scania components have been used."

 

TWO-TIER SERVICE

Keltruck offers a two-tier service on used driveline components; effectively with or without full reconditioning. For the price sensitive haulier the extra work and cost of reconditioning can still tip the balance although even with new parts fitted the recon unit is still noticeably cheaper than the all new spare part.

 

Recycling division manager Remo Gianesi quotes savings of up to 50% on Keltruck's recycled engines and sometimes more. He cites a typical late-model Scania 14-litre V8; fully reconditioned it will run out at around £5,500, or £3,500 "as is". The retail price for a "factory reconditioned" non-EDC 14-litre V8 quoted by Scania at Milton Keynes is £15,598.14. The cost of a brand new engine, only supplied on rare occasions, would be even higher.

 

Similar savings can be had on 11-litre engines and gearboxes. Typical price for a recon Keltruck 11-litre is £3,500 while the reclaimed engine costs around £2,500. Prices for a used Scania gearbox — typically a 10speed range-change GR 871 — is £1,500-£2,000.

 

Of course money isn't everything. For many hauliers a decent warranty is just as important.

 

Keltruck backs the sales of its reconditioned engines and gearboxes with its own six-month warranty, although some owner-drivers are happy to settle for three months to get the unit price down.

 

MAJOR FACTOR

Lost work is another major factor, reports Gianesi; "Time is often the main consideration for the owner-driver. We had one customer with a R143-400 with a major knock on his engine which would have been at least a week off the road which he couldn't afford. We sold him a used engine, part exchanged for £3,000 plus fitting, and he was back at work without any delay." While Keltruck can clearly offer savings against new parts Kelly isn't about to take on the back-street breakers in a price war: "Our prices, because we use genuine Scania parts, have to be higher. Rather like the original product, we never try to pretend it's the cheapest in the world."

 

Finding stock doesn't appear to be a problem. Keltruck buys around 120 trucks a year just for its recycling operation. Gianesi is in constant touch with potential suppliers by mobile phone, and he's all too familiar with inflated claims from suppliers: "There's never a bad one. They'll all tell you that they've just spent a fortune on it — but you take it at face value."

 

When the truck first arrives at West Bromwich Gianesi sorts out the key components for potential re-use, including cabs, engines and gearboxes, diffs, front axles, springs, and any other ancillaries worth keeping like alternators and water and power steering pumps. What's left — scrap metals, tyres, batteries, plastics — are separated ready for collection by outside contractors.

 

"Wherever possible we'll start the engine before we take it out and run it up until it's hot to determine oil pressure and general condition. Then you listen to it, just like a doctor," says Gianesi.

 

Keltruck keeps a large stock of engines, both reconditioned and used "as is", with a range of mileages on them, allowing customers to match engine quality and likely durability with their own needs. If an engine is earmarked for a full recon job it goes into the rebuild shop after a thorough wash. A full strip-down and rebuild on a 14-litre including new pistons, liners and bearings is a week's work. On gearboxes Keltruck also offers a splitter conversion on standard range-change transmissions that carries a full Scania guarantee.

 

Bent cabs are straightened on a Josam alignment rig before being repainted, wax injected and then shrink-wrapped. "Cab quality determines how long an operator keeps a truck", says Kelly. "Since 1984 Scania's cabs have been largely galvanised and wax injected. As a consequence cabs can be superb after six years so vehicles are being kept longer which has to mean that the Scania parc is extended, so there's more opportunities for us to sell reconditioned drivelines."

 

Keltruck's used parts operation has already generated comment, together with a few raised eyebrows, at Scania's head office at Milton Keynes where some have questioned whether what Kelly is doing is really "recycling" or "reclamation" in that the first involves creating new things from old and the second is about putting old things back to work.

 

The distinction is probably lost on all but the most environmentally correct, although Kelly remains unrepentant about his choice of words: "It's exactly what's happening. All the steel from the chassis frame and so on goes to various centres where it's actually recycled and can be positively followed into a new product.

 

"The scrap plastic, batteries, tyres, brass and copper all go to different recyclers," he adds. "Although we don't do it ourselves we direct the components to the specialist recyclers and that's why I can confidently say the vast majority of the truck that we take to pieces is recycled in one form or another. The opposite to recycling is to leave a truck in a field and let it rust and rot."

 

ALLADIN'S CAVE

Either way, to the average operator Keltruck's Scania recycling centre is an cave of old and not-so-old parts where relatively new big vees rub shoulders with the odd LB cab. But Kelly doesn't let nostalgia get in the way of maintaining a very strict stock control: "I'm certainly not the kind of person that keeps something on the basis that one day it may be used again. The time that it's going to be used again has got to be pretty certain for me to keep an item." Just like his words, Kelly chooses his used parts carefully.

 

Read more at archive.commercialmotor.com/article/8th-july-1993/26/new-...

 

For more information visit recycling.keltruckscania.com | scaniavehiclerecycling.com #Scania #ScaniaVehicleRecycling #ScaniaParts

I did a fairly extensive photo shoot with my Fodens the other day. Having dug the Fodens out for the first time in ages I gave them a wash to get rid of eight months’ worth of dust. I wanted something to photograph with the new gear to start and get a feel for it, there are some photographs with the EOS M but most are with the 5D. They will appear repetitive but for my own reasons I have decided to upload most of the shoot.

M462LYL was one of the 400 or so 4000 series gritters that were supplied to the Highways Agency over a period of years to replace the S80 series Fodens, that we had five of. This wagon would have been scrapped along with most of the others but for the intervention of Stuart Kaye. Although it is in exceptional condition so were most of them, regardless, they had to be scrapped and not sold back onto the UK market. A scandalous waste of money, many had been extensively (and expensively) refurbished to a very high standard – total rebuilds – they were still scrapped. A Cummins 325 and six speed auto box makes this wagon very nice to drive empty! I very much doubt that the auto box and gearing would get up our local hills fully loaded and certainly not if pushing a plough. The wagon has covered 85,000 km and other than corrosion caused by salty hands the cab interior is very good.

 

I bought a second 4000 series, but just the chassis cab. The scrapping contract allowed for chassis or gritter bodies to be sold separately. Once separated the body takes a lot of refitting. There are hundreds of wires in plastic trunking and they just hacked through them, you couldn’t overstate the scale of the job of refitting, cost effectively, a body back onto one of the original chassis. I had sourced a dump truck body from an MOD Foden Alpha that would fit nicely on the 4000 chassis. We use this around the yard alongside our 1960’s Foden dumper.

 

It was whilst looking at the chassis cabs with Stuart in Geesons at Ripley that we saw OYE779Y, parked up with a plough fitted, it was minus 11 during this period and almost every motor in the yard had flat batteries, which the frost had then killed completely. We didn’t get to see a motor running but I ended up buying two including OYE. As soon as I saw this motor I knew that there was something strange about it. A Paccar (Kenworth) chassis, Cummins L10 250, Eaton Twinsplitter and Rockwell axles, with a 4000 series cab. As a regular buyer and driver of Fodens in the 80’s and 90’s I knew that these components weren’t available in 1982, when it was allegedly built. I had a new Foden the same month as this motor was supposed to have been built, December 1982. BYG167Y had Foden chassis and S10 cab, the Twinsplitter hadn’t been invented at this point. The serial number stamped on the chassis relates to an S80 series gritter, one of the previous generation, with Foden Gearbox, chassis, axles and Rolls Royce 265L engine. This is what the Foden Microfiche build sheet still shows for this serial number.

 

OYE779Y seems to have been built to replace the original, which was written off in a serious accident. The strange thing is the allocation of the same serial and registration numbers to a totally different vehicle. We have seen a black and white photograph of the wagon, when new with a conventional Atkinson gritter body. This was replaced with the French body now fitted. This has water tanks and can spread the salt with water, made of plastic and stainless steel, it appears unused. The wagon itself was unloved and un driven, we think, because of the Twin splitter gearbox, which wasn’t suitable for the drivers employed on the motorway gritting teams. With 30,000 km on the clock, mostly service miles, the wagon is like new. Other than sag in the roof lining material the cab interior is like new. I’m guessing that it saw very little actual work, subsequently it doesn’t have the fantastic paint job of the newer 4000 series, the result of being sandblasted and two pack painted. OYE has been touched up, a bit of a splodge here and there. There is a total lack of corrosion, it just needs a good respray and it would be like new. A new set of tyres fitted in 2003 still have the stickers on them. The long and the short of it is that this is a much newer wagon. The 4000 series cab was available in 1987, I bought one on an E plate, the last generation of S10 was still available in 1986 on a D plate so I reckon it would be built around this time.

 

There are only a few 4000 series gritters survived in the UK but some went to Ireland and others to Eastern Europe. Presumably Roger Geeson was allowed to export to countries where it wouldn't affect the sales of the suppliers of the new gritting fleet - this appeared to be why there was a restriction on sales in the UK.

 

If anyone has more to add regarding this story please let me Know.

 

I couldn’t resist adding my other two Fodens to the line-up, customers were coming and going at the same time hence some other motors in there. I decided to add some cab interior shots a day or two later, just for the record as it were.

 

To see more about J B Schofield and Sons and the history of the business and its 33 years as a gritting contractor, look here www.jbschofieldandsons.co.uk/

 

I did a fairly extensive photo shoot with my Fodens the other day. Having dug the Fodens out for the first time in ages I gave them a wash to get rid of eight months’ worth of dust. I wanted something to photograph with the new gear to start and get a feel for it, there are some photographs with the EOS M but most are with the 5D. They will appear repetitive but for my own reasons I have decided to upload most of the shoot.

M462LYL was one of the 400 or so 4000 series gritters that were supplied to the Highways Agency over a period of years to replace the S80 series Fodens, that we had five of. This wagon would have been scrapped along with most of the others but for the intervention of Stuart Kaye. Although it is in exceptional condition so were most of them, regardless, they had to be scrapped and not sold back onto the UK market. A scandalous waste of money, many had been extensively (and expensively) refurbished to a very high standard – total rebuilds – they were still scrapped. A Cummins 325 and six speed auto box makes this wagon very nice to drive empty! I very much doubt that the auto box and gearing would get up our local hills fully loaded and certainly not if pushing a plough. The wagon has covered 85,000 km and other than corrosion caused by salty hands the cab interior is very good.

 

I bought a second 4000 series, but just the chassis cab. The scrapping contract allowed for chassis or gritter bodies to be sold separately. Once separated the body takes a lot of refitting. There are hundreds of wires in plastic trunking and they just hacked through them, you couldn’t overstate the scale of the job of refitting, cost effectively, a body back onto one of the original chassis. I had sourced a dump truck body from an MOD Foden Alpha that would fit nicely on the 4000 chassis. We use this around the yard alongside our 1960’s Foden dumper.

 

It was whilst looking at the chassis cabs with Stuart in Geesons at Ripley that we saw OYE779Y, parked up with a plough fitted, it was minus 11 during this period and almost every motor in the yard had flat batteries, which the frost had then killed completely. We didn’t get to see a motor running but I ended up buying two including OYE. As soon as I saw this motor I knew that there was something strange about it. A Paccar (Kenworth) chassis, Cummins L10 250, Eaton Twinsplitter and Rockwell axles, with a 4000 series cab. As a regular buyer and driver of Fodens in the 80’s and 90’s I knew that these components weren’t available in 1982, when it was allegedly built. I had a new Foden the same month as this motor was supposed to have been built, December 1982. BYG167Y had Foden chassis and S10 cab, the Twinsplitter hadn’t been invented at this point. The serial number stamped on the chassis relates to an S80 series gritter, one of the previous generation, with Foden Gearbox, chassis, axles and Rolls Royce 265L engine. This is what the Foden Microfiche build sheet still shows for this serial number.

 

OYE779Y seems to have been built to replace the original, which was written off in a serious accident. The strange thing is the allocation of the same serial and registration numbers to a totally different vehicle. We have seen a black and white photograph of the wagon, when new with a conventional Atkinson gritter body. This was replaced with the French body now fitted. This has water tanks and can spread the salt with water, made of plastic and stainless steel, it appears unused. The wagon itself was unloved and un driven, we think, because of the Twin splitter gearbox, which wasn’t suitable for the drivers employed on the motorway gritting teams. With 30,000 km on the clock, mostly service miles, the wagon is like new. Other than sag in the roof lining material the cab interior is like new. I’m guessing that it saw very little actual work, subsequently it doesn’t have the fantastic paint job of the newer 4000 series, the result of being sandblasted and two pack painted. OYE has been touched up, a bit of a splodge here and there. There is a total lack of corrosion, it just needs a good respray and it would be like new. A new set of tyres fitted in 2003 still have the stickers on them. The long and the short of it is that this is a much newer wagon. The 4000 series cab was available in 1987, I bought one on an E plate, the last generation of S10 was still available in 1986 on a D plate so I reckon it would be built around this time.

 

There are only a few 4000 series gritters survived in the UK but some went to Ireland and others to Eastern Europe. Presumably Roger Geeson was allowed to export to countries where it wouldn't affect the sales of the suppliers of the new gritting fleet - this appeared to be why there was a restriction on sales in the UK.

 

If anyone has more to add regarding this story please let me Know.

 

I couldn’t resist adding my other two Fodens to the line-up, customers were coming and going at the same time hence some other motors in there. I decided to add some cab interior shots a day or two later, just for the record as it were.

 

To see more about J B Schofield and Sons and the history of the business and its 33 years as a gritting contractor, look here www.jbschofieldandsons.co.uk/

 

I did a fairly extensive photo shoot with my Fodens the other day. Having dug the Fodens out for the first time in ages I gave them a wash to get rid of eight months’ worth of dust. I wanted something to photograph with the new gear to start and get a feel for it, there are some photographs with the EOS M but most are with the 5D. They will appear repetitive but for my own reasons I have decided to upload most of the shoot.

M462LYL was one of the 400 or so 4000 series gritters that were supplied to the Highways Agency over a period of years to replace the S80 series Fodens, that we had five of. This wagon would have been scrapped along with most of the others but for the intervention of Stuart Kaye. Although it is in exceptional condition so were most of them, regardless, they had to be scrapped and not sold back onto the UK market. A scandalous waste of money, many had been extensively (and expensively) refurbished to a very high standard – total rebuilds – they were still scrapped. A Cummins 325 and six speed auto box makes this wagon very nice to drive empty! I very much doubt that the auto box and gearing would get up our local hills fully loaded and certainly not if pushing a plough. The wagon has covered 85,000 km and other than corrosion caused by salty hands the cab interior is very good.

 

I bought a second 4000 series, but just the chassis cab. The scrapping contract allowed for chassis or gritter bodies to be sold separately. Once separated the body takes a lot of refitting. There are hundreds of wires in plastic trunking and they just hacked through them, you couldn’t overstate the scale of the job of refitting, cost effectively, a body back onto one of the original chassis. I had sourced a dump truck body from an MOD Foden Alpha that would fit nicely on the 4000 chassis. We use this around the yard alongside our 1960’s Foden dumper.

 

It was whilst looking at the chassis cabs with Stuart in Geesons at Ripley that we saw OYE779Y, parked up with a plough fitted, it was minus 11 during this period and almost every motor in the yard had flat batteries, which the frost had then killed completely. We didn’t get to see a motor running but I ended up buying two including OYE. As soon as I saw this motor I knew that there was something strange about it. A Paccar (Kenworth) chassis, Cummins L10 250, Eaton Twinsplitter and Rockwell axles, with a 4000 series cab. As a regular buyer and driver of Fodens in the 80’s and 90’s I knew that these components weren’t available in 1982, when it was allegedly built. I had a new Foden the same month as this motor was supposed to have been built, December 1982. BYG167Y had Foden chassis and S10 cab, the Twinsplitter hadn’t been invented at this point. The serial number stamped on the chassis relates to an S80 series gritter, one of the previous generation, with Foden Gearbox, chassis, axles and Rolls Royce 265L engine. This is what the Foden Microfiche build sheet still shows for this serial number.

 

OYE779Y seems to have been built to replace the original, which was written off in a serious accident. The strange thing is the allocation of the same serial and registration numbers to a totally different vehicle. We have seen a black and white photograph of the wagon, when new with a conventional Atkinson gritter body. This was replaced with the French body now fitted. This has water tanks and can spread the salt with water, made of plastic and stainless steel, it appears unused. The wagon itself was unloved and un driven, we think, because of the Twin splitter gearbox, which wasn’t suitable for the drivers employed on the motorway gritting teams. With 30,000 km on the clock, mostly service miles, the wagon is like new. Other than sag in the roof lining material the cab interior is like new. I’m guessing that it saw very little actual work, subsequently it doesn’t have the fantastic paint job of the newer 4000 series, the result of being sandblasted and two pack painted. OYE has been touched up, a bit of a splodge here and there. There is a total lack of corrosion, it just needs a good respray and it would be like new. A new set of tyres fitted in 2003 still have the stickers on them. The long and the short of it is that this is a much newer wagon. The 4000 series cab was available in 1987, I bought one on an E plate, the last generation of S10 was still available in 1986 on a D plate so I reckon it would be built around this time.

 

There are only a few 4000 series gritters survived in the UK but some went to Ireland and others to Eastern Europe. Presumably Roger Geeson was allowed to export to countries where it wouldn't affect the sales of the suppliers of the new gritting fleet - this appeared to be why there was a restriction on sales in the UK.

 

If anyone has more to add regarding this story please let me Know.

 

I couldn’t resist adding my other two Fodens to the line-up, customers were coming and going at the same time hence some other motors in there. I decided to add some cab interior shots a day or two later, just for the record as it were.

 

To see more about J B Schofield and Sons and the history of the business and its 33 years as a gritting contractor, look here www.jbschofieldandsons.co.uk/

 

I did a fairly extensive photo shoot with my Fodens the other day. Having dug the Fodens out for the first time in ages I gave them a wash to get rid of eight months’ worth of dust. I wanted something to photograph with the new gear to start and get a feel for it, there are some photographs with the EOS M but most are with the 5D. They will appear repetitive but for my own reasons I have decided to upload most of the shoot.

M462LYL was one of the 400 or so 4000 series gritters that were supplied to the Highways Agency over a period of years to replace the S80 series Fodens, that we had five of. This wagon would have been scrapped along with most of the others but for the intervention of Stuart Kaye. Although it is in exceptional condition so were most of them, regardless, they had to be scrapped and not sold back onto the UK market. A scandalous waste of money, many had been extensively (and expensively) refurbished to a very high standard – total rebuilds – they were still scrapped. A Cummins 325 and six speed auto box makes this wagon very nice to drive empty! I very much doubt that the auto box and gearing would get up our local hills fully loaded and certainly not if pushing a plough. The wagon has covered 85,000 km and other than corrosion caused by salty hands the cab interior is very good.

 

I bought a second 4000 series, but just the chassis cab. The scrapping contract allowed for chassis or gritter bodies to be sold separately. Once separated the body takes a lot of refitting. There are hundreds of wires in plastic trunking and they just hacked through them, you couldn’t overstate the scale of the job of refitting, cost effectively, a body back onto one of the original chassis. I had sourced a dump truck body from an MOD Foden Alpha that would fit nicely on the 4000 chassis. We use this around the yard alongside our 1960’s Foden dumper.

 

It was whilst looking at the chassis cabs with Stuart in Geesons at Ripley that we saw OYE779Y, parked up with a plough fitted, it was minus 11 during this period and almost every motor in the yard had flat batteries, which the frost had then killed completely. We didn’t get to see a motor running but I ended up buying two including OYE. As soon as I saw this motor I knew that there was something strange about it. A Paccar (Kenworth) chassis, Cummins L10 250, Eaton Twinsplitter and Rockwell axles, with a 4000 series cab. As a regular buyer and driver of Fodens in the 80’s and 90’s I knew that these components weren’t available in 1982, when it was allegedly built. I had a new Foden the same month as this motor was supposed to have been built, December 1982. BYG167Y had Foden chassis and S10 cab, the Twinsplitter hadn’t been invented at this point. The serial number stamped on the chassis relates to an S80 series gritter, one of the previous generation, with Foden Gearbox, chassis, axles and Rolls Royce 265L engine. This is what the Foden Microfiche build sheet still shows for this serial number.

 

OYE779Y seems to have been built to replace the original, which was written off in a serious accident. The strange thing is the allocation of the same serial and registration numbers to a totally different vehicle. We have seen a black and white photograph of the wagon, when new with a conventional Atkinson gritter body. This was replaced with the French body now fitted. This has water tanks and can spread the salt with water, made of plastic and stainless steel, it appears unused. The wagon itself was unloved and un driven, we think, because of the Twin splitter gearbox, which wasn’t suitable for the drivers employed on the motorway gritting teams. With 30,000 km on the clock, mostly service miles, the wagon is like new. Other than sag in the roof lining material the cab interior is like new. I’m guessing that it saw very little actual work, subsequently it doesn’t have the fantastic paint job of the newer 4000 series, the result of being sandblasted and two pack painted. OYE has been touched up, a bit of a splodge here and there. There is a total lack of corrosion, it just needs a good respray and it would be like new. A new set of tyres fitted in 2003 still have the stickers on them. The long and the short of it is that this is a much newer wagon. The 4000 series cab was available in 1987, I bought one on an E plate, the last generation of S10 was still available in 1986 on a D plate so I reckon it would be built around this time.

 

There are only a few 4000 series gritters survived in the UK but some went to Ireland and others to Eastern Europe. Presumably Roger Geeson was allowed to export to countries where it wouldn't affect the sales of the suppliers of the new gritting fleet - this appeared to be why there was a restriction on sales in the UK.

 

If anyone has more to add regarding this story please let me Know.

 

I couldn’t resist adding my other two Fodens to the line-up, customers were coming and going at the same time hence some other motors in there. I decided to add some cab interior shots a day or two later, just for the record as it were.

 

To see more about J B Schofield and Sons and the history of the business and its 33 years as a gritting contractor, look here www.jbschofieldandsons.co.uk/

 

I did a fairly extensive photo shoot with my Fodens the other day. Having dug the Fodens out for the first time in ages I gave them a wash to get rid of eight months’ worth of dust. I wanted something to photograph with the new gear to start and get a feel for it, there are some photographs with the EOS M but most are with the 5D. They will appear repetitive but for my own reasons I have decided to upload most of the shoot.

M462LYL was one of the 400 or so 4000 series gritters that were supplied to the Highways Agency over a period of years to replace the S80 series Fodens, that we had five of. This wagon would have been scrapped along with most of the others but for the intervention of Stuart Kaye. Although it is in exceptional condition so were most of them, regardless, they had to be scrapped and not sold back onto the UK market. A scandalous waste of money, many had been extensively (and expensively) refurbished to a very high standard – total rebuilds – they were still scrapped. A Cummins 325 and six speed auto box makes this wagon very nice to drive empty! I very much doubt that the auto box and gearing would get up our local hills fully loaded and certainly not if pushing a plough. The wagon has covered 85,000 km and other than corrosion caused by salty hands the cab interior is very good.

 

I bought a second 4000 series, but just the chassis cab. The scrapping contract allowed for chassis or gritter bodies to be sold separately. Once separated the body takes a lot of refitting. There are hundreds of wires in plastic trunking and they just hacked through them, you couldn’t overstate the scale of the job of refitting, cost effectively, a body back onto one of the original chassis. I had sourced a dump truck body from an MOD Foden Alpha that would fit nicely on the 4000 chassis. We use this around the yard alongside our 1960’s Foden dumper.

 

It was whilst looking at the chassis cabs with Stuart in Geesons at Ripley that we saw OYE779Y, parked up with a plough fitted, it was minus 11 during this period and almost every motor in the yard had flat batteries, which the frost had then killed completely. We didn’t get to see a motor running but I ended up buying two including OYE. As soon as I saw this motor I knew that there was something strange about it. A Paccar (Kenworth) chassis, Cummins L10 250, Eaton Twinsplitter and Rockwell axles, with a 4000 series cab. As a regular buyer and driver of Fodens in the 80’s and 90’s I knew that these components weren’t available in 1982, when it was allegedly built. I had a new Foden the same month as this motor was supposed to have been built, December 1982. BYG167Y had Foden chassis and S10 cab, the Twinsplitter hadn’t been invented at this point. The serial number stamped on the chassis relates to an S80 series gritter, one of the previous generation, with Foden Gearbox, chassis, axles and Rolls Royce 265L engine. This is what the Foden Microfiche build sheet still shows for this serial number.

 

OYE779Y seems to have been built to replace the original, which was written off in a serious accident. The strange thing is the allocation of the same serial and registration numbers to a totally different vehicle. We have seen a black and white photograph of the wagon, when new with a conventional Atkinson gritter body. This was replaced with the French body now fitted. This has water tanks and can spread the salt with water, made of plastic and stainless steel, it appears unused. The wagon itself was unloved and un driven, we think, because of the Twin splitter gearbox, which wasn’t suitable for the drivers employed on the motorway gritting teams. With 30,000 km on the clock, mostly service miles, the wagon is like new. Other than sag in the roof lining material the cab interior is like new. I’m guessing that it saw very little actual work, subsequently it doesn’t have the fantastic paint job of the newer 4000 series, the result of being sandblasted and two pack painted. OYE has been touched up, a bit of a splodge here and there. There is a total lack of corrosion, it just needs a good respray and it would be like new. A new set of tyres fitted in 2003 still have the stickers on them. The long and the short of it is that this is a much newer wagon. The 4000 series cab was available in 1987, I bought one on an E plate, the last generation of S10 was still available in 1986 on a D plate so I reckon it would be built around this time.

 

There are only a few 4000 series gritters survived in the UK but some went to Ireland and others to Eastern Europe. Presumably Roger Geeson was allowed to export to countries where it wouldn't affect the sales of the suppliers of the new gritting fleet - this appeared to be why there was a restriction on sales in the UK.

 

If anyone has more to add regarding this story please let me Know.

 

I couldn’t resist adding my other two Fodens to the line-up, customers were coming and going at the same time hence some other motors in there. I decided to add some cab interior shots a day or two later, just for the record as it were.

 

To see more about J B Schofield and Sons and the history of the business and its 33 years as a gritting contractor, look here www.jbschofieldandsons.co.uk/

 

I did a fairly extensive photo shoot with my Fodens the other day. Having dug the Fodens out for the first time in ages I gave them a wash to get rid of eight months’ worth of dust. I wanted something to photograph with the new gear to start and get a feel for it, there are some photographs with the EOS M but most are with the 5D. They will appear repetitive but for my own reasons I have decided to upload most of the shoot.

M462LYL was one of the 400 or so 4000 series gritters that were supplied to the Highways Agency over a period of years to replace the S80 series Fodens, that we had five of. This wagon would have been scrapped along with most of the others but for the intervention of Stuart Kaye. Although it is in exceptional condition so were most of them, regardless, they had to be scrapped and not sold back onto the UK market. A scandalous waste of money, many had been extensively (and expensively) refurbished to a very high standard – total rebuilds – they were still scrapped. A Cummins 325 and six speed auto box makes this wagon very nice to drive empty! I very much doubt that the auto box and gearing would get up our local hills fully loaded and certainly not if pushing a plough. The wagon has covered 85,000 km and other than corrosion caused by salty hands the cab interior is very good.

 

I bought a second 4000 series, but just the chassis cab. The scrapping contract allowed for chassis or gritter bodies to be sold separately. Once separated the body takes a lot of refitting. There are hundreds of wires in plastic trunking and they just hacked through them, you couldn’t overstate the scale of the job of refitting, cost effectively, a body back onto one of the original chassis. I had sourced a dump truck body from an MOD Foden Alpha that would fit nicely on the 4000 chassis. We use this around the yard alongside our 1960’s Foden dumper.

 

It was whilst looking at the chassis cabs with Stuart in Geesons at Ripley that we saw OYE779Y, parked up with a plough fitted, it was minus 11 during this period and almost every motor in the yard had flat batteries, which the frost had then killed completely. We didn’t get to see a motor running but I ended up buying two including OYE. As soon as I saw this motor I knew that there was something strange about it. A Paccar (Kenworth) chassis, Cummins L10 250, Eaton Twinsplitter and Rockwell axles, with a 4000 series cab. As a regular buyer and driver of Fodens in the 80’s and 90’s I knew that these components weren’t available in 1982, when it was allegedly built. I had a new Foden the same month as this motor was supposed to have been built, December 1982. BYG167Y had Foden chassis and S10 cab, the Twinsplitter hadn’t been invented at this point. The serial number stamped on the chassis relates to an S80 series gritter, one of the previous generation, with Foden Gearbox, chassis, axles and Rolls Royce 265L engine. This is what the Foden Microfiche build sheet still shows for this serial number.

 

OYE779Y seems to have been built to replace the original, which was written off in a serious accident. The strange thing is the allocation of the same serial and registration numbers to a totally different vehicle. We have seen a black and white photograph of the wagon, when new with a conventional Atkinson gritter body. This was replaced with the French body now fitted. This has water tanks and can spread the salt with water, made of plastic and stainless steel, it appears unused. The wagon itself was unloved and un driven, we think, because of the Twin splitter gearbox, which wasn’t suitable for the drivers employed on the motorway gritting teams. With 30,000 km on the clock, mostly service miles, the wagon is like new. Other than sag in the roof lining material the cab interior is like new. I’m guessing that it saw very little actual work, subsequently it doesn’t have the fantastic paint job of the newer 4000 series, the result of being sandblasted and two pack painted. OYE has been touched up, a bit of a splodge here and there. There is a total lack of corrosion, it just needs a good respray and it would be like new. A new set of tyres fitted in 2003 still have the stickers on them. The long and the short of it is that this is a much newer wagon. The 4000 series cab was available in 1987, I bought one on an E plate, the last generation of S10 was still available in 1986 on a D plate so I reckon it would be built around this time.

 

There are only a few 4000 series gritters survived in the UK but some went to Ireland and others to Eastern Europe. Presumably Roger Geeson was allowed to export to countries where it wouldn't affect the sales of the suppliers of the new gritting fleet - this appeared to be why there was a restriction on sales in the UK.

 

If anyone has more to add regarding this story please let me Know.

 

I couldn’t resist adding my other two Fodens to the line-up, customers were coming and going at the same time hence some other motors in there. I decided to add some cab interior shots a day or two later, just for the record as it were.

 

To see more about J B Schofield and Sons and the history of the business and its 33 years as a gritting contractor, look here www.jbschofieldandsons.co.uk/

 

I did a fairly extensive photo shoot with my Fodens the other day. Having dug the Fodens out for the first time in ages I gave them a wash to get rid of eight months’ worth of dust. I wanted something to photograph with the new gear to start and get a feel for it, there are some photographs with the EOS M but most are with the 5D. They will appear repetitive but for my own reasons I have decided to upload most of the shoot.

M462LYL was one of the 400 or so 4000 series gritters that were supplied to the Highways Agency over a period of years to replace the S80 series Fodens, that we had five of. This wagon would have been scrapped along with most of the others but for the intervention of Stuart Kaye. Although it is in exceptional condition so were most of them, regardless, they had to be scrapped and not sold back onto the UK market. A scandalous waste of money, many had been extensively (and expensively) refurbished to a very high standard – total rebuilds – they were still scrapped. A Cummins 325 and six speed auto box makes this wagon very nice to drive empty! I very much doubt that the auto box and gearing would get up our local hills fully loaded and certainly not if pushing a plough. The wagon has covered 85,000 km and other than corrosion caused by salty hands the cab interior is very good.

 

I bought a second 4000 series, but just the chassis cab. The scrapping contract allowed for chassis or gritter bodies to be sold separately. Once separated the body takes a lot of refitting. There are hundreds of wires in plastic trunking and they just hacked through them, you couldn’t overstate the scale of the job of refitting, cost effectively, a body back onto one of the original chassis. I had sourced a dump truck body from an MOD Foden Alpha that would fit nicely on the 4000 chassis. We use this around the yard alongside our 1960’s Foden dumper.

 

It was whilst looking at the chassis cabs with Stuart in Geesons at Ripley that we saw OYE779Y, parked up with a plough fitted, it was minus 11 during this period and almost every motor in the yard had flat batteries, which the frost had then killed completely. We didn’t get to see a motor running but I ended up buying two including OYE. As soon as I saw this motor I knew that there was something strange about it. A Paccar (Kenworth) chassis, Cummins L10 250, Eaton Twinsplitter and Rockwell axles, with a 4000 series cab. As a regular buyer and driver of Fodens in the 80’s and 90’s I knew that these components weren’t available in 1982, when it was allegedly built. I had a new Foden the same month as this motor was supposed to have been built, December 1982. BYG167Y had Foden chassis and S10 cab, the Twinsplitter hadn’t been invented at this point. The serial number stamped on the chassis relates to an S80 series gritter, one of the previous generation, with Foden Gearbox, chassis, axles and Rolls Royce 265L engine. This is what the Foden Microfiche build sheet still shows for this serial number.

 

OYE779Y seems to have been built to replace the original, which was written off in a serious accident. The strange thing is the allocation of the same serial and registration numbers to a totally different vehicle. We have seen a black and white photograph of the wagon, when new with a conventional Atkinson gritter body. This was replaced with the French body now fitted. This has water tanks and can spread the salt with water, made of plastic and stainless steel, it appears unused. The wagon itself was unloved and un driven, we think, because of the Twin splitter gearbox, which wasn’t suitable for the drivers employed on the motorway gritting teams. With 30,000 km on the clock, mostly service miles, the wagon is like new. Other than sag in the roof lining material the cab interior is like new. I’m guessing that it saw very little actual work, subsequently it doesn’t have the fantastic paint job of the newer 4000 series, the result of being sandblasted and two pack painted. OYE has been touched up, a bit of a splodge here and there. There is a total lack of corrosion, it just needs a good respray and it would be like new. A new set of tyres fitted in 2003 still have the stickers on them. The long and the short of it is that this is a much newer wagon. The 4000 series cab was available in 1987, I bought one on an E plate, the last generation of S10 was still available in 1986 on a D plate so I reckon it would be built around this time.

 

There are only a few 4000 series gritters survived in the UK but some went to Ireland and others to Eastern Europe. Presumably Roger Geeson was allowed to export to countries where it wouldn't affect the sales of the suppliers of the new gritting fleet - this appeared to be why there was a restriction on sales in the UK.

 

If anyone has more to add regarding this story please let me Know.

 

I couldn’t resist adding my other two Fodens to the line-up, customers were coming and going at the same time hence some other motors in there. I decided to add some cab interior shots a day or two later, just for the record as it were.

 

To see more about J B Schofield and Sons and the history of the business and its 33 years as a gritting contractor, look here www.jbschofieldandsons.co.uk/

 

I did a fairly extensive photo shoot with my Fodens the other day. Having dug the Fodens out for the first time in ages I gave them a wash to get rid of eight months’ worth of dust. I wanted something to photograph with the new gear to start and get a feel for it, there are some photographs with the EOS M but most are with the 5D. They will appear repetitive but for my own reasons I have decided to upload most of the shoot.

M462LYL was one of the 400 or so 4000 series gritters that were supplied to the Highways Agency over a period of years to replace the S80 series Fodens, that we had five of. This wagon would have been scrapped along with most of the others but for the intervention of Stuart Kaye. Although it is in exceptional condition so were most of them, regardless, they had to be scrapped and not sold back onto the UK market. A scandalous waste of money, many had been extensively (and expensively) refurbished to a very high standard – total rebuilds – they were still scrapped. A Cummins 325 and six speed auto box makes this wagon very nice to drive empty! I very much doubt that the auto box and gearing would get up our local hills fully loaded and certainly not if pushing a plough. The wagon has covered 85,000 km and other than corrosion caused by salty hands the cab interior is very good.

 

I bought a second 4000 series, but just the chassis cab. The scrapping contract allowed for chassis or gritter bodies to be sold separately. Once separated the body takes a lot of refitting. There are hundreds of wires in plastic trunking and they just hacked through them, you couldn’t overstate the scale of the job of refitting, cost effectively, a body back onto one of the original chassis. I had sourced a dump truck body from an MOD Foden Alpha that would fit nicely on the 4000 chassis. We use this around the yard alongside our 1960’s Foden dumper.

 

It was whilst looking at the chassis cabs with Stuart in Geesons at Ripley that we saw OYE779Y, parked up with a plough fitted, it was minus 11 during this period and almost every motor in the yard had flat batteries, which the frost had then killed completely. We didn’t get to see a motor running but I ended up buying two including OYE. As soon as I saw this motor I knew that there was something strange about it. A Paccar (Kenworth) chassis, Cummins L10 250, Eaton Twinsplitter and Rockwell axles, with a 4000 series cab. As a regular buyer and driver of Fodens in the 80’s and 90’s I knew that these components weren’t available in 1982, when it was allegedly built. I had a new Foden the same month as this motor was supposed to have been built, December 1982. BYG167Y had Foden chassis and S10 cab, the Twinsplitter hadn’t been invented at this point. The serial number stamped on the chassis relates to an S80 series gritter, one of the previous generation, with Foden Gearbox, chassis, axles and Rolls Royce 265L engine. This is what the Foden Microfiche build sheet still shows for this serial number.

 

OYE779Y seems to have been built to replace the original, which was written off in a serious accident. The strange thing is the allocation of the same serial and registration numbers to a totally different vehicle. We have seen a black and white photograph of the wagon, when new with a conventional Atkinson gritter body. This was replaced with the French body now fitted. This has water tanks and can spread the salt with water, made of plastic and stainless steel, it appears unused. The wagon itself was unloved and un driven, we think, because of the Twin splitter gearbox, which wasn’t suitable for the drivers employed on the motorway gritting teams. With 30,000 km on the clock, mostly service miles, the wagon is like new. Other than sag in the roof lining material the cab interior is like new. I’m guessing that it saw very little actual work, subsequently it doesn’t have the fantastic paint job of the newer 4000 series, the result of being sandblasted and two pack painted. OYE has been touched up, a bit of a splodge here and there. There is a total lack of corrosion, it just needs a good respray and it would be like new. A new set of tyres fitted in 2003 still have the stickers on them. The long and the short of it is that this is a much newer wagon. The 4000 series cab was available in 1987, I bought one on an E plate, the last generation of S10 was still available in 1986 on a D plate so I reckon it would be built around this time.

 

There are only a few 4000 series gritters survived in the UK but some went to Ireland and others to Eastern Europe. Presumably Roger Geeson was allowed to export to countries where it wouldn't affect the sales of the suppliers of the new gritting fleet - this appeared to be why there was a restriction on sales in the UK.

 

If anyone has more to add regarding this story please let me Know.

 

I couldn’t resist adding my other two Fodens to the line-up, customers were coming and going at the same time hence some other motors in there. I decided to add some cab interior shots a day or two later, just for the record as it were.

 

To see more about J B Schofield and Sons and the history of the business and its 33 years as a gritting contractor, look here www.jbschofieldandsons.co.uk/

 

I did a fairly extensive photo shoot with my Fodens the other day. Having dug the Fodens out for the first time in ages I gave them a wash to get rid of eight months’ worth of dust. I wanted something to photograph with the new gear to start and get a feel for it, there are some photographs with the EOS M but most are with the 5D. They will appear repetitive but for my own reasons I have decided to upload most of the shoot.

M462LYL was one of the 400 or so 4000 series gritters that were supplied to the Highways Agency over a period of years to replace the S80 series Fodens, that we had five of. This wagon would have been scrapped along with most of the others but for the intervention of Stuart Kaye. Although it is in exceptional condition so were most of them, regardless, they had to be scrapped and not sold back onto the UK market. A scandalous waste of money, many had been extensively (and expensively) refurbished to a very high standard – total rebuilds – they were still scrapped. A Cummins 325 and six speed auto box makes this wagon very nice to drive empty! I very much doubt that the auto box and gearing would get up our local hills fully loaded and certainly not if pushing a plough. The wagon has covered 85,000 km and other than corrosion caused by salty hands the cab interior is very good.

 

I bought a second 4000 series, but just the chassis cab. The scrapping contract allowed for chassis or gritter bodies to be sold separately. Once separated the body takes a lot of refitting. There are hundreds of wires in plastic trunking and they just hacked through them, you couldn’t overstate the scale of the job of refitting, cost effectively, a body back onto one of the original chassis. I had sourced a dump truck body from an MOD Foden Alpha that would fit nicely on the 4000 chassis. We use this around the yard alongside our 1960’s Foden dumper.

 

It was whilst looking at the chassis cabs with Stuart in Geesons at Ripley that we saw OYE779Y, parked up with a plough fitted, it was minus 11 during this period and almost every motor in the yard had flat batteries, which the frost had then killed completely. We didn’t get to see a motor running but I ended up buying two including OYE. As soon as I saw this motor I knew that there was something strange about it. A Paccar (Kenworth) chassis, Cummins L10 250, Eaton Twinsplitter and Rockwell axles, with a 4000 series cab. As a regular buyer and driver of Fodens in the 80’s and 90’s I knew that these components weren’t available in 1982, when it was allegedly built. I had a new Foden the same month as this motor was supposed to have been built, December 1982. BYG167Y had Foden chassis and S10 cab, the Twinsplitter hadn’t been invented at this point. The serial number stamped on the chassis relates to an S80 series gritter, one of the previous generation, with Foden Gearbox, chassis, axles and Rolls Royce 265L engine. This is what the Foden Microfiche build sheet still shows for this serial number.

 

OYE779Y seems to have been built to replace the original, which was written off in a serious accident. The strange thing is the allocation of the same serial and registration numbers to a totally different vehicle. We have seen a black and white photograph of the wagon, when new with a conventional Atkinson gritter body. This was replaced with the French body now fitted. This has water tanks and can spread the salt with water, made of plastic and stainless steel, it appears unused. The wagon itself was unloved and un driven, we think, because of the Twin splitter gearbox, which wasn’t suitable for the drivers employed on the motorway gritting teams. With 30,000 km on the clock, mostly service miles, the wagon is like new. Other than sag in the roof lining material the cab interior is like new. I’m guessing that it saw very little actual work, subsequently it doesn’t have the fantastic paint job of the newer 4000 series, the result of being sandblasted and two pack painted. OYE has been touched up, a bit of a splodge here and there. There is a total lack of corrosion, it just needs a good respray and it would be like new. A new set of tyres fitted in 2003 still have the stickers on them. The long and the short of it is that this is a much newer wagon. The 4000 series cab was available in 1987, I bought one on an E plate, the last generation of S10 was still available in 1986 on a D plate so I reckon it would be built around this time.

 

There are only a few 4000 series gritters survived in the UK but some went to Ireland and others to Eastern Europe. Presumably Roger Geeson was allowed to export to countries where it wouldn't affect the sales of the suppliers of the new gritting fleet - this appeared to be why there was a restriction on sales in the UK.

 

If anyone has more to add regarding this story please let me Know.

 

I couldn’t resist adding my other two Fodens to the line-up, customers were coming and going at the same time hence some other motors in there. I decided to add some cab interior shots a day or two later, just for the record as it were.

 

To see more about J B Schofield and Sons and the history of the business and its 33 years as a gritting contractor, look here www.jbschofieldandsons.co.uk/

 

I did a fairly extensive photo shoot with my Fodens the other day. Having dug the Fodens out for the first time in ages I gave them a wash to get rid of eight months’ worth of dust. I wanted something to photograph with the new gear to start and get a feel for it, there are some photographs with the EOS M but most are with the 5D. They will appear repetitive but for my own reasons I have decided to upload most of the shoot.

M462LYL was one of the 400 or so 4000 series gritters that were supplied to the Highways Agency over a period of years to replace the S80 series Fodens, that we had five of. This wagon would have been scrapped along with most of the others but for the intervention of Stuart Kaye. Although it is in exceptional condition so were most of them, regardless, they had to be scrapped and not sold back onto the UK market. A scandalous waste of money, many had been extensively (and expensively) refurbished to a very high standard – total rebuilds – they were still scrapped. A Cummins 325 and six speed auto box makes this wagon very nice to drive empty! I very much doubt that the auto box and gearing would get up our local hills fully loaded and certainly not if pushing a plough. The wagon has covered 85,000 km and other than corrosion caused by salty hands the cab interior is very good.

 

I bought a second 4000 series, but just the chassis cab. The scrapping contract allowed for chassis or gritter bodies to be sold separately. Once separated the body takes a lot of refitting. There are hundreds of wires in plastic trunking and they just hacked through them, you couldn’t overstate the scale of the job of refitting, cost effectively, a body back onto one of the original chassis. I had sourced a dump truck body from an MOD Foden Alpha that would fit nicely on the 4000 chassis. We use this around the yard alongside our 1960’s Foden dumper.

 

It was whilst looking at the chassis cabs with Stuart in Geesons at Ripley that we saw OYE779Y, parked up with a plough fitted, it was minus 11 during this period and almost every motor in the yard had flat batteries, which the frost had then killed completely. We didn’t get to see a motor running but I ended up buying two including OYE. As soon as I saw this motor I knew that there was something strange about it. A Paccar (Kenworth) chassis, Cummins L10 250, Eaton Twinsplitter and Rockwell axles, with a 4000 series cab. As a regular buyer and driver of Fodens in the 80’s and 90’s I knew that these components weren’t available in 1982, when it was allegedly built. I had a new Foden the same month as this motor was supposed to have been built, December 1982. BYG167Y had Foden chassis and S10 cab, the Twinsplitter hadn’t been invented at this point. The serial number stamped on the chassis relates to an S80 series gritter, one of the previous generation, with Foden Gearbox, chassis, axles and Rolls Royce 265L engine. This is what the Foden Microfiche build sheet still shows for this serial number.

 

OYE779Y seems to have been built to replace the original, which was written off in a serious accident. The strange thing is the allocation of the same serial and registration numbers to a totally different vehicle. We have seen a black and white photograph of the wagon, when new with a conventional Atkinson gritter body. This was replaced with the French body now fitted. This has water tanks and can spread the salt with water, made of plastic and stainless steel, it appears unused. The wagon itself was unloved and un driven, we think, because of the Twin splitter gearbox, which wasn’t suitable for the drivers employed on the motorway gritting teams. With 30,000 km on the clock, mostly service miles, the wagon is like new. Other than sag in the roof lining material the cab interior is like new. I’m guessing that it saw very little actual work, subsequently it doesn’t have the fantastic paint job of the newer 4000 series, the result of being sandblasted and two pack painted. OYE has been touched up, a bit of a splodge here and there. There is a total lack of corrosion, it just needs a good respray and it would be like new. A new set of tyres fitted in 2003 still have the stickers on them. The long and the short of it is that this is a much newer wagon. The 4000 series cab was available in 1987, I bought one on an E plate, the last generation of S10 was still available in 1986 on a D plate so I reckon it would be built around this time.

 

There are only a few 4000 series gritters survived in the UK but some went to Ireland and others to Eastern Europe. Presumably Roger Geeson was allowed to export to countries where it wouldn't affect the sales of the suppliers of the new gritting fleet - this appeared to be why there was a restriction on sales in the UK.

 

If anyone has more to add regarding this story please let me Know.

 

I couldn’t resist adding my other two Fodens to the line-up, customers were coming and going at the same time hence some other motors in there. I decided to add some cab interior shots a day or two later, just for the record as it were.

 

To see more about J B Schofield and Sons and the history of the business and its 33 years as a gritting contractor, look here www.jbschofieldandsons.co.uk/

 

I did a fairly extensive photo shoot with my Fodens the other day. Having dug the Fodens out for the first time in ages I gave them a wash to get rid of eight months’ worth of dust. I wanted something to photograph with the new gear to start and get a feel for it, there are some photographs with the EOS M but most are with the 5D. They will appear repetitive but for my own reasons I have decided to upload most of the shoot.

M462LYL was one of the 400 or so 4000 series gritters that were supplied to the Highways Agency over a period of years to replace the S80 series Fodens, that we had five of. This wagon would have been scrapped along with most of the others but for the intervention of Stuart Kaye. Although it is in exceptional condition so were most of them, regardless, they had to be scrapped and not sold back onto the UK market. A scandalous waste of money, many had been extensively (and expensively) refurbished to a very high standard – total rebuilds – they were still scrapped. A Cummins 325 and six speed auto box makes this wagon very nice to drive empty! I very much doubt that the auto box and gearing would get up our local hills fully loaded and certainly not if pushing a plough. The wagon has covered 85,000 km and other than corrosion caused by salty hands the cab interior is very good.

 

I bought a second 4000 series, but just the chassis cab. The scrapping contract allowed for chassis or gritter bodies to be sold separately. Once separated the body takes a lot of refitting. There are hundreds of wires in plastic trunking and they just hacked through them, you couldn’t overstate the scale of the job of refitting, cost effectively, a body back onto one of the original chassis. I had sourced a dump truck body from an MOD Foden Alpha that would fit nicely on the 4000 chassis. We use this around the yard alongside our 1960’s Foden dumper.

 

It was whilst looking at the chassis cabs with Stuart in Geesons at Ripley that we saw OYE779Y, parked up with a plough fitted, it was minus 11 during this period and almost every motor in the yard had flat batteries, which the frost had then killed completely. We didn’t get to see a motor running but I ended up buying two including OYE. As soon as I saw this motor I knew that there was something strange about it. A Paccar (Kenworth) chassis, Cummins L10 250, Eaton Twinsplitter and Rockwell axles, with a 4000 series cab. As a regular buyer and driver of Fodens in the 80’s and 90’s I knew that these components weren’t available in 1982, when it was allegedly built. I had a new Foden the same month as this motor was supposed to have been built, December 1982. BYG167Y had Foden chassis and S10 cab, the Twinsplitter hadn’t been invented at this point. The serial number stamped on the chassis relates to an S80 series gritter, one of the previous generation, with Foden Gearbox, chassis, axles and Rolls Royce 265L engine. This is what the Foden Microfiche build sheet still shows for this serial number.

 

OYE779Y seems to have been built to replace the original, which was written off in a serious accident. The strange thing is the allocation of the same serial and registration numbers to a totally different vehicle. We have seen a black and white photograph of the wagon, when new with a conventional Atkinson gritter body. This was replaced with the French body now fitted. This has water tanks and can spread the salt with water, made of plastic and stainless steel, it appears unused. The wagon itself was unloved and un driven, we think, because of the Twin splitter gearbox, which wasn’t suitable for the drivers employed on the motorway gritting teams. With 30,000 km on the clock, mostly service miles, the wagon is like new. Other than sag in the roof lining material the cab interior is like new. I’m guessing that it saw very little actual work, subsequently it doesn’t have the fantastic paint job of the newer 4000 series, the result of being sandblasted and two pack painted. OYE has been touched up, a bit of a splodge here and there. There is a total lack of corrosion, it just needs a good respray and it would be like new. A new set of tyres fitted in 2003 still have the stickers on them. The long and the short of it is that this is a much newer wagon. The 4000 series cab was available in 1987, I bought one on an E plate, the last generation of S10 was still available in 1986 on a D plate so I reckon it would be built around this time.

 

There are only a few 4000 series gritters survived in the UK but some went to Ireland and others to Eastern Europe. Presumably Roger Geeson was allowed to export to countries where it wouldn't affect the sales of the suppliers of the new gritting fleet - this appeared to be why there was a restriction on sales in the UK.

 

If anyone has more to add regarding this story please let me Know.

 

I couldn’t resist adding my other two Fodens to the line-up, customers were coming and going at the same time hence some other motors in there. I decided to add some cab interior shots a day or two later, just for the record as it were.

 

To see more about J B Schofield and Sons and the history of the business and its 33 years as a gritting contractor, look here www.jbschofieldandsons.co.uk/

 

I did a fairly extensive photo shoot with my Fodens the other day. Having dug the Fodens out for the first time in ages I gave them a wash to get rid of eight months’ worth of dust. I wanted something to photograph with the new gear to start and get a feel for it, there are some photographs with the EOS M but most are with the 5D. They will appear repetitive but for my own reasons I have decided to upload most of the shoot.

M462LYL was one of the 400 or so 4000 series gritters that were supplied to the Highways Agency over a period of years to replace the S80 series Fodens, that we had five of. This wagon would have been scrapped along with most of the others but for the intervention of Stuart Kaye. Although it is in exceptional condition so were most of them, regardless, they had to be scrapped and not sold back onto the UK market. A scandalous waste of money, many had been extensively (and expensively) refurbished to a very high standard – total rebuilds – they were still scrapped. A Cummins 325 and six speed auto box makes this wagon very nice to drive empty! I very much doubt that the auto box and gearing would get up our local hills fully loaded and certainly not if pushing a plough. The wagon has covered 85,000 km and other than corrosion caused by salty hands the cab interior is very good.

 

I bought a second 4000 series, but just the chassis cab. The scrapping contract allowed for chassis or gritter bodies to be sold separately. Once separated the body takes a lot of refitting. There are hundreds of wires in plastic trunking and they just hacked through them, you couldn’t overstate the scale of the job of refitting, cost effectively, a body back onto one of the original chassis. I had sourced a dump truck body from an MOD Foden Alpha that would fit nicely on the 4000 chassis. We use this around the yard alongside our 1960’s Foden dumper.

 

It was whilst looking at the chassis cabs with Stuart in Geesons at Ripley that we saw OYE779Y, parked up with a plough fitted, it was minus 11 during this period and almost every motor in the yard had flat batteries, which the frost had then killed completely. We didn’t get to see a motor running but I ended up buying two including OYE. As soon as I saw this motor I knew that there was something strange about it. A Paccar (Kenworth) chassis, Cummins L10 250, Eaton Twinsplitter and Rockwell axles, with a 4000 series cab. As a regular buyer and driver of Fodens in the 80’s and 90’s I knew that these components weren’t available in 1982, when it was allegedly built. I had a new Foden the same month as this motor was supposed to have been built, December 1982. BYG167Y had Foden chassis and S10 cab, the Twinsplitter hadn’t been invented at this point. The serial number stamped on the chassis relates to an S80 series gritter, one of the previous generation, with Foden Gearbox, chassis, axles and Rolls Royce 265L engine. This is what the Foden Microfiche build sheet still shows for this serial number.

 

OYE779Y seems to have been built to replace the original, which was written off in a serious accident. The strange thing is the allocation of the same serial and registration numbers to a totally different vehicle. We have seen a black and white photograph of the wagon, when new with a conventional Atkinson gritter body. This was replaced with the French body now fitted. This has water tanks and can spread the salt with water, made of plastic and stainless steel, it appears unused. The wagon itself was unloved and un driven, we think, because of the Twin splitter gearbox, which wasn’t suitable for the drivers employed on the motorway gritting teams. With 30,000 km on the clock, mostly service miles, the wagon is like new. Other than sag in the roof lining material the cab interior is like new. I’m guessing that it saw very little actual work, subsequently it doesn’t have the fantastic paint job of the newer 4000 series, the result of being sandblasted and two pack painted. OYE has been touched up, a bit of a splodge here and there. There is a total lack of corrosion, it just needs a good respray and it would be like new. A new set of tyres fitted in 2003 still have the stickers on them. The long and the short of it is that this is a much newer wagon. The 4000 series cab was available in 1987, I bought one on an E plate, the last generation of S10 was still available in 1986 on a D plate so I reckon it would be built around this time.

 

There are only a few 4000 series gritters survived in the UK but some went to Ireland and others to Eastern Europe. Presumably Roger Geeson was allowed to export to countries where it wouldn't affect the sales of the suppliers of the new gritting fleet - this appeared to be why there was a restriction on sales in the UK.

 

If anyone has more to add regarding this story please let me Know.

 

I couldn’t resist adding my other two Fodens to the line-up, customers were coming and going at the same time hence some other motors in there. I decided to add some cab interior shots a day or two later, just for the record as it were.

 

To see more about J B Schofield and Sons and the history of the business and its 33 years as a gritting contractor, look here www.jbschofieldandsons.co.uk/

 

I did a fairly extensive photo shoot with my Fodens the other day. Having dug the Fodens out for the first time in ages I gave them a wash to get rid of eight months’ worth of dust. I wanted something to photograph with the new gear to start and get a feel for it, there are some photographs with the EOS M but most are with the 5D. They will appear repetitive but for my own reasons I have decided to upload most of the shoot.

M462LYL was one of the 400 or so 4000 series gritters that were supplied to the Highways Agency over a period of years to replace the S80 series Fodens, that we had five of. This wagon would have been scrapped along with most of the others but for the intervention of Stuart Kaye. Although it is in exceptional condition so were most of them, regardless, they had to be scrapped and not sold back onto the UK market. A scandalous waste of money, many had been extensively (and expensively) refurbished to a very high standard – total rebuilds – they were still scrapped. A Cummins 325 and six speed auto box makes this wagon very nice to drive empty! I very much doubt that the auto box and gearing would get up our local hills fully loaded and certainly not if pushing a plough. The wagon has covered 85,000 km and other than corrosion caused by salty hands the cab interior is very good.

 

I bought a second 4000 series, but just the chassis cab. The scrapping contract allowed for chassis or gritter bodies to be sold separately. Once separated the body takes a lot of refitting. There are hundreds of wires in plastic trunking and they just hacked through them, you couldn’t overstate the scale of the job of refitting, cost effectively, a body back onto one of the original chassis. I had sourced a dump truck body from an MOD Foden Alpha that would fit nicely on the 4000 chassis. We use this around the yard alongside our 1960’s Foden dumper.

 

It was whilst looking at the chassis cabs with Stuart in Geesons at Ripley that we saw OYE779Y, parked up with a plough fitted, it was minus 11 during this period and almost every motor in the yard had flat batteries, which the frost had then killed completely. We didn’t get to see a motor running but I ended up buying two including OYE. As soon as I saw this motor I knew that there was something strange about it. A Paccar (Kenworth) chassis, Cummins L10 250, Eaton Twinsplitter and Rockwell axles, with a 4000 series cab. As a regular buyer and driver of Fodens in the 80’s and 90’s I knew that these components weren’t available in 1982, when it was allegedly built. I had a new Foden the same month as this motor was supposed to have been built, December 1982. BYG167Y had Foden chassis and S10 cab, the Twinsplitter hadn’t been invented at this point. The serial number stamped on the chassis relates to an S80 series gritter, one of the previous generation, with Foden Gearbox, chassis, axles and Rolls Royce 265L engine. This is what the Foden Microfiche build sheet still shows for this serial number.

 

OYE779Y seems to have been built to replace the original, which was written off in a serious accident. The strange thing is the allocation of the same serial and registration numbers to a totally different vehicle. We have seen a black and white photograph of the wagon, when new with a conventional Atkinson gritter body. This was replaced with the French body now fitted. This has water tanks and can spread the salt with water, made of plastic and stainless steel, it appears unused. The wagon itself was unloved and un driven, we think, because of the Twin splitter gearbox, which wasn’t suitable for the drivers employed on the motorway gritting teams. With 30,000 km on the clock, mostly service miles, the wagon is like new. Other than sag in the roof lining material the cab interior is like new. I’m guessing that it saw very little actual work, subsequently it doesn’t have the fantastic paint job of the newer 4000 series, the result of being sandblasted and two pack painted. OYE has been touched up, a bit of a splodge here and there. There is a total lack of corrosion, it just needs a good respray and it would be like new. A new set of tyres fitted in 2003 still have the stickers on them. The long and the short of it is that this is a much newer wagon. The 4000 series cab was available in 1987, I bought one on an E plate, the last generation of S10 was still available in 1986 on a D plate so I reckon it would be built around this time.

 

There are only a few 4000 series gritters survived in the UK but some went to Ireland and others to Eastern Europe. Presumably Roger Geeson was allowed to export to countries where it wouldn't affect the sales of the suppliers of the new gritting fleet - this appeared to be why there was a restriction on sales in the UK.

 

If anyone has more to add regarding this story please let me Know.

 

I couldn’t resist adding my other two Fodens to the line-up, customers were coming and going at the same time hence some other motors in there. I decided to add some cab interior shots a day or two later, just for the record as it were.

 

To see more about J B Schofield and Sons and the history of the business and its 33 years as a gritting contractor, look here www.jbschofieldandsons.co.uk/

 

I did a fairly extensive photo shoot with my Fodens the other day. Having dug the Fodens out for the first time in ages I gave them a wash to get rid of eight months’ worth of dust. I wanted something to photograph with the new gear to start and get a feel for it, there are some photographs with the EOS M but most are with the 5D. They will appear repetitive but for my own reasons I have decided to upload most of the shoot.

M462LYL was one of the 400 or so 4000 series gritters that were supplied to the Highways Agency over a period of years to replace the S80 series Fodens, that we had five of. This wagon would have been scrapped along with most of the others but for the intervention of Stuart Kaye. Although it is in exceptional condition so were most of them, regardless, they had to be scrapped and not sold back onto the UK market. A scandalous waste of money, many had been extensively (and expensively) refurbished to a very high standard – total rebuilds – they were still scrapped. A Cummins 325 and six speed auto box makes this wagon very nice to drive empty! I very much doubt that the auto box and gearing would get up our local hills fully loaded and certainly not if pushing a plough. The wagon has covered 85,000 km and other than corrosion caused by salty hands the cab interior is very good.

 

I bought a second 4000 series, but just the chassis cab. The scrapping contract allowed for chassis or gritter bodies to be sold separately. Once separated the body takes a lot of refitting. There are hundreds of wires in plastic trunking and they just hacked through them, you couldn’t overstate the scale of the job of refitting, cost effectively, a body back onto one of the original chassis. I had sourced a dump truck body from an MOD Foden Alpha that would fit nicely on the 4000 chassis. We use this around the yard alongside our 1960’s Foden dumper.

 

It was whilst looking at the chassis cabs with Stuart in Geesons at Ripley that we saw OYE779Y, parked up with a plough fitted, it was minus 11 during this period and almost every motor in the yard had flat batteries, which the frost had then killed completely. We didn’t get to see a motor running but I ended up buying two including OYE. As soon as I saw this motor I knew that there was something strange about it. A Paccar (Kenworth) chassis, Cummins L10 250, Eaton Twinsplitter and Rockwell axles, with a 4000 series cab. As a regular buyer and driver of Fodens in the 80’s and 90’s I knew that these components weren’t available in 1982, when it was allegedly built. I had a new Foden the same month as this motor was supposed to have been built, December 1982. BYG167Y had Foden chassis and S10 cab, the Twinsplitter hadn’t been invented at this point. The serial number stamped on the chassis relates to an S80 series gritter, one of the previous generation, with Foden Gearbox, chassis, axles and Rolls Royce 265L engine. This is what the Foden Microfiche build sheet still shows for this serial number.

 

OYE779Y seems to have been built to replace the original, which was written off in a serious accident. The strange thing is the allocation of the same serial and registration numbers to a totally different vehicle. We have seen a black and white photograph of the wagon, when new with a conventional Atkinson gritter body. This was replaced with the French body now fitted. This has water tanks and can spread the salt with water, made of plastic and stainless steel, it appears unused. The wagon itself was unloved and un driven, we think, because of the Twin splitter gearbox, which wasn’t suitable for the drivers employed on the motorway gritting teams. With 30,000 km on the clock, mostly service miles, the wagon is like new. Other than sag in the roof lining material the cab interior is like new. I’m guessing that it saw very little actual work, subsequently it doesn’t have the fantastic paint job of the newer 4000 series, the result of being sandblasted and two pack painted. OYE has been touched up, a bit of a splodge here and there. There is a total lack of corrosion, it just needs a good respray and it would be like new. A new set of tyres fitted in 2003 still have the stickers on them. The long and the short of it is that this is a much newer wagon. The 4000 series cab was available in 1987, I bought one on an E plate, the last generation of S10 was still available in 1986 on a D plate so I reckon it would be built around this time.

 

There are only a few 4000 series gritters survived in the UK but some went to Ireland and others to Eastern Europe. Presumably Roger Geeson was allowed to export to countries where it wouldn't affect the sales of the suppliers of the new gritting fleet - this appeared to be why there was a restriction on sales in the UK.

 

If anyone has more to add regarding this story please let me Know.

 

I couldn’t resist adding my other two Fodens to the line-up, customers were coming and going at the same time hence some other motors in there. I decided to add some cab interior shots a day or two later, just for the record as it were.

 

To see more about J B Schofield and Sons and the history of the business and its 33 years as a gritting contractor, look here www.jbschofieldandsons.co.uk/

 

I did a fairly extensive photo shoot with my Fodens the other day. Having dug the Fodens out for the first time in ages I gave them a wash to get rid of eight months’ worth of dust. I wanted something to photograph with the new gear to start and get a feel for it, there are some photographs with the EOS M but most are with the 5D. They will appear repetitive but for my own reasons I have decided to upload most of the shoot.

M462LYL was one of the 400 or so 4000 series gritters that were supplied to the Highways Agency over a period of years to replace the S80 series Fodens, that we had five of. This wagon would have been scrapped along with most of the others but for the intervention of Stuart Kaye. Although it is in exceptional condition so were most of them, regardless, they had to be scrapped and not sold back onto the UK market. A scandalous waste of money, many had been extensively (and expensively) refurbished to a very high standard – total rebuilds – they were still scrapped. A Cummins 325 and six speed auto box makes this wagon very nice to drive empty! I very much doubt that the auto box and gearing would get up our local hills fully loaded and certainly not if pushing a plough. The wagon has covered 85,000 km and other than corrosion caused by salty hands the cab interior is very good.

 

I bought a second 4000 series, but just the chassis cab. The scrapping contract allowed for chassis or gritter bodies to be sold separately. Once separated the body takes a lot of refitting. There are hundreds of wires in plastic trunking and they just hacked through them, you couldn’t overstate the scale of the job of refitting, cost effectively, a body back onto one of the original chassis. I had sourced a dump truck body from an MOD Foden Alpha that would fit nicely on the 4000 chassis. We use this around the yard alongside our 1960’s Foden dumper.

 

It was whilst looking at the chassis cabs with Stuart in Geesons at Ripley that we saw OYE779Y, parked up with a plough fitted, it was minus 11 during this period and almost every motor in the yard had flat batteries, which the frost had then killed completely. We didn’t get to see a motor running but I ended up buying two including OYE. As soon as I saw this motor I knew that there was something strange about it. A Paccar (Kenworth) chassis, Cummins L10 250, Eaton Twinsplitter and Rockwell axles, with a 4000 series cab. As a regular buyer and driver of Fodens in the 80’s and 90’s I knew that these components weren’t available in 1982, when it was allegedly built. I had a new Foden the same month as this motor was supposed to have been built, December 1982. BYG167Y had Foden chassis and S10 cab, the Twinsplitter hadn’t been invented at this point. The serial number stamped on the chassis relates to an S80 series gritter, one of the previous generation, with Foden Gearbox, chassis, axles and Rolls Royce 265L engine. This is what the Foden Microfiche build sheet still shows for this serial number.

 

OYE779Y seems to have been built to replace the original, which was written off in a serious accident. The strange thing is the allocation of the same serial and registration numbers to a totally different vehicle. We have seen a black and white photograph of the wagon, when new with a conventional Atkinson gritter body. This was replaced with the French body now fitted. This has water tanks and can spread the salt with water, made of plastic and stainless steel, it appears unused. The wagon itself was unloved and un driven, we think, because of the Twin splitter gearbox, which wasn’t suitable for the drivers employed on the motorway gritting teams. With 30,000 km on the clock, mostly service miles, the wagon is like new. Other than sag in the roof lining material the cab interior is like new. I’m guessing that it saw very little actual work, subsequently it doesn’t have the fantastic paint job of the newer 4000 series, the result of being sandblasted and two pack painted. OYE has been touched up, a bit of a splodge here and there. There is a total lack of corrosion, it just needs a good respray and it would be like new. A new set of tyres fitted in 2003 still have the stickers on them. The long and the short of it is that this is a much newer wagon. The 4000 series cab was available in 1987, I bought one on an E plate, the last generation of S10 was still available in 1986 on a D plate so I reckon it would be built around this time.

 

There are only a few 4000 series gritters survived in the UK but some went to Ireland and others to Eastern Europe. Presumably Roger Geeson was allowed to export to countries where it wouldn't affect the sales of the suppliers of the new gritting fleet - this appeared to be why there was a restriction on sales in the UK.

 

If anyone has more to add regarding this story please let me Know.

 

I couldn’t resist adding my other two Fodens to the line-up, customers were coming and going at the same time hence some other motors in there. I decided to add some cab interior shots a day or two later, just for the record as it were.

 

To see more about J B Schofield and Sons and the history of the business and its 33 years as a gritting contractor, look here www.jbschofieldandsons.co.uk/

 

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Projects Ensuring both the Parties are Benefited Mutually

 

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I did a fairly extensive photo shoot with my Fodens the other day. Having dug the Fodens out for the first time in ages I gave them a wash to get rid of eight months’ worth of dust. I wanted something to photograph with the new gear to start and get a feel for it, there are some photographs with the EOS M but most are with the 5D. They will appear repetitive but for my own reasons I have decided to upload most of the shoot.

M462LYL was one of the 400 or so 4000 series gritters that were supplied to the Highways Agency over a period of years to replace the S80 series Fodens, that we had five of. This wagon would have been scrapped along with most of the others but for the intervention of Stuart Kaye. Although it is in exceptional condition so were most of them, regardless, they had to be scrapped and not sold back onto the UK market. A scandalous waste of money, many had been extensively (and expensively) refurbished to a very high standard – total rebuilds – they were still scrapped. A Cummins 325 and six speed auto box makes this wagon very nice to drive empty! I very much doubt that the auto box and gearing would get up our local hills fully loaded and certainly not if pushing a plough. The wagon has covered 85,000 km and other than corrosion caused by salty hands the cab interior is very good.

 

I bought a second 4000 series, but just the chassis cab. The scrapping contract allowed for chassis or gritter bodies to be sold separately. Once separated the body takes a lot of refitting. There are hundreds of wires in plastic trunking and they just hacked through them, you couldn’t overstate the scale of the job of refitting, cost effectively, a body back onto one of the original chassis. I had sourced a dump truck body from an MOD Foden Alpha that would fit nicely on the 4000 chassis. We use this around the yard alongside our 1960’s Foden dumper.

 

It was whilst looking at the chassis cabs with Stuart in Geesons at Ripley that we saw OYE779Y, parked up with a plough fitted, it was minus 11 during this period and almost every motor in the yard had flat batteries, which the frost had then killed completely. We didn’t get to see a motor running but I ended up buying two including OYE. As soon as I saw this motor I knew that there was something strange about it. A Paccar (Kenworth) chassis, Cummins L10 250, Eaton Twinsplitter and Rockwell axles, with a 4000 series cab. As a regular buyer and driver of Fodens in the 80’s and 90’s I knew that these components weren’t available in 1982, when it was allegedly built. I had a new Foden the same month as this motor was supposed to have been built, December 1982. BYG167Y had Foden chassis and S10 cab, the Twinsplitter hadn’t been invented at this point. The serial number stamped on the chassis relates to an S80 series gritter, one of the previous generation, with Foden Gearbox, chassis, axles and Rolls Royce 265L engine. This is what the Foden Microfiche build sheet still shows for this serial number.

 

OYE779Y seems to have been built to replace the original, which was written off in a serious accident. The strange thing is the allocation of the same serial and registration numbers to a totally different vehicle. We have seen a black and white photograph of the wagon, when new with a conventional Atkinson gritter body. This was replaced with the French body now fitted. This has water tanks and can spread the salt with water, made of plastic and stainless steel, it appears unused. The wagon itself was unloved and un driven, we think, because of the Twin splitter gearbox, which wasn’t suitable for the drivers employed on the motorway gritting teams. With 30,000 km on the clock, mostly service miles, the wagon is like new. Other than sag in the roof lining material the cab interior is like new. I’m guessing that it saw very little actual work, subsequently it doesn’t have the fantastic paint job of the newer 4000 series, the result of being sandblasted and two pack painted. OYE has been touched up, a bit of a splodge here and there. There is a total lack of corrosion, it just needs a good respray and it would be like new. A new set of tyres fitted in 2003 still have the stickers on them. The long and the short of it is that this is a much newer wagon. The 4000 series cab was available in 1987, I bought one on an E plate, the last generation of S10 was still available in 1986 on a D plate so I reckon it would be built around this time.

 

There are only a few 4000 series gritters survived in the UK but some went to Ireland and others to Eastern Europe. Presumably Roger Geeson was allowed to export to countries where it wouldn't affect the sales of the suppliers of the new gritting fleet - this appeared to be why there was a restriction on sales in the UK.

 

If anyone has more to add regarding this story please let me Know.

 

I couldn’t resist adding my other two Fodens to the line-up, customers were coming and going at the same time hence some other motors in there. I decided to add some cab interior shots a day or two later, just for the record as it were.

 

To see more about J B Schofield and Sons and the history of the business and its 33 years as a gritting contractor, look here www.jbschofieldandsons.co.uk/

 

I did a fairly extensive photo shoot with my Fodens the other day. Having dug the Fodens out for the first time in ages I gave them a wash to get rid of eight months’ worth of dust. I wanted something to photograph with the new gear to start and get a feel for it, there are some photographs with the EOS M but most are with the 5D. They will appear repetitive but for my own reasons I have decided to upload most of the shoot.

M462LYL was one of the 400 or so 4000 series gritters that were supplied to the Highways Agency over a period of years to replace the S80 series Fodens, that we had five of. This wagon would have been scrapped along with most of the others but for the intervention of Stuart Kaye. Although it is in exceptional condition so were most of them, regardless, they had to be scrapped and not sold back onto the UK market. A scandalous waste of money, many had been extensively (and expensively) refurbished to a very high standard – total rebuilds – they were still scrapped. A Cummins 325 and six speed auto box makes this wagon very nice to drive empty! I very much doubt that the auto box and gearing would get up our local hills fully loaded and certainly not if pushing a plough. The wagon has covered 85,000 km and other than corrosion caused by salty hands the cab interior is very good.

 

I bought a second 4000 series, but just the chassis cab. The scrapping contract allowed for chassis or gritter bodies to be sold separately. Once separated the body takes a lot of refitting. There are hundreds of wires in plastic trunking and they just hacked through them, you couldn’t overstate the scale of the job of refitting, cost effectively, a body back onto one of the original chassis. I had sourced a dump truck body from an MOD Foden Alpha that would fit nicely on the 4000 chassis. We use this around the yard alongside our 1960’s Foden dumper.

 

It was whilst looking at the chassis cabs with Stuart in Geesons at Ripley that we saw OYE779Y, parked up with a plough fitted, it was minus 11 during this period and almost every motor in the yard had flat batteries, which the frost had then killed completely. We didn’t get to see a motor running but I ended up buying two including OYE. As soon as I saw this motor I knew that there was something strange about it. A Paccar (Kenworth) chassis, Cummins L10 250, Eaton Twinsplitter and Rockwell axles, with a 4000 series cab. As a regular buyer and driver of Fodens in the 80’s and 90’s I knew that these components weren’t available in 1982, when it was allegedly built. I had a new Foden the same month as this motor was supposed to have been built, December 1982. BYG167Y had Foden chassis and S10 cab, the Twinsplitter hadn’t been invented at this point. The serial number stamped on the chassis relates to an S80 series gritter, one of the previous generation, with Foden Gearbox, chassis, axles and Rolls Royce 265L engine. This is what the Foden Microfiche build sheet still shows for this serial number.

 

OYE779Y seems to have been built to replace the original, which was written off in a serious accident. The strange thing is the allocation of the same serial and registration numbers to a totally different vehicle. We have seen a black and white photograph of the wagon, when new with a conventional Atkinson gritter body. This was replaced with the French body now fitted. This has water tanks and can spread the salt with water, made of plastic and stainless steel, it appears unused. The wagon itself was unloved and un driven, we think, because of the Twin splitter gearbox, which wasn’t suitable for the drivers employed on the motorway gritting teams. With 30,000 km on the clock, mostly service miles, the wagon is like new. Other than sag in the roof lining material the cab interior is like new. I’m guessing that it saw very little actual work, subsequently it doesn’t have the fantastic paint job of the newer 4000 series, the result of being sandblasted and two pack painted. OYE has been touched up, a bit of a splodge here and there. There is a total lack of corrosion, it just needs a good respray and it would be like new. A new set of tyres fitted in 2003 still have the stickers on them. The long and the short of it is that this is a much newer wagon. The 4000 series cab was available in 1987, I bought one on an E plate, the last generation of S10 was still available in 1986 on a D plate so I reckon it would be built around this time.

 

There are only a few 4000 series gritters survived in the UK but some went to Ireland and others to Eastern Europe. Presumably Roger Geeson was allowed to export to countries where it wouldn't affect the sales of the suppliers of the new gritting fleet - this appeared to be why there was a restriction on sales in the UK.

 

If anyone has more to add regarding this story please let me Know.

 

I couldn’t resist adding my other two Fodens to the line-up, customers were coming and going at the same time hence some other motors in there. I decided to add some cab interior shots a day or two later, just for the record as it were.

 

To see more about J B Schofield and Sons and the history of the business and its 33 years as a gritting contractor, look here www.jbschofieldandsons.co.uk/

 

I did a fairly extensive photo shoot with my Fodens the other day. Having dug the Fodens out for the first time in ages I gave them a wash to get rid of eight months’ worth of dust. I wanted something to photograph with the new gear to start and get a feel for it, there are some photographs with the EOS M but most are with the 5D. They will appear repetitive but for my own reasons I have decided to upload most of the shoot.

M462LYL was one of the 400 or so 4000 series gritters that were supplied to the Highways Agency over a period of years to replace the S80 series Fodens, that we had five of. This wagon would have been scrapped along with most of the others but for the intervention of Stuart Kaye. Although it is in exceptional condition so were most of them, regardless, they had to be scrapped and not sold back onto the UK market. A scandalous waste of money, many had been extensively (and expensively) refurbished to a very high standard – total rebuilds – they were still scrapped. A Cummins 325 and six speed auto box makes this wagon very nice to drive empty! I very much doubt that the auto box and gearing would get up our local hills fully loaded and certainly not if pushing a plough. The wagon has covered 85,000 km and other than corrosion caused by salty hands the cab interior is very good.

 

I bought a second 4000 series, but just the chassis cab. The scrapping contract allowed for chassis or gritter bodies to be sold separately. Once separated the body takes a lot of refitting. There are hundreds of wires in plastic trunking and they just hacked through them, you couldn’t overstate the scale of the job of refitting, cost effectively, a body back onto one of the original chassis. I had sourced a dump truck body from an MOD Foden Alpha that would fit nicely on the 4000 chassis. We use this around the yard alongside our 1960’s Foden dumper.

 

It was whilst looking at the chassis cabs with Stuart in Geesons at Ripley that we saw OYE779Y, parked up with a plough fitted, it was minus 11 during this period and almost every motor in the yard had flat batteries, which the frost had then killed completely. We didn’t get to see a motor running but I ended up buying two including OYE. As soon as I saw this motor I knew that there was something strange about it. A Paccar (Kenworth) chassis, Cummins L10 250, Eaton Twinsplitter and Rockwell axles, with a 4000 series cab. As a regular buyer and driver of Fodens in the 80’s and 90’s I knew that these components weren’t available in 1982, when it was allegedly built. I had a new Foden the same month as this motor was supposed to have been built, December 1982. BYG167Y had Foden chassis and S10 cab, the Twinsplitter hadn’t been invented at this point. The serial number stamped on the chassis relates to an S80 series gritter, one of the previous generation, with Foden Gearbox, chassis, axles and Rolls Royce 265L engine. This is what the Foden Microfiche build sheet still shows for this serial number.

 

OYE779Y seems to have been built to replace the original, which was written off in a serious accident. The strange thing is the allocation of the same serial and registration numbers to a totally different vehicle. We have seen a black and white photograph of the wagon, when new with a conventional Atkinson gritter body. This was replaced with the French body now fitted. This has water tanks and can spread the salt with water, made of plastic and stainless steel, it appears unused. The wagon itself was unloved and un driven, we think, because of the Twin splitter gearbox, which wasn’t suitable for the drivers employed on the motorway gritting teams. With 30,000 km on the clock, mostly service miles, the wagon is like new. Other than sag in the roof lining material the cab interior is like new. I’m guessing that it saw very little actual work, subsequently it doesn’t have the fantastic paint job of the newer 4000 series, the result of being sandblasted and two pack painted. OYE has been touched up, a bit of a splodge here and there. There is a total lack of corrosion, it just needs a good respray and it would be like new. A new set of tyres fitted in 2003 still have the stickers on them. The long and the short of it is that this is a much newer wagon. The 4000 series cab was available in 1987, I bought one on an E plate, the last generation of S10 was still available in 1986 on a D plate so I reckon it would be built around this time.

 

There are only a few 4000 series gritters survived in the UK but some went to Ireland and others to Eastern Europe. Presumably Roger Geeson was allowed to export to countries where it wouldn't affect the sales of the suppliers of the new gritting fleet - this appeared to be why there was a restriction on sales in the UK.

 

If anyone has more to add regarding this story please let me Know.

 

I couldn’t resist adding my other two Fodens to the line-up, customers were coming and going at the same time hence some other motors in there. I decided to add some cab interior shots a day or two later, just for the record as it were.

 

To see more about J B Schofield and Sons and the history of the business and its 33 years as a gritting contractor, look here www.jbschofieldandsons.co.uk/

 

I did a fairly extensive photo shoot with my Fodens the other day. Having dug the Fodens out for the first time in ages I gave them a wash to get rid of eight months’ worth of dust. I wanted something to photograph with the new gear to start and get a feel for it, there are some photographs with the EOS M but most are with the 5D. They will appear repetitive but for my own reasons I have decided to upload most of the shoot.

M462LYL was one of the 400 or so 4000 series gritters that were supplied to the Highways Agency over a period of years to replace the S80 series Fodens, that we had five of. This wagon would have been scrapped along with most of the others but for the intervention of Stuart Kaye. Although it is in exceptional condition so were most of them, regardless, they had to be scrapped and not sold back onto the UK market. A scandalous waste of money, many had been extensively (and expensively) refurbished to a very high standard – total rebuilds – they were still scrapped. A Cummins 325 and six speed auto box makes this wagon very nice to drive empty! I very much doubt that the auto box and gearing would get up our local hills fully loaded and certainly not if pushing a plough. The wagon has covered 85,000 km and other than corrosion caused by salty hands the cab interior is very good.

 

I bought a second 4000 series, but just the chassis cab. The scrapping contract allowed for chassis or gritter bodies to be sold separately. Once separated the body takes a lot of refitting. There are hundreds of wires in plastic trunking and they just hacked through them, you couldn’t overstate the scale of the job of refitting, cost effectively, a body back onto one of the original chassis. I had sourced a dump truck body from an MOD Foden Alpha that would fit nicely on the 4000 chassis. We use this around the yard alongside our 1960’s Foden dumper.

 

It was whilst looking at the chassis cabs with Stuart in Geesons at Ripley that we saw OYE779Y, parked up with a plough fitted, it was minus 11 during this period and almost every motor in the yard had flat batteries, which the frost had then killed completely. We didn’t get to see a motor running but I ended up buying two including OYE. As soon as I saw this motor I knew that there was something strange about it. A Paccar (Kenworth) chassis, Cummins L10 250, Eaton Twinsplitter and Rockwell axles, with a 4000 series cab. As a regular buyer and driver of Fodens in the 80’s and 90’s I knew that these components weren’t available in 1982, when it was allegedly built. I had a new Foden the same month as this motor was supposed to have been built, December 1982. BYG167Y had Foden chassis and S10 cab, the Twinsplitter hadn’t been invented at this point. The serial number stamped on the chassis relates to an S80 series gritter, one of the previous generation, with Foden Gearbox, chassis, axles and Rolls Royce 265L engine. This is what the Foden Microfiche build sheet still shows for this serial number.

 

OYE779Y seems to have been built to replace the original, which was written off in a serious accident. The strange thing is the allocation of the same serial and registration numbers to a totally different vehicle. We have seen a black and white photograph of the wagon, when new with a conventional Atkinson gritter body. This was replaced with the French body now fitted. This has water tanks and can spread the salt with water, made of plastic and stainless steel, it appears unused. The wagon itself was unloved and un driven, we think, because of the Twin splitter gearbox, which wasn’t suitable for the drivers employed on the motorway gritting teams. With 30,000 km on the clock, mostly service miles, the wagon is like new. Other than sag in the roof lining material the cab interior is like new. I’m guessing that it saw very little actual work, subsequently it doesn’t have the fantastic paint job of the newer 4000 series, the result of being sandblasted and two pack painted. OYE has been touched up, a bit of a splodge here and there. There is a total lack of corrosion, it just needs a good respray and it would be like new. A new set of tyres fitted in 2003 still have the stickers on them. The long and the short of it is that this is a much newer wagon. The 4000 series cab was available in 1987, I bought one on an E plate, the last generation of S10 was still available in 1986 on a D plate so I reckon it would be built around this time.

 

There are only a few 4000 series gritters survived in the UK but some went to Ireland and others to Eastern Europe. Presumably Roger Geeson was allowed to export to countries where it wouldn't affect the sales of the suppliers of the new gritting fleet - this appeared to be why there was a restriction on sales in the UK.

 

If anyone has more to add regarding this story please let me Know.

 

I couldn’t resist adding my other two Fodens to the line-up, customers were coming and going at the same time hence some other motors in there. I decided to add some cab interior shots a day or two later, just for the record as it were.

 

To see more about J B Schofield and Sons and the history of the business and its 33 years as a gritting contractor, look here www.jbschofieldandsons.co.uk/

 

I did a fairly extensive photo shoot with my Fodens the other day. Having dug the Fodens out for the first time in ages I gave them a wash to get rid of eight months’ worth of dust. I wanted something to photograph with the new gear to start and get a feel for it, there are some photographs with the EOS M but most are with the 5D. They will appear repetitive but for my own reasons I have decided to upload most of the shoot.

M462LYL was one of the 400 or so 4000 series gritters that were supplied to the Highways Agency over a period of years to replace the S80 series Fodens, that we had five of. This wagon would have been scrapped along with most of the others but for the intervention of Stuart Kaye. Although it is in exceptional condition so were most of them, regardless, they had to be scrapped and not sold back onto the UK market. A scandalous waste of money, many had been extensively (and expensively) refurbished to a very high standard – total rebuilds – they were still scrapped. A Cummins 325 and six speed auto box makes this wagon very nice to drive empty! I very much doubt that the auto box and gearing would get up our local hills fully loaded and certainly not if pushing a plough. The wagon has covered 85,000 km and other than corrosion caused by salty hands the cab interior is very good.

 

I bought a second 4000 series, but just the chassis cab. The scrapping contract allowed for chassis or gritter bodies to be sold separately. Once separated the body takes a lot of refitting. There are hundreds of wires in plastic trunking and they just hacked through them, you couldn’t overstate the scale of the job of refitting, cost effectively, a body back onto one of the original chassis. I had sourced a dump truck body from an MOD Foden Alpha that would fit nicely on the 4000 chassis. We use this around the yard alongside our 1960’s Foden dumper.

 

It was whilst looking at the chassis cabs with Stuart in Geesons at Ripley that we saw OYE779Y, parked up with a plough fitted, it was minus 11 during this period and almost every motor in the yard had flat batteries, which the frost had then killed completely. We didn’t get to see a motor running but I ended up buying two including OYE. As soon as I saw this motor I knew that there was something strange about it. A Paccar (Kenworth) chassis, Cummins L10 250, Eaton Twinsplitter and Rockwell axles, with a 4000 series cab. As a regular buyer and driver of Fodens in the 80’s and 90’s I knew that these components weren’t available in 1982, when it was allegedly built. I had a new Foden the same month as this motor was supposed to have been built, December 1982. BYG167Y had Foden chassis and S10 cab, the Twinsplitter hadn’t been invented at this point. The serial number stamped on the chassis relates to an S80 series gritter, one of the previous generation, with Foden Gearbox, chassis, axles and Rolls Royce 265L engine. This is what the Foden Microfiche build sheet still shows for this serial number.

 

OYE779Y seems to have been built to replace the original, which was written off in a serious accident. The strange thing is the allocation of the same serial and registration numbers to a totally different vehicle. We have seen a black and white photograph of the wagon, when new with a conventional Atkinson gritter body. This was replaced with the French body now fitted. This has water tanks and can spread the salt with water, made of plastic and stainless steel, it appears unused. The wagon itself was unloved and un driven, we think, because of the Twin splitter gearbox, which wasn’t suitable for the drivers employed on the motorway gritting teams. With 30,000 km on the clock, mostly service miles, the wagon is like new. Other than sag in the roof lining material the cab interior is like new. I’m guessing that it saw very little actual work, subsequently it doesn’t have the fantastic paint job of the newer 4000 series, the result of being sandblasted and two pack painted. OYE has been touched up, a bit of a splodge here and there. There is a total lack of corrosion, it just needs a good respray and it would be like new. A new set of tyres fitted in 2003 still have the stickers on them. The long and the short of it is that this is a much newer wagon. The 4000 series cab was available in 1987, I bought one on an E plate, the last generation of S10 was still available in 1986 on a D plate so I reckon it would be built around this time.

 

There are only a few 4000 series gritters survived in the UK but some went to Ireland and others to Eastern Europe. Presumably Roger Geeson was allowed to export to countries where it wouldn't affect the sales of the suppliers of the new gritting fleet - this appeared to be why there was a restriction on sales in the UK.

 

If anyone has more to add regarding this story please let me Know.

 

I couldn’t resist adding my other two Fodens to the line-up, customers were coming and going at the same time hence some other motors in there. I decided to add some cab interior shots a day or two later, just for the record as it were.

 

To see more about J B Schofield and Sons and the history of the business and its 33 years as a gritting contractor, look here www.jbschofieldandsons.co.uk/

 

I did a fairly extensive photo shoot with my Fodens the other day. Having dug the Fodens out for the first time in ages I gave them a wash to get rid of eight months’ worth of dust. I wanted something to photograph with the new gear to start and get a feel for it, there are some photographs with the EOS M but most are with the 5D. They will appear repetitive but for my own reasons I have decided to upload most of the shoot.

M462LYL was one of the 400 or so 4000 series gritters that were supplied to the Highways Agency over a period of years to replace the S80 series Fodens, that we had five of. This wagon would have been scrapped along with most of the others but for the intervention of Stuart Kaye. Although it is in exceptional condition so were most of them, regardless, they had to be scrapped and not sold back onto the UK market. A scandalous waste of money, many had been extensively (and expensively) refurbished to a very high standard – total rebuilds – they were still scrapped. A Cummins 325 and six speed auto box makes this wagon very nice to drive empty! I very much doubt that the auto box and gearing would get up our local hills fully loaded and certainly not if pushing a plough. The wagon has covered 85,000 km and other than corrosion caused by salty hands the cab interior is very good.

 

I bought a second 4000 series, but just the chassis cab. The scrapping contract allowed for chassis or gritter bodies to be sold separately. Once separated the body takes a lot of refitting. There are hundreds of wires in plastic trunking and they just hacked through them, you couldn’t overstate the scale of the job of refitting, cost effectively, a body back onto one of the original chassis. I had sourced a dump truck body from an MOD Foden Alpha that would fit nicely on the 4000 chassis. We use this around the yard alongside our 1960’s Foden dumper.

 

It was whilst looking at the chassis cabs with Stuart in Geesons at Ripley that we saw OYE779Y, parked up with a plough fitted, it was minus 11 during this period and almost every motor in the yard had flat batteries, which the frost had then killed completely. We didn’t get to see a motor running but I ended up buying two including OYE. As soon as I saw this motor I knew that there was something strange about it. A Paccar (Kenworth) chassis, Cummins L10 250, Eaton Twinsplitter and Rockwell axles, with a 4000 series cab. As a regular buyer and driver of Fodens in the 80’s and 90’s I knew that these components weren’t available in 1982, when it was allegedly built. I had a new Foden the same month as this motor was supposed to have been built, December 1982. BYG167Y had Foden chassis and S10 cab, the Twinsplitter hadn’t been invented at this point. The serial number stamped on the chassis relates to an S80 series gritter, one of the previous generation, with Foden Gearbox, chassis, axles and Rolls Royce 265L engine. This is what the Foden Microfiche build sheet still shows for this serial number.

 

OYE779Y seems to have been built to replace the original, which was written off in a serious accident. The strange thing is the allocation of the same serial and registration numbers to a totally different vehicle. We have seen a black and white photograph of the wagon, when new with a conventional Atkinson gritter body. This was replaced with the French body now fitted. This has water tanks and can spread the salt with water, made of plastic and stainless steel, it appears unused. The wagon itself was unloved and un driven, we think, because of the Twin splitter gearbox, which wasn’t suitable for the drivers employed on the motorway gritting teams. With 30,000 km on the clock, mostly service miles, the wagon is like new. Other than sag in the roof lining material the cab interior is like new. I’m guessing that it saw very little actual work, subsequently it doesn’t have the fantastic paint job of the newer 4000 series, the result of being sandblasted and two pack painted. OYE has been touched up, a bit of a splodge here and there. There is a total lack of corrosion, it just needs a good respray and it would be like new. A new set of tyres fitted in 2003 still have the stickers on them. The long and the short of it is that this is a much newer wagon. The 4000 series cab was available in 1987, I bought one on an E plate, the last generation of S10 was still available in 1986 on a D plate so I reckon it would be built around this time.

 

There are only a few 4000 series gritters survived in the UK but some went to Ireland and others to Eastern Europe. Presumably Roger Geeson was allowed to export to countries where it wouldn't affect the sales of the suppliers of the new gritting fleet - this appeared to be why there was a restriction on sales in the UK.

 

If anyone has more to add regarding this story please let me Know.

 

I couldn’t resist adding my other two Fodens to the line-up, customers were coming and going at the same time hence some other motors in there. I decided to add some cab interior shots a day or two later, just for the record as it were.

 

To see more about J B Schofield and Sons and the history of the business and its 33 years as a gritting contractor, look here www.jbschofieldandsons.co.uk/

 

I did a fairly extensive photo shoot with my Fodens the other day. Having dug the Fodens out for the first time in ages I gave them a wash to get rid of eight months’ worth of dust. I wanted something to photograph with the new gear to start and get a feel for it, there are some photographs with the EOS M but most are with the 5D. They will appear repetitive but for my own reasons I have decided to upload most of the shoot.

M462LYL was one of the 400 or so 4000 series gritters that were supplied to the Highways Agency over a period of years to replace the S80 series Fodens, that we had five of. This wagon would have been scrapped along with most of the others but for the intervention of Stuart Kaye. Although it is in exceptional condition so were most of them, regardless, they had to be scrapped and not sold back onto the UK market. A scandalous waste of money, many had been extensively (and expensively) refurbished to a very high standard – total rebuilds – they were still scrapped. A Cummins 325 and six speed auto box makes this wagon very nice to drive empty! I very much doubt that the auto box and gearing would get up our local hills fully loaded and certainly not if pushing a plough. The wagon has covered 85,000 km and other than corrosion caused by salty hands the cab interior is very good.

 

I bought a second 4000 series, but just the chassis cab. The scrapping contract allowed for chassis or gritter bodies to be sold separately. Once separated the body takes a lot of refitting. There are hundreds of wires in plastic trunking and they just hacked through them, you couldn’t overstate the scale of the job of refitting, cost effectively, a body back onto one of the original chassis. I had sourced a dump truck body from an MOD Foden Alpha that would fit nicely on the 4000 chassis. We use this around the yard alongside our 1960’s Foden dumper.

 

It was whilst looking at the chassis cabs with Stuart in Geesons at Ripley that we saw OYE779Y, parked up with a plough fitted, it was minus 11 during this period and almost every motor in the yard had flat batteries, which the frost had then killed completely. We didn’t get to see a motor running but I ended up buying two including OYE. As soon as I saw this motor I knew that there was something strange about it. A Paccar (Kenworth) chassis, Cummins L10 250, Eaton Twinsplitter and Rockwell axles, with a 4000 series cab. As a regular buyer and driver of Fodens in the 80’s and 90’s I knew that these components weren’t available in 1982, when it was allegedly built. I had a new Foden the same month as this motor was supposed to have been built, December 1982. BYG167Y had Foden chassis and S10 cab, the Twinsplitter hadn’t been invented at this point. The serial number stamped on the chassis relates to an S80 series gritter, one of the previous generation, with Foden Gearbox, chassis, axles and Rolls Royce 265L engine. This is what the Foden Microfiche build sheet still shows for this serial number.

 

OYE779Y seems to have been built to replace the original, which was written off in a serious accident. The strange thing is the allocation of the same serial and registration numbers to a totally different vehicle. We have seen a black and white photograph of the wagon, when new with a conventional Atkinson gritter body. This was replaced with the French body now fitted. This has water tanks and can spread the salt with water, made of plastic and stainless steel, it appears unused. The wagon itself was unloved and un driven, we think, because of the Twin splitter gearbox, which wasn’t suitable for the drivers employed on the motorway gritting teams. With 30,000 km on the clock, mostly service miles, the wagon is like new. Other than sag in the roof lining material the cab interior is like new. I’m guessing that it saw very little actual work, subsequently it doesn’t have the fantastic paint job of the newer 4000 series, the result of being sandblasted and two pack painted. OYE has been touched up, a bit of a splodge here and there. There is a total lack of corrosion, it just needs a good respray and it would be like new. A new set of tyres fitted in 2003 still have the stickers on them. The long and the short of it is that this is a much newer wagon. The 4000 series cab was available in 1987, I bought one on an E plate, the last generation of S10 was still available in 1986 on a D plate so I reckon it would be built around this time.

 

There are only a few 4000 series gritters survived in the UK but some went to Ireland and others to Eastern Europe. Presumably Roger Geeson was allowed to export to countries where it wouldn't affect the sales of the suppliers of the new gritting fleet - this appeared to be why there was a restriction on sales in the UK.

 

If anyone has more to add regarding this story please let me Know.

 

I couldn’t resist adding my other two Fodens to the line-up, customers were coming and going at the same time hence some other motors in there. I decided to add some cab interior shots a day or two later, just for the record as it were.

 

To see more about J B Schofield and Sons and the history of the business and its 33 years as a gritting contractor, look here www.jbschofieldandsons.co.uk/

 

I did a fairly extensive photo shoot with my Fodens the other day. Having dug the Fodens out for the first time in ages I gave them a wash to get rid of eight months’ worth of dust. I wanted something to photograph with the new gear to start and get a feel for it, there are some photographs with the EOS M but most are with the 5D. They will appear repetitive but for my own reasons I have decided to upload most of the shoot.

M462LYL was one of the 400 or so 4000 series gritters that were supplied to the Highways Agency over a period of years to replace the S80 series Fodens, that we had five of. This wagon would have been scrapped along with most of the others but for the intervention of Stuart Kaye. Although it is in exceptional condition so were most of them, regardless, they had to be scrapped and not sold back onto the UK market. A scandalous waste of money, many had been extensively (and expensively) refurbished to a very high standard – total rebuilds – they were still scrapped. A Cummins 325 and six speed auto box makes this wagon very nice to drive empty! I very much doubt that the auto box and gearing would get up our local hills fully loaded and certainly not if pushing a plough. The wagon has covered 85,000 km and other than corrosion caused by salty hands the cab interior is very good.

 

I bought a second 4000 series, but just the chassis cab. The scrapping contract allowed for chassis or gritter bodies to be sold separately. Once separated the body takes a lot of refitting. There are hundreds of wires in plastic trunking and they just hacked through them, you couldn’t overstate the scale of the job of refitting, cost effectively, a body back onto one of the original chassis. I had sourced a dump truck body from an MOD Foden Alpha that would fit nicely on the 4000 chassis. We use this around the yard alongside our 1960’s Foden dumper.

 

It was whilst looking at the chassis cabs with Stuart in Geesons at Ripley that we saw OYE779Y, parked up with a plough fitted, it was minus 11 during this period and almost every motor in the yard had flat batteries, which the frost had then killed completely. We didn’t get to see a motor running but I ended up buying two including OYE. As soon as I saw this motor I knew that there was something strange about it. A Paccar (Kenworth) chassis, Cummins L10 250, Eaton Twinsplitter and Rockwell axles, with a 4000 series cab. As a regular buyer and driver of Fodens in the 80’s and 90’s I knew that these components weren’t available in 1982, when it was allegedly built. I had a new Foden the same month as this motor was supposed to have been built, December 1982. BYG167Y had Foden chassis and S10 cab, the Twinsplitter hadn’t been invented at this point. The serial number stamped on the chassis relates to an S80 series gritter, one of the previous generation, with Foden Gearbox, chassis, axles and Rolls Royce 265L engine. This is what the Foden Microfiche build sheet still shows for this serial number.

 

OYE779Y seems to have been built to replace the original, which was written off in a serious accident. The strange thing is the allocation of the same serial and registration numbers to a totally different vehicle. We have seen a black and white photograph of the wagon, when new with a conventional Atkinson gritter body. This was replaced with the French body now fitted. This has water tanks and can spread the salt with water, made of plastic and stainless steel, it appears unused. The wagon itself was unloved and un driven, we think, because of the Twin splitter gearbox, which wasn’t suitable for the drivers employed on the motorway gritting teams. With 30,000 km on the clock, mostly service miles, the wagon is like new. Other than sag in the roof lining material the cab interior is like new. I’m guessing that it saw very little actual work, subsequently it doesn’t have the fantastic paint job of the newer 4000 series, the result of being sandblasted and two pack painted. OYE has been touched up, a bit of a splodge here and there. There is a total lack of corrosion, it just needs a good respray and it would be like new. A new set of tyres fitted in 2003 still have the stickers on them. The long and the short of it is that this is a much newer wagon. The 4000 series cab was available in 1987, I bought one on an E plate, the last generation of S10 was still available in 1986 on a D plate so I reckon it would be built around this time.

 

There are only a few 4000 series gritters survived in the UK but some went to Ireland and others to Eastern Europe. Presumably Roger Geeson was allowed to export to countries where it wouldn't affect the sales of the suppliers of the new gritting fleet - this appeared to be why there was a restriction on sales in the UK.

 

If anyone has more to add regarding this story please let me Know.

 

I couldn’t resist adding my other two Fodens to the line-up, customers were coming and going at the same time hence some other motors in there. I decided to add some cab interior shots a day or two later, just for the record as it were.

 

To see more about J B Schofield and Sons and the history of the business and its 33 years as a gritting contractor, look here www.jbschofieldandsons.co.uk/

 

I did a fairly extensive photo shoot with my Fodens the other day. Having dug the Fodens out for the first time in ages I gave them a wash to get rid of eight months’ worth of dust. I wanted something to photograph with the new gear to start and get a feel for it, there are some photographs with the EOS M but most are with the 5D. They will appear repetitive but for my own reasons I have decided to upload most of the shoot.

M462LYL was one of the 400 or so 4000 series gritters that were supplied to the Highways Agency over a period of years to replace the S80 series Fodens, that we had five of. This wagon would have been scrapped along with most of the others but for the intervention of Stuart Kaye. Although it is in exceptional condition so were most of them, regardless, they had to be scrapped and not sold back onto the UK market. A scandalous waste of money, many had been extensively (and expensively) refurbished to a very high standard – total rebuilds – they were still scrapped. A Cummins 325 and six speed auto box makes this wagon very nice to drive empty! I very much doubt that the auto box and gearing would get up our local hills fully loaded and certainly not if pushing a plough. The wagon has covered 85,000 km and other than corrosion caused by salty hands the cab interior is very good.

 

I bought a second 4000 series, but just the chassis cab. The scrapping contract allowed for chassis or gritter bodies to be sold separately. Once separated the body takes a lot of refitting. There are hundreds of wires in plastic trunking and they just hacked through them, you couldn’t overstate the scale of the job of refitting, cost effectively, a body back onto one of the original chassis. I had sourced a dump truck body from an MOD Foden Alpha that would fit nicely on the 4000 chassis. We use this around the yard alongside our 1960’s Foden dumper.

 

It was whilst looking at the chassis cabs with Stuart in Geesons at Ripley that we saw OYE779Y, parked up with a plough fitted, it was minus 11 during this period and almost every motor in the yard had flat batteries, which the frost had then killed completely. We didn’t get to see a motor running but I ended up buying two including OYE. As soon as I saw this motor I knew that there was something strange about it. A Paccar (Kenworth) chassis, Cummins L10 250, Eaton Twinsplitter and Rockwell axles, with a 4000 series cab. As a regular buyer and driver of Fodens in the 80’s and 90’s I knew that these components weren’t available in 1982, when it was allegedly built. I had a new Foden the same month as this motor was supposed to have been built, December 1982. BYG167Y had Foden chassis and S10 cab, the Twinsplitter hadn’t been invented at this point. The serial number stamped on the chassis relates to an S80 series gritter, one of the previous generation, with Foden Gearbox, chassis, axles and Rolls Royce 265L engine. This is what the Foden Microfiche build sheet still shows for this serial number.

 

OYE779Y seems to have been built to replace the original, which was written off in a serious accident. The strange thing is the allocation of the same serial and registration numbers to a totally different vehicle. We have seen a black and white photograph of the wagon, when new with a conventional Atkinson gritter body. This was replaced with the French body now fitted. This has water tanks and can spread the salt with water, made of plastic and stainless steel, it appears unused. The wagon itself was unloved and un driven, we think, because of the Twin splitter gearbox, which wasn’t suitable for the drivers employed on the motorway gritting teams. With 30,000 km on the clock, mostly service miles, the wagon is like new. Other than sag in the roof lining material the cab interior is like new. I’m guessing that it saw very little actual work, subsequently it doesn’t have the fantastic paint job of the newer 4000 series, the result of being sandblasted and two pack painted. OYE has been touched up, a bit of a splodge here and there. There is a total lack of corrosion, it just needs a good respray and it would be like new. A new set of tyres fitted in 2003 still have the stickers on them. The long and the short of it is that this is a much newer wagon. The 4000 series cab was available in 1987, I bought one on an E plate, the last generation of S10 was still available in 1986 on a D plate so I reckon it would be built around this time.

 

There are only a few 4000 series gritters survived in the UK but some went to Ireland and others to Eastern Europe. Presumably Roger Geeson was allowed to export to countries where it wouldn't affect the sales of the suppliers of the new gritting fleet - this appeared to be why there was a restriction on sales in the UK.

 

If anyone has more to add regarding this story please let me Know.

 

I couldn’t resist adding my other two Fodens to the line-up, customers were coming and going at the same time hence some other motors in there. I decided to add some cab interior shots a day or two later, just for the record as it were.

 

To see more about J B Schofield and Sons and the history of the business and its 33 years as a gritting contractor, look here www.jbschofieldandsons.co.uk/

 

I did a fairly extensive photo shoot with my Fodens the other day. Having dug the Fodens out for the first time in ages I gave them a wash to get rid of eight months’ worth of dust. I wanted something to photograph with the new gear to start and get a feel for it, there are some photographs with the EOS M but most are with the 5D. They will appear repetitive but for my own reasons I have decided to upload most of the shoot.

M462LYL was one of the 400 or so 4000 series gritters that were supplied to the Highways Agency over a period of years to replace the S80 series Fodens, that we had five of. This wagon would have been scrapped along with most of the others but for the intervention of Stuart Kaye. Although it is in exceptional condition so were most of them, regardless, they had to be scrapped and not sold back onto the UK market. A scandalous waste of money, many had been extensively (and expensively) refurbished to a very high standard – total rebuilds – they were still scrapped. A Cummins 325 and six speed auto box makes this wagon very nice to drive empty! I very much doubt that the auto box and gearing would get up our local hills fully loaded and certainly not if pushing a plough. The wagon has covered 85,000 km and other than corrosion caused by salty hands the cab interior is very good.

 

I bought a second 4000 series, but just the chassis cab. The scrapping contract allowed for chassis or gritter bodies to be sold separately. Once separated the body takes a lot of refitting. There are hundreds of wires in plastic trunking and they just hacked through them, you couldn’t overstate the scale of the job of refitting, cost effectively, a body back onto one of the original chassis. I had sourced a dump truck body from an MOD Foden Alpha that would fit nicely on the 4000 chassis. We use this around the yard alongside our 1960’s Foden dumper.

 

It was whilst looking at the chassis cabs with Stuart in Geesons at Ripley that we saw OYE779Y, parked up with a plough fitted, it was minus 11 during this period and almost every motor in the yard had flat batteries, which the frost had then killed completely. We didn’t get to see a motor running but I ended up buying two including OYE. As soon as I saw this motor I knew that there was something strange about it. A Paccar (Kenworth) chassis, Cummins L10 250, Eaton Twinsplitter and Rockwell axles, with a 4000 series cab. As a regular buyer and driver of Fodens in the 80’s and 90’s I knew that these components weren’t available in 1982, when it was allegedly built. I had a new Foden the same month as this motor was supposed to have been built, December 1982. BYG167Y had Foden chassis and S10 cab, the Twinsplitter hadn’t been invented at this point. The serial number stamped on the chassis relates to an S80 series gritter, one of the previous generation, with Foden Gearbox, chassis, axles and Rolls Royce 265L engine. This is what the Foden Microfiche build sheet still shows for this serial number.

 

OYE779Y seems to have been built to replace the original, which was written off in a serious accident. The strange thing is the allocation of the same serial and registration numbers to a totally different vehicle. We have seen a black and white photograph of the wagon, when new with a conventional Atkinson gritter body. This was replaced with the French body now fitted. This has water tanks and can spread the salt with water, made of plastic and stainless steel, it appears unused. The wagon itself was unloved and un driven, we think, because of the Twin splitter gearbox, which wasn’t suitable for the drivers employed on the motorway gritting teams. With 30,000 km on the clock, mostly service miles, the wagon is like new. Other than sag in the roof lining material the cab interior is like new. I’m guessing that it saw very little actual work, subsequently it doesn’t have the fantastic paint job of the newer 4000 series, the result of being sandblasted and two pack painted. OYE has been touched up, a bit of a splodge here and there. There is a total lack of corrosion, it just needs a good respray and it would be like new. A new set of tyres fitted in 2003 still have the stickers on them. The long and the short of it is that this is a much newer wagon. The 4000 series cab was available in 1987, I bought one on an E plate, the last generation of S10 was still available in 1986 on a D plate so I reckon it would be built around this time.

 

There are only a few 4000 series gritters survived in the UK but some went to Ireland and others to Eastern Europe. Presumably Roger Geeson was allowed to export to countries where it wouldn't affect the sales of the suppliers of the new gritting fleet - this appeared to be why there was a restriction on sales in the UK.

 

If anyone has more to add regarding this story please let me Know.

 

I couldn’t resist adding my other two Fodens to the line-up, customers were coming and going at the same time hence some other motors in there. I decided to add some cab interior shots a day or two later, just for the record as it were.

 

To see more about J B Schofield and Sons and the history of the business and its 33 years as a gritting contractor, look here www.jbschofieldandsons.co.uk/

 

I did a fairly extensive photo shoot with my Fodens the other day. Having dug the Fodens out for the first time in ages I gave them a wash to get rid of eight months’ worth of dust. I wanted something to photograph with the new gear to start and get a feel for it, there are some photographs with the EOS M but most are with the 5D. They will appear repetitive but for my own reasons I have decided to upload most of the shoot.

M462LYL was one of the 400 or so 4000 series gritters that were supplied to the Highways Agency over a period of years to replace the S80 series Fodens, that we had five of. This wagon would have been scrapped along with most of the others but for the intervention of Stuart Kaye. Although it is in exceptional condition so were most of them, regardless, they had to be scrapped and not sold back onto the UK market. A scandalous waste of money, many had been extensively (and expensively) refurbished to a very high standard – total rebuilds – they were still scrapped. A Cummins 325 and six speed auto box makes this wagon very nice to drive empty! I very much doubt that the auto box and gearing would get up our local hills fully loaded and certainly not if pushing a plough. The wagon has covered 85,000 km and other than corrosion caused by salty hands the cab interior is very good.

 

I bought a second 4000 series, but just the chassis cab. The scrapping contract allowed for chassis or gritter bodies to be sold separately. Once separated the body takes a lot of refitting. There are hundreds of wires in plastic trunking and they just hacked through them, you couldn’t overstate the scale of the job of refitting, cost effectively, a body back onto one of the original chassis. I had sourced a dump truck body from an MOD Foden Alpha that would fit nicely on the 4000 chassis. We use this around the yard alongside our 1960’s Foden dumper.

 

It was whilst looking at the chassis cabs with Stuart in Geesons at Ripley that we saw OYE779Y, parked up with a plough fitted, it was minus 11 during this period and almost every motor in the yard had flat batteries, which the frost had then killed completely. We didn’t get to see a motor running but I ended up buying two including OYE. As soon as I saw this motor I knew that there was something strange about it. A Paccar (Kenworth) chassis, Cummins L10 250, Eaton Twinsplitter and Rockwell axles, with a 4000 series cab. As a regular buyer and driver of Fodens in the 80’s and 90’s I knew that these components weren’t available in 1982, when it was allegedly built. I had a new Foden the same month as this motor was supposed to have been built, December 1982. BYG167Y had Foden chassis and S10 cab, the Twinsplitter hadn’t been invented at this point. The serial number stamped on the chassis relates to an S80 series gritter, one of the previous generation, with Foden Gearbox, chassis, axles and Rolls Royce 265L engine. This is what the Foden Microfiche build sheet still shows for this serial number.

 

OYE779Y seems to have been built to replace the original, which was written off in a serious accident. The strange thing is the allocation of the same serial and registration numbers to a totally different vehicle. We have seen a black and white photograph of the wagon, when new with a conventional Atkinson gritter body. This was replaced with the French body now fitted. This has water tanks and can spread the salt with water, made of plastic and stainless steel, it appears unused. The wagon itself was unloved and un driven, we think, because of the Twin splitter gearbox, which wasn’t suitable for the drivers employed on the motorway gritting teams. With 30,000 km on the clock, mostly service miles, the wagon is like new. Other than sag in the roof lining material the cab interior is like new. I’m guessing that it saw very little actual work, subsequently it doesn’t have the fantastic paint job of the newer 4000 series, the result of being sandblasted and two pack painted. OYE has been touched up, a bit of a splodge here and there. There is a total lack of corrosion, it just needs a good respray and it would be like new. A new set of tyres fitted in 2003 still have the stickers on them. The long and the short of it is that this is a much newer wagon. The 4000 series cab was available in 1987, I bought one on an E plate, the last generation of S10 was still available in 1986 on a D plate so I reckon it would be built around this time.

 

There are only a few 4000 series gritters survived in the UK but some went to Ireland and others to Eastern Europe. Presumably Roger Geeson was allowed to export to countries where it wouldn't affect the sales of the suppliers of the new gritting fleet - this appeared to be why there was a restriction on sales in the UK.

 

If anyone has more to add regarding this story please let me Know.

 

I couldn’t resist adding my other two Fodens to the line-up, customers were coming and going at the same time hence some other motors in there. I decided to add some cab interior shots a day or two later, just for the record as it were.

 

To see more about J B Schofield and Sons and the history of the business and its 33 years as a gritting contractor, look here www.jbschofieldandsons.co.uk/

 

I did a fairly extensive photo shoot with my Fodens the other day. Having dug the Fodens out for the first time in ages I gave them a wash to get rid of eight months’ worth of dust. I wanted something to photograph with the new gear to start and get a feel for it, there are some photographs with the EOS M but most are with the 5D. They will appear repetitive but for my own reasons I have decided to upload most of the shoot.

M462LYL was one of the 400 or so 4000 series gritters that were supplied to the Highways Agency over a period of years to replace the S80 series Fodens, that we had five of. This wagon would have been scrapped along with most of the others but for the intervention of Stuart Kaye. Although it is in exceptional condition so were most of them, regardless, they had to be scrapped and not sold back onto the UK market. A scandalous waste of money, many had been extensively (and expensively) refurbished to a very high standard – total rebuilds – they were still scrapped. A Cummins 325 and six speed auto box makes this wagon very nice to drive empty! I very much doubt that the auto box and gearing would get up our local hills fully loaded and certainly not if pushing a plough. The wagon has covered 85,000 km and other than corrosion caused by salty hands the cab interior is very good.

 

I bought a second 4000 series, but just the chassis cab. The scrapping contract allowed for chassis or gritter bodies to be sold separately. Once separated the body takes a lot of refitting. There are hundreds of wires in plastic trunking and they just hacked through them, you couldn’t overstate the scale of the job of refitting, cost effectively, a body back onto one of the original chassis. I had sourced a dump truck body from an MOD Foden Alpha that would fit nicely on the 4000 chassis. We use this around the yard alongside our 1960’s Foden dumper.

 

It was whilst looking at the chassis cabs with Stuart in Geesons at Ripley that we saw OYE779Y, parked up with a plough fitted, it was minus 11 during this period and almost every motor in the yard had flat batteries, which the frost had then killed completely. We didn’t get to see a motor running but I ended up buying two including OYE. As soon as I saw this motor I knew that there was something strange about it. A Paccar (Kenworth) chassis, Cummins L10 250, Eaton Twinsplitter and Rockwell axles, with a 4000 series cab. As a regular buyer and driver of Fodens in the 80’s and 90’s I knew that these components weren’t available in 1982, when it was allegedly built. I had a new Foden the same month as this motor was supposed to have been built, December 1982. BYG167Y had Foden chassis and S10 cab, the Twinsplitter hadn’t been invented at this point. The serial number stamped on the chassis relates to an S80 series gritter, one of the previous generation, with Foden Gearbox, chassis, axles and Rolls Royce 265L engine. This is what the Foden Microfiche build sheet still shows for this serial number.

 

OYE779Y seems to have been built to replace the original, which was written off in a serious accident. The strange thing is the allocation of the same serial and registration numbers to a totally different vehicle. We have seen a black and white photograph of the wagon, when new with a conventional Atkinson gritter body. This was replaced with the French body now fitted. This has water tanks and can spread the salt with water, made of plastic and stainless steel, it appears unused. The wagon itself was unloved and un driven, we think, because of the Twin splitter gearbox, which wasn’t suitable for the drivers employed on the motorway gritting teams. With 30,000 km on the clock, mostly service miles, the wagon is like new. Other than sag in the roof lining material the cab interior is like new. I’m guessing that it saw very little actual work, subsequently it doesn’t have the fantastic paint job of the newer 4000 series, the result of being sandblasted and two pack painted. OYE has been touched up, a bit of a splodge here and there. There is a total lack of corrosion, it just needs a good respray and it would be like new. A new set of tyres fitted in 2003 still have the stickers on them. The long and the short of it is that this is a much newer wagon. The 4000 series cab was available in 1987, I bought one on an E plate, the last generation of S10 was still available in 1986 on a D plate so I reckon it would be built around this time.

 

There are only a few 4000 series gritters survived in the UK but some went to Ireland and others to Eastern Europe. Presumably Roger Geeson was allowed to export to countries where it wouldn't affect the sales of the suppliers of the new gritting fleet - this appeared to be why there was a restriction on sales in the UK.

 

If anyone has more to add regarding this story please let me Know.

 

I couldn’t resist adding my other two Fodens to the line-up, customers were coming and going at the same time hence some other motors in there. I decided to add some cab interior shots a day or two later, just for the record as it were.

 

To see more about J B Schofield and Sons and the history of the business and its 33 years as a gritting contractor, look here www.jbschofieldandsons.co.uk/

 

I did a fairly extensive photo shoot with my Fodens the other day. Having dug the Fodens out for the first time in ages I gave them a wash to get rid of eight months’ worth of dust. I wanted something to photograph with the new gear to start and get a feel for it, there are some photographs with the EOS M but most are with the 5D. They will appear repetitive but for my own reasons I have decided to upload most of the shoot.

M462LYL was one of the 400 or so 4000 series gritters that were supplied to the Highways Agency over a period of years to replace the S80 series Fodens, that we had five of. This wagon would have been scrapped along with most of the others but for the intervention of Stuart Kaye. Although it is in exceptional condition so were most of them, regardless, they had to be scrapped and not sold back onto the UK market. A scandalous waste of money, many had been extensively (and expensively) refurbished to a very high standard – total rebuilds – they were still scrapped. A Cummins 325 and six speed auto box makes this wagon very nice to drive empty! I very much doubt that the auto box and gearing would get up our local hills fully loaded and certainly not if pushing a plough. The wagon has covered 85,000 km and other than corrosion caused by salty hands the cab interior is very good.

 

I bought a second 4000 series, but just the chassis cab. The scrapping contract allowed for chassis or gritter bodies to be sold separately. Once separated the body takes a lot of refitting. There are hundreds of wires in plastic trunking and they just hacked through them, you couldn’t overstate the scale of the job of refitting, cost effectively, a body back onto one of the original chassis. I had sourced a dump truck body from an MOD Foden Alpha that would fit nicely on the 4000 chassis. We use this around the yard alongside our 1960’s Foden dumper.

 

It was whilst looking at the chassis cabs with Stuart in Geesons at Ripley that we saw OYE779Y, parked up with a plough fitted, it was minus 11 during this period and almost every motor in the yard had flat batteries, which the frost had then killed completely. We didn’t get to see a motor running but I ended up buying two including OYE. As soon as I saw this motor I knew that there was something strange about it. A Paccar (Kenworth) chassis, Cummins L10 250, Eaton Twinsplitter and Rockwell axles, with a 4000 series cab. As a regular buyer and driver of Fodens in the 80’s and 90’s I knew that these components weren’t available in 1982, when it was allegedly built. I had a new Foden the same month as this motor was supposed to have been built, December 1982. BYG167Y had Foden chassis and S10 cab, the Twinsplitter hadn’t been invented at this point. The serial number stamped on the chassis relates to an S80 series gritter, one of the previous generation, with Foden Gearbox, chassis, axles and Rolls Royce 265L engine. This is what the Foden Microfiche build sheet still shows for this serial number.

 

OYE779Y seems to have been built to replace the original, which was written off in a serious accident. The strange thing is the allocation of the same serial and registration numbers to a totally different vehicle. We have seen a black and white photograph of the wagon, when new with a conventional Atkinson gritter body. This was replaced with the French body now fitted. This has water tanks and can spread the salt with water, made of plastic and stainless steel, it appears unused. The wagon itself was unloved and un driven, we think, because of the Twin splitter gearbox, which wasn’t suitable for the drivers employed on the motorway gritting teams. With 30,000 km on the clock, mostly service miles, the wagon is like new. Other than sag in the roof lining material the cab interior is like new. I’m guessing that it saw very little actual work, subsequently it doesn’t have the fantastic paint job of the newer 4000 series, the result of being sandblasted and two pack painted. OYE has been touched up, a bit of a splodge here and there. There is a total lack of corrosion, it just needs a good respray and it would be like new. A new set of tyres fitted in 2003 still have the stickers on them. The long and the short of it is that this is a much newer wagon. The 4000 series cab was available in 1987, I bought one on an E plate, the last generation of S10 was still available in 1986 on a D plate so I reckon it would be built around this time.

 

There are only a few 4000 series gritters survived in the UK but some went to Ireland and others to Eastern Europe. Presumably Roger Geeson was allowed to export to countries where it wouldn't affect the sales of the suppliers of the new gritting fleet - this appeared to be why there was a restriction on sales in the UK.

 

If anyone has more to add regarding this story please let me Know.

 

I couldn’t resist adding my other two Fodens to the line-up, customers were coming and going at the same time hence some other motors in there. I decided to add some cab interior shots a day or two later, just for the record as it were.

 

To see more about J B Schofield and Sons and the history of the business and its 33 years as a gritting contractor, look here www.jbschofieldandsons.co.uk/

 

I did a fairly extensive photo shoot with my Fodens the other day. Having dug the Fodens out for the first time in ages I gave them a wash to get rid of eight months’ worth of dust. I wanted something to photograph with the new gear to start and get a feel for it, there are some photographs with the EOS M but most are with the 5D. They will appear repetitive but for my own reasons I have decided to upload most of the shoot.

M462LYL was one of the 400 or so 4000 series gritters that were supplied to the Highways Agency over a period of years to replace the S80 series Fodens, that we had five of. This wagon would have been scrapped along with most of the others but for the intervention of Stuart Kaye. Although it is in exceptional condition so were most of them, regardless, they had to be scrapped and not sold back onto the UK market. A scandalous waste of money, many had been extensively (and expensively) refurbished to a very high standard – total rebuilds – they were still scrapped. A Cummins 325 and six speed auto box makes this wagon very nice to drive empty! I very much doubt that the auto box and gearing would get up our local hills fully loaded and certainly not if pushing a plough. The wagon has covered 85,000 km and other than corrosion caused by salty hands the cab interior is very good.

 

I bought a second 4000 series, but just the chassis cab. The scrapping contract allowed for chassis or gritter bodies to be sold separately. Once separated the body takes a lot of refitting. There are hundreds of wires in plastic trunking and they just hacked through them, you couldn’t overstate the scale of the job of refitting, cost effectively, a body back onto one of the original chassis. I had sourced a dump truck body from an MOD Foden Alpha that would fit nicely on the 4000 chassis. We use this around the yard alongside our 1960’s Foden dumper.

 

It was whilst looking at the chassis cabs with Stuart in Geesons at Ripley that we saw OYE779Y, parked up with a plough fitted, it was minus 11 during this period and almost every motor in the yard had flat batteries, which the frost had then killed completely. We didn’t get to see a motor running but I ended up buying two including OYE. As soon as I saw this motor I knew that there was something strange about it. A Paccar (Kenworth) chassis, Cummins L10 250, Eaton Twinsplitter and Rockwell axles, with a 4000 series cab. As a regular buyer and driver of Fodens in the 80’s and 90’s I knew that these components weren’t available in 1982, when it was allegedly built. I had a new Foden the same month as this motor was supposed to have been built, December 1982. BYG167Y had Foden chassis and S10 cab, the Twinsplitter hadn’t been invented at this point. The serial number stamped on the chassis relates to an S80 series gritter, one of the previous generation, with Foden Gearbox, chassis, axles and Rolls Royce 265L engine. This is what the Foden Microfiche build sheet still shows for this serial number.

 

OYE779Y seems to have been built to replace the original, which was written off in a serious accident. The strange thing is the allocation of the same serial and registration numbers to a totally different vehicle. We have seen a black and white photograph of the wagon, when new with a conventional Atkinson gritter body. This was replaced with the French body now fitted. This has water tanks and can spread the salt with water, made of plastic and stainless steel, it appears unused. The wagon itself was unloved and un driven, we think, because of the Twin splitter gearbox, which wasn’t suitable for the drivers employed on the motorway gritting teams. With 30,000 km on the clock, mostly service miles, the wagon is like new. Other than sag in the roof lining material the cab interior is like new. I’m guessing that it saw very little actual work, subsequently it doesn’t have the fantastic paint job of the newer 4000 series, the result of being sandblasted and two pack painted. OYE has been touched up, a bit of a splodge here and there. There is a total lack of corrosion, it just needs a good respray and it would be like new. A new set of tyres fitted in 2003 still have the stickers on them. The long and the short of it is that this is a much newer wagon. The 4000 series cab was available in 1987, I bought one on an E plate, the last generation of S10 was still available in 1986 on a D plate so I reckon it would be built around this time.

 

There are only a few 4000 series gritters survived in the UK but some went to Ireland and others to Eastern Europe. Presumably Roger Geeson was allowed to export to countries where it wouldn't affect the sales of the suppliers of the new gritting fleet - this appeared to be why there was a restriction on sales in the UK.

 

If anyone has more to add regarding this story please let me Know.

 

I couldn’t resist adding my other two Fodens to the line-up, customers were coming and going at the same time hence some other motors in there. I decided to add some cab interior shots a day or two later, just for the record as it were.

 

To see more about J B Schofield and Sons and the history of the business and its 33 years as a gritting contractor, look here www.jbschofieldandsons.co.uk/

 

I did a fairly extensive photo shoot with my Fodens the other day. Having dug the Fodens out for the first time in ages I gave them a wash to get rid of eight months’ worth of dust. I wanted something to photograph with the new gear to start and get a feel for it, there are some photographs with the EOS M but most are with the 5D. They will appear repetitive but for my own reasons I have decided to upload most of the shoot.

M462LYL was one of the 400 or so 4000 series gritters that were supplied to the Highways Agency over a period of years to replace the S80 series Fodens, that we had five of. This wagon would have been scrapped along with most of the others but for the intervention of Stuart Kaye. Although it is in exceptional condition so were most of them, regardless, they had to be scrapped and not sold back onto the UK market. A scandalous waste of money, many had been extensively (and expensively) refurbished to a very high standard – total rebuilds – they were still scrapped. A Cummins 325 and six speed auto box makes this wagon very nice to drive empty! I very much doubt that the auto box and gearing would get up our local hills fully loaded and certainly not if pushing a plough. The wagon has covered 85,000 km and other than corrosion caused by salty hands the cab interior is very good.

 

I bought a second 4000 series, but just the chassis cab. The scrapping contract allowed for chassis or gritter bodies to be sold separately. Once separated the body takes a lot of refitting. There are hundreds of wires in plastic trunking and they just hacked through them, you couldn’t overstate the scale of the job of refitting, cost effectively, a body back onto one of the original chassis. I had sourced a dump truck body from an MOD Foden Alpha that would fit nicely on the 4000 chassis. We use this around the yard alongside our 1960’s Foden dumper.

 

It was whilst looking at the chassis cabs with Stuart in Geesons at Ripley that we saw OYE779Y, parked up with a plough fitted, it was minus 11 during this period and almost every motor in the yard had flat batteries, which the frost had then killed completely. We didn’t get to see a motor running but I ended up buying two including OYE. As soon as I saw this motor I knew that there was something strange about it. A Paccar (Kenworth) chassis, Cummins L10 250, Eaton Twinsplitter and Rockwell axles, with a 4000 series cab. As a regular buyer and driver of Fodens in the 80’s and 90’s I knew that these components weren’t available in 1982, when it was allegedly built. I had a new Foden the same month as this motor was supposed to have been built, December 1982. BYG167Y had Foden chassis and S10 cab, the Twinsplitter hadn’t been invented at this point. The serial number stamped on the chassis relates to an S80 series gritter, one of the previous generation, with Foden Gearbox, chassis, axles and Rolls Royce 265L engine. This is what the Foden Microfiche build sheet still shows for this serial number.

 

OYE779Y seems to have been built to replace the original, which was written off in a serious accident. The strange thing is the allocation of the same serial and registration numbers to a totally different vehicle. We have seen a black and white photograph of the wagon, when new with a conventional Atkinson gritter body. This was replaced with the French body now fitted. This has water tanks and can spread the salt with water, made of plastic and stainless steel, it appears unused. The wagon itself was unloved and un driven, we think, because of the Twin splitter gearbox, which wasn’t suitable for the drivers employed on the motorway gritting teams. With 30,000 km on the clock, mostly service miles, the wagon is like new. Other than sag in the roof lining material the cab interior is like new. I’m guessing that it saw very little actual work, subsequently it doesn’t have the fantastic paint job of the newer 4000 series, the result of being sandblasted and two pack painted. OYE has been touched up, a bit of a splodge here and there. There is a total lack of corrosion, it just needs a good respray and it would be like new. A new set of tyres fitted in 2003 still have the stickers on them. The long and the short of it is that this is a much newer wagon. The 4000 series cab was available in 1987, I bought one on an E plate, the last generation of S10 was still available in 1986 on a D plate so I reckon it would be built around this time.

 

There are only a few 4000 series gritters survived in the UK but some went to Ireland and others to Eastern Europe. Presumably Roger Geeson was allowed to export to countries where it wouldn't affect the sales of the suppliers of the new gritting fleet - this appeared to be why there was a restriction on sales in the UK.

 

If anyone has more to add regarding this story please let me Know.

 

I couldn’t resist adding my other two Fodens to the line-up, customers were coming and going at the same time hence some other motors in there. I decided to add some cab interior shots a day or two later, just for the record as it were.

 

To see more about J B Schofield and Sons and the history of the business and its 33 years as a gritting contractor, look here www.jbschofieldandsons.co.uk/

 

I did a fairly extensive photo shoot with my Fodens the other day. Having dug the Fodens out for the first time in ages I gave them a wash to get rid of eight months’ worth of dust. I wanted something to photograph with the new gear to start and get a feel for it, there are some photographs with the EOS M but most are with the 5D. They will appear repetitive but for my own reasons I have decided to upload most of the shoot.

M462LYL was one of the 400 or so 4000 series gritters that were supplied to the Highways Agency over a period of years to replace the S80 series Fodens, that we had five of. This wagon would have been scrapped along with most of the others but for the intervention of Stuart Kaye. Although it is in exceptional condition so were most of them, regardless, they had to be scrapped and not sold back onto the UK market. A scandalous waste of money, many had been extensively (and expensively) refurbished to a very high standard – total rebuilds – they were still scrapped. A Cummins 325 and six speed auto box makes this wagon very nice to drive empty! I very much doubt that the auto box and gearing would get up our local hills fully loaded and certainly not if pushing a plough. The wagon has covered 85,000 km and other than corrosion caused by salty hands the cab interior is very good.

 

I bought a second 4000 series, but just the chassis cab. The scrapping contract allowed for chassis or gritter bodies to be sold separately. Once separated the body takes a lot of refitting. There are hundreds of wires in plastic trunking and they just hacked through them, you couldn’t overstate the scale of the job of refitting, cost effectively, a body back onto one of the original chassis. I had sourced a dump truck body from an MOD Foden Alpha that would fit nicely on the 4000 chassis. We use this around the yard alongside our 1960’s Foden dumper.

 

It was whilst looking at the chassis cabs with Stuart in Geesons at Ripley that we saw OYE779Y, parked up with a plough fitted, it was minus 11 during this period and almost every motor in the yard had flat batteries, which the frost had then killed completely. We didn’t get to see a motor running but I ended up buying two including OYE. As soon as I saw this motor I knew that there was something strange about it. A Paccar (Kenworth) chassis, Cummins L10 250, Eaton Twinsplitter and Rockwell axles, with a 4000 series cab. As a regular buyer and driver of Fodens in the 80’s and 90’s I knew that these components weren’t available in 1982, when it was allegedly built. I had a new Foden the same month as this motor was supposed to have been built, December 1982. BYG167Y had Foden chassis and S10 cab, the Twinsplitter hadn’t been invented at this point. The serial number stamped on the chassis relates to an S80 series gritter, one of the previous generation, with Foden Gearbox, chassis, axles and Rolls Royce 265L engine. This is what the Foden Microfiche build sheet still shows for this serial number.

 

OYE779Y seems to have been built to replace the original, which was written off in a serious accident. The strange thing is the allocation of the same serial and registration numbers to a totally different vehicle. We have seen a black and white photograph of the wagon, when new with a conventional Atkinson gritter body. This was replaced with the French body now fitted. This has water tanks and can spread the salt with water, made of plastic and stainless steel, it appears unused. The wagon itself was unloved and un driven, we think, because of the Twin splitter gearbox, which wasn’t suitable for the drivers employed on the motorway gritting teams. With 30,000 km on the clock, mostly service miles, the wagon is like new. Other than sag in the roof lining material the cab interior is like new. I’m guessing that it saw very little actual work, subsequently it doesn’t have the fantastic paint job of the newer 4000 series, the result of being sandblasted and two pack painted. OYE has been touched up, a bit of a splodge here and there. There is a total lack of corrosion, it just needs a good respray and it would be like new. A new set of tyres fitted in 2003 still have the stickers on them. The long and the short of it is that this is a much newer wagon. The 4000 series cab was available in 1987, I bought one on an E plate, the last generation of S10 was still available in 1986 on a D plate so I reckon it would be built around this time.

 

There are only a few 4000 series gritters survived in the UK but some went to Ireland and others to Eastern Europe. Presumably Roger Geeson was allowed to export to countries where it wouldn't affect the sales of the suppliers of the new gritting fleet - this appeared to be why there was a restriction on sales in the UK.

 

If anyone has more to add regarding this story please let me Know.

 

I couldn’t resist adding my other two Fodens to the line-up, customers were coming and going at the same time hence some other motors in there. I decided to add some cab interior shots a day or two later, just for the record as it were.

 

To see more about J B Schofield and Sons and the history of the business and its 33 years as a gritting contractor, look here www.jbschofieldandsons.co.uk/

 

I did a fairly extensive photo shoot with my Fodens the other day. Having dug the Fodens out for the first time in ages I gave them a wash to get rid of eight months’ worth of dust. I wanted something to photograph with the new gear to start and get a feel for it, there are some photographs with the EOS M but most are with the 5D. They will appear repetitive but for my own reasons I have decided to upload most of the shoot.

M462LYL was one of the 400 or so 4000 series gritters that were supplied to the Highways Agency over a period of years to replace the S80 series Fodens, that we had five of. This wagon would have been scrapped along with most of the others but for the intervention of Stuart Kaye. Although it is in exceptional condition so were most of them, regardless, they had to be scrapped and not sold back onto the UK market. A scandalous waste of money, many had been extensively (and expensively) refurbished to a very high standard – total rebuilds – they were still scrapped. A Cummins 325 and six speed auto box makes this wagon very nice to drive empty! I very much doubt that the auto box and gearing would get up our local hills fully loaded and certainly not if pushing a plough. The wagon has covered 85,000 km and other than corrosion caused by salty hands the cab interior is very good.

 

I bought a second 4000 series, but just the chassis cab. The scrapping contract allowed for chassis or gritter bodies to be sold separately. Once separated the body takes a lot of refitting. There are hundreds of wires in plastic trunking and they just hacked through them, you couldn’t overstate the scale of the job of refitting, cost effectively, a body back onto one of the original chassis. I had sourced a dump truck body from an MOD Foden Alpha that would fit nicely on the 4000 chassis. We use this around the yard alongside our 1960’s Foden dumper.

 

It was whilst looking at the chassis cabs with Stuart in Geesons at Ripley that we saw OYE779Y, parked up with a plough fitted, it was minus 11 during this period and almost every motor in the yard had flat batteries, which the frost had then killed completely. We didn’t get to see a motor running but I ended up buying two including OYE. As soon as I saw this motor I knew that there was something strange about it. A Paccar (Kenworth) chassis, Cummins L10 250, Eaton Twinsplitter and Rockwell axles, with a 4000 series cab. As a regular buyer and driver of Fodens in the 80’s and 90’s I knew that these components weren’t available in 1982, when it was allegedly built. I had a new Foden the same month as this motor was supposed to have been built, December 1982. BYG167Y had Foden chassis and S10 cab, the Twinsplitter hadn’t been invented at this point. The serial number stamped on the chassis relates to an S80 series gritter, one of the previous generation, with Foden Gearbox, chassis, axles and Rolls Royce 265L engine. This is what the Foden Microfiche build sheet still shows for this serial number.

 

OYE779Y seems to have been built to replace the original, which was written off in a serious accident. The strange thing is the allocation of the same serial and registration numbers to a totally different vehicle. We have seen a black and white photograph of the wagon, when new with a conventional Atkinson gritter body. This was replaced with the French body now fitted. This has water tanks and can spread the salt with water, made of plastic and stainless steel, it appears unused. The wagon itself was unloved and un driven, we think, because of the Twin splitter gearbox, which wasn’t suitable for the drivers employed on the motorway gritting teams. With 30,000 km on the clock, mostly service miles, the wagon is like new. Other than sag in the roof lining material the cab interior is like new. I’m guessing that it saw very little actual work, subsequently it doesn’t have the fantastic paint job of the newer 4000 series, the result of being sandblasted and two pack painted. OYE has been touched up, a bit of a splodge here and there. There is a total lack of corrosion, it just needs a good respray and it would be like new. A new set of tyres fitted in 2003 still have the stickers on them. The long and the short of it is that this is a much newer wagon. The 4000 series cab was available in 1987, I bought one on an E plate, the last generation of S10 was still available in 1986 on a D plate so I reckon it would be built around this time.

 

There are only a few 4000 series gritters survived in the UK but some went to Ireland and others to Eastern Europe. Presumably Roger Geeson was allowed to export to countries where it wouldn't affect the sales of the suppliers of the new gritting fleet - this appeared to be why there was a restriction on sales in the UK.

 

If anyone has more to add regarding this story please let me Know.

 

I couldn’t resist adding my other two Fodens to the line-up, customers were coming and going at the same time hence some other motors in there. I decided to add some cab interior shots a day or two later, just for the record as it were.

 

To see more about J B Schofield and Sons and the history of the business and its 33 years as a gritting contractor, look here www.jbschofieldandsons.co.uk/

 

I did a fairly extensive photo shoot with my Fodens the other day. Having dug the Fodens out for the first time in ages I gave them a wash to get rid of eight months’ worth of dust. I wanted something to photograph with the new gear to start and get a feel for it, there are some photographs with the EOS M but most are with the 5D. They will appear repetitive but for my own reasons I have decided to upload most of the shoot.

M462LYL was one of the 400 or so 4000 series gritters that were supplied to the Highways Agency over a period of years to replace the S80 series Fodens, that we had five of. This wagon would have been scrapped along with most of the others but for the intervention of Stuart Kaye. Although it is in exceptional condition so were most of them, regardless, they had to be scrapped and not sold back onto the UK market. A scandalous waste of money, many had been extensively (and expensively) refurbished to a very high standard – total rebuilds – they were still scrapped. A Cummins 325 and six speed auto box makes this wagon very nice to drive empty! I very much doubt that the auto box and gearing would get up our local hills fully loaded and certainly not if pushing a plough. The wagon has covered 85,000 km and other than corrosion caused by salty hands the cab interior is very good.

 

I bought a second 4000 series, but just the chassis cab. The scrapping contract allowed for chassis or gritter bodies to be sold separately. Once separated the body takes a lot of refitting. There are hundreds of wires in plastic trunking and they just hacked through them, you couldn’t overstate the scale of the job of refitting, cost effectively, a body back onto one of the original chassis. I had sourced a dump truck body from an MOD Foden Alpha that would fit nicely on the 4000 chassis. We use this around the yard alongside our 1960’s Foden dumper.

 

It was whilst looking at the chassis cabs with Stuart in Geesons at Ripley that we saw OYE779Y, parked up with a plough fitted, it was minus 11 during this period and almost every motor in the yard had flat batteries, which the frost had then killed completely. We didn’t get to see a motor running but I ended up buying two including OYE. As soon as I saw this motor I knew that there was something strange about it. A Paccar (Kenworth) chassis, Cummins L10 250, Eaton Twinsplitter and Rockwell axles, with a 4000 series cab. As a regular buyer and driver of Fodens in the 80’s and 90’s I knew that these components weren’t available in 1982, when it was allegedly built. I had a new Foden the same month as this motor was supposed to have been built, December 1982. BYG167Y had Foden chassis and S10 cab, the Twinsplitter hadn’t been invented at this point. The serial number stamped on the chassis relates to an S80 series gritter, one of the previous generation, with Foden Gearbox, chassis, axles and Rolls Royce 265L engine. This is what the Foden Microfiche build sheet still shows for this serial number.

 

OYE779Y seems to have been built to replace the original, which was written off in a serious accident. The strange thing is the allocation of the same serial and registration numbers to a totally different vehicle. We have seen a black and white photograph of the wagon, when new with a conventional Atkinson gritter body. This was replaced with the French body now fitted. This has water tanks and can spread the salt with water, made of plastic and stainless steel, it appears unused. The wagon itself was unloved and un driven, we think, because of the Twin splitter gearbox, which wasn’t suitable for the drivers employed on the motorway gritting teams. With 30,000 km on the clock, mostly service miles, the wagon is like new. Other than sag in the roof lining material the cab interior is like new. I’m guessing that it saw very little actual work, subsequently it doesn’t have the fantastic paint job of the newer 4000 series, the result of being sandblasted and two pack painted. OYE has been touched up, a bit of a splodge here and there. There is a total lack of corrosion, it just needs a good respray and it would be like new. A new set of tyres fitted in 2003 still have the stickers on them. The long and the short of it is that this is a much newer wagon. The 4000 series cab was available in 1987, I bought one on an E plate, the last generation of S10 was still available in 1986 on a D plate so I reckon it would be built around this time.

 

There are only a few 4000 series gritters survived in the UK but some went to Ireland and others to Eastern Europe. Presumably Roger Geeson was allowed to export to countries where it wouldn't affect the sales of the suppliers of the new gritting fleet - this appeared to be why there was a restriction on sales in the UK.

 

If anyone has more to add regarding this story please let me Know.

 

I couldn’t resist adding my other two Fodens to the line-up, customers were coming and going at the same time hence some other motors in there. I decided to add some cab interior shots a day or two later, just for the record as it were.

 

To see more about J B Schofield and Sons and the history of the business and its 33 years as a gritting contractor, look here www.jbschofieldandsons.co.uk/

 

I did a fairly extensive photo shoot with my Fodens the other day. Having dug the Fodens out for the first time in ages I gave them a wash to get rid of eight months’ worth of dust. I wanted something to photograph with the new gear to start and get a feel for it, there are some photographs with the EOS M but most are with the 5D. They will appear repetitive but for my own reasons I have decided to upload most of the shoot.

M462LYL was one of the 400 or so 4000 series gritters that were supplied to the Highways Agency over a period of years to replace the S80 series Fodens, that we had five of. This wagon would have been scrapped along with most of the others but for the intervention of Stuart Kaye. Although it is in exceptional condition so were most of them, regardless, they had to be scrapped and not sold back onto the UK market. A scandalous waste of money, many had been extensively (and expensively) refurbished to a very high standard – total rebuilds – they were still scrapped. A Cummins 325 and six speed auto box makes this wagon very nice to drive empty! I very much doubt that the auto box and gearing would get up our local hills fully loaded and certainly not if pushing a plough. The wagon has covered 85,000 km and other than corrosion caused by salty hands the cab interior is very good.

 

I bought a second 4000 series, but just the chassis cab. The scrapping contract allowed for chassis or gritter bodies to be sold separately. Once separated the body takes a lot of refitting. There are hundreds of wires in plastic trunking and they just hacked through them, you couldn’t overstate the scale of the job of refitting, cost effectively, a body back onto one of the original chassis. I had sourced a dump truck body from an MOD Foden Alpha that would fit nicely on the 4000 chassis. We use this around the yard alongside our 1960’s Foden dumper.

 

It was whilst looking at the chassis cabs with Stuart in Geesons at Ripley that we saw OYE779Y, parked up with a plough fitted, it was minus 11 during this period and almost every motor in the yard had flat batteries, which the frost had then killed completely. We didn’t get to see a motor running but I ended up buying two including OYE. As soon as I saw this motor I knew that there was something strange about it. A Paccar (Kenworth) chassis, Cummins L10 250, Eaton Twinsplitter and Rockwell axles, with a 4000 series cab. As a regular buyer and driver of Fodens in the 80’s and 90’s I knew that these components weren’t available in 1982, when it was allegedly built. I had a new Foden the same month as this motor was supposed to have been built, December 1982. BYG167Y had Foden chassis and S10 cab, the Twinsplitter hadn’t been invented at this point. The serial number stamped on the chassis relates to an S80 series gritter, one of the previous generation, with Foden Gearbox, chassis, axles and Rolls Royce 265L engine. This is what the Foden Microfiche build sheet still shows for this serial number.

 

OYE779Y seems to have been built to replace the original, which was written off in a serious accident. The strange thing is the allocation of the same serial and registration numbers to a totally different vehicle. We have seen a black and white photograph of the wagon, when new with a conventional Atkinson gritter body. This was replaced with the French body now fitted. This has water tanks and can spread the salt with water, made of plastic and stainless steel, it appears unused. The wagon itself was unloved and un driven, we think, because of the Twin splitter gearbox, which wasn’t suitable for the drivers employed on the motorway gritting teams. With 30,000 km on the clock, mostly service miles, the wagon is like new. Other than sag in the roof lining material the cab interior is like new. I’m guessing that it saw very little actual work, subsequently it doesn’t have the fantastic paint job of the newer 4000 series, the result of being sandblasted and two pack painted. OYE has been touched up, a bit of a splodge here and there. There is a total lack of corrosion, it just needs a good respray and it would be like new. A new set of tyres fitted in 2003 still have the stickers on them. The long and the short of it is that this is a much newer wagon. The 4000 series cab was available in 1987, I bought one on an E plate, the last generation of S10 was still available in 1986 on a D plate so I reckon it would be built around this time.

 

There are only a few 4000 series gritters survived in the UK but some went to Ireland and others to Eastern Europe. Presumably Roger Geeson was allowed to export to countries where it wouldn't affect the sales of the suppliers of the new gritting fleet - this appeared to be why there was a restriction on sales in the UK.

 

If anyone has more to add regarding this story please let me Know.

 

I couldn’t resist adding my other two Fodens to the line-up, customers were coming and going at the same time hence some other motors in there. I decided to add some cab interior shots a day or two later, just for the record as it were.

 

To see more about J B Schofield and Sons and the history of the business and its 33 years as a gritting contractor, look here www.jbschofieldandsons.co.uk/