It ain't over 'till it's over..........
Now then you lot, concerning RAF Constructors:
1) The red one which Paul rolled was Crouch's orange one, which before that was the James Street Motors orange recovery truck (I posted a pic a long while back of it with a radiator fan driven alternator as battery charger)
2) Paul got the green one from ?? and found part of an old work sheet in the cab with the reg no. 21BT41, so assumed quite reasonably that this matched the truck's i.d..
3) The grey one which Steve acquired - was this not the one from Gun Hill Garage/scrap yard near Colchester? It was grey and had "PSA" (Property or Public Services Agency - a govt department) on the cab door. The body was in the yard I was told, but Steve possibly did not realise at the time. Probably gone by now. I believe he bought it originall for the axles to get the ex. Geoff Rhodes one going again.
4) The red/grey one in Anglesssey was operated by TRS of Porth, north Wales before being bought by a farmer from the island. It has Explorer lockers grafted into the rear of the body. I believe it is still on the island.
5) Cyprus - can anyone say for sure that one has been repatriated from there? There was one on an old isolated and inaccessible airbase in the northern (?) part of the island. There was also one (shown in the photo) used by a transport company. Or were these one and the same?? There is also a civilian Constructor ballast tractor on the island, used with a trailer for carrying electrical transformers about, normally parked up in a layby and looking abandoned, but not!
6) There were 2 x 30T tractors and an RAF one in an old yard, completely surrounded by new housing, in the town of Soest in central Holland. They would have been only removable by (exceedingly) large crane or by dismantling. These were described with really nice photographs in an edition of the now defunct MV Magazine - an article by Nick Bullock - I have a poor photocopy but do not have the date of the magazine, can anyone help and scan pics please? I know someone who went to look at them but decided against, due to difficulty of removal (if anyone could have saved them, he would have!!)
7) The RAF Constructors were transferred to Army service after the RAF airfield construction regiments became part of the Engineer regiments. I have a list of 8 trucks with the new Army number, and (except for 3 case) the old RAF number, also the transfer date and disposal date. The W+P one (21BT41) unfortunately is one which does not have the RAF number (we have been trying to get evidence of both chassis and RAF number in order to establish if the chassis numbers and RAF numbers were consecutive). The reason only 8 trucks were transferred was probably due to the others being elsewhere in the world (e.g. the cyprus pair), these ones were never taken into Army service.
8) So there could be 20 - 8 = 12 RAF trucks unaccounted for so far. If we take the 2 on Cyprus (or maybe only 1 if the one photographed had in fact come from the airbase??), and the 1 in Soest, this leaves 9 or 10 still to be located. And this is assuming that all those known to exist were ex Army ones....
9) I have a photo of 60AN45 at an RAF open day 'somehere'. This number is not on the transfer list, so might be 21BT41. Only clue in photo is a sign on a shed behind truck "Exhibition of 16 MU Activities"
BE CAREFUL WHO YOU CALL AN ANORAK!