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Coopers of Kilamarsh Bought this lovely little thing to Alton Towers . R201WYD a Volvo B9M / Vanhool Alizee C38FT. Photo taken 14/07/23
Afghanistan: October 1971
The 37-seater AEC Reliance bus I was driving from Delhi back to London. In Afghanistan, I'd turned off the road from Kabul to Kandahar, to stop in a small town; I cannot remember the name of the place. The bus is shown parked outside a chaikhana (tea house) in the main street.
To fund the journey back to England I had needed to find as many passengers as possible to provide 'running money' for the bus; I was also behind schedule – and the next eastbound trip was scheduled to leave London for India on Sunday, 14 November 1971 – that was cutting it a bit fine. Finding passengers for the return journey to London was made easier by the daily deteriorating political situation between India and Pakistan; a state of war was expected to be declared at any moment, so there was no shortage of foreigners looking for a cheap means of transport to avoid being trapped in India. Some bought tickets only as far as Kabul but many paid to go as far as Europe. We put up notices in the New Delhi YMCA on Jai Singh Road, Connaught Place; and in a couple of other cheap hotels used by overland travellers, advertising the bus departure date and fares: Delhi to London was US$100 or £40 – payable in cash only – travellers cheques or any other currencies were not accepted. The fare to other destinations on that route was proportionately less. Every seat was filled – we could have filled the bus twice over.
On the Grand Trunk Road the main border crossing point into Pakistan had already been closed when we got there; however, an Indian Army officer told me that if I could drive down to Ferozepore that night, then that border would be open, only for a couple of hours, early the following morning, to allow foreign nationals to leave India. That turned out to be the quickest crossing between India and Pakistan.
Some people had got off in Kabul, but several more westbound passengers were booked at the Mustapha Hotel in Kabul – this was a popular and inexpensive establishment, not only to stay in, but to meet other travellers. Another attraction of the hotel was that the manager kept a discrete stock of bottled beer that had been brewed in Pakistan and smuggled into Afghanistan.
The weather was still comfortably warm in the part of Afghanistan where the photo was taken, but within a week I was driving through snow on dirt roads across northern Iran – I didn't know it then but this was a taste of what was to come on the following eastbound journey – the most extreme winter I've ever known.
Overland Park, Kansas Fire Department's Truck 44. 2007 Pierce Velocity 100' Platform Ladder.
Picture ID# 9383
Back from a two week trip to Colorado and New Mexico and starting to go through over 25GB of images. My hard drive on my old computer can't handle all the images, so I have to go through my old files and delete the obsolete and redundant in order to accommodate the new. It will be an ongoing process so I've decided to select and upload the pictures in roughly chronological order.
Special note to Simon K: this is the picture I was making when you and Jenny rolled up at the motel, :-).
The daily overnight Melbourne to Adelaide 'Overland' service (broad-gauge) - which I travelled on that night - awaits departure from Melbourne's Spencer Street station during August 1993. The service still continues today (on standard gauge), but is now a daylight run and only operates on two days per week.
Not a very high falls but quite beautiful and powerful. Located in Mount Robson Regional Park in British Columbia, Canada. A short hike from the highway. I will have limited internet access for the next six weeks, so I probably won't be able to respond to comments as I would like to.
Some of the passengers on the Safaris Overland trip to India, that left London in July 1971. In the front of the tonga are Hillary and Sylvia; in the rear are Marie and Alan — this was on a tour of Lahore, Pakistan.
CLP14 works a 6 car Overland plus empty motorail up the Callington curve on a wintery morning on 10-8-1996
Persepolis, Iran: 25 December 1971
The almost 600 mile journey from Tehran down to Persepolis took two days; the first day we got to Isfahan in the early afternoon and spent the night there. An early start on Christmas Day enabled us to have a few hours looking round the spectacular ruins of the ancient city of Persepolis. Rather surprisingly, the place was deserted, not a soul to be seen – we had the whole site to ourselves. That night we stayed in Shiraz before heading back north towards Tehran, with another night in Isfahan on the way.
Considering that the giant stone blocks in the main terrace had laid there over two-and-a-half thousand years they were in remarkable condition. The joints between each block were so well made that you couldn't have slid a piece of paper into the gaps. Sometime in the first part of the fourth century AD the city had been sacked by the invading armies of Alexander the Great. Today can be seen evidence of the destruction and damage, but even so there is still a lot left to see.
The enormous bazaar at Isfahan had been very quiet; it was quite different to the one at Istanbul where you can be endlessly pestered to buy this and that. In Isfahan there was also snow on the ground; I hadn't expected to see it this far south in Iran, but the city is on a plain at over 5,000 feet elevation.
a former new to overland and county malmesbury optare seen with greater manchester ? highly unusual for a large concern to buy from a small independent company. who knows more ?!
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Overland 20 is the latest incarnation of the original Terrahawks supply delivery vehicle..
Built onto Hot Wheels chassis.
Inspired by the Gerry Anderson Series.
Seen here at EMAD base working 3 pods full of supplies.
Vehicle and Diorama scratchbuilt,
I sleep in the Jeep... if you're curious about how the bed is done, be sure to check it out on Youtube here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=zv1YycfTLcs
*photos are downsized for web upload. If interested in licensing for private or commercial use, please contact us for hi-res versions.
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Showing Caernavon on the destination blind as the ultimate destination for the return journey 59 years in the past, AFM 105B was photographed, posed outside our hotel in Alassio. The latter backed onto the sea front. So far as I'm aware, its not recorded where the party stayed all those years ago.
Oddly, the firm for whom I inderectly began work back in 1978, Berresfords of Cheddleton had also sent two coaches overland to Alassio, one in the 1950s and one in the 1960s. Nice place that it is, I wonder what about it stood out as a continental tour destination specifically when you might have thought that the south of France would have been similar but more accessible.
Turkey: October 1971
This notorious stretch of road from Horosan to Agri in eastern Turkey has now been abandoned as a new route was opened up later in the 1970s that bypassed the old Tahir Pass. Being a dirt, or gravel road it was never a good surface to drive on — in summer it was hard to see where you were going because of the dust; in the rain it became a river of mud, and in the winter it was under snow for months on end. This road was part of the so-called Eurasian (or Euro-Asian) Highway, yet a lot of it was little more than a farm track. There were more heavy trucks using this road than cars or buses as it was the main trunk route from Europe, eastwards to Iran, Afghanistan, and the Indian subcontinent.
Later in 1971, when I was driving the same bus from London back out to Kabul on this road, it was essential to use snow chains on the rear wheels, from Erzurum to Agri. The landscape is hostile and barren; the climate can be extreme – during that 1971/72 winter the temperature fell to around -40° C. This caused problems with diesel fuel 'icing up' so it was common practice to add a small amount of petrol or paraffin (kerosene) to the diesel tank – not something to be recommended, but sometimes you had no other option. A common sight in the winter was to see a truck stopped, and the driver had lit a small fire under the fuel tank to thaw the diesel.
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More motorcycle images.
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