Tony Graves Posted February 2, 2011 Share Posted February 2, 2011 hi dizzy , pickfords had nine diamonds in their fleet, they all finished in the early sixties in various forms including brs, a couple ended up as wreckers including egg 570 which i believe is owned by mark walker. interesting to note that diamond fyv 741 which was the second diamond used on the road was written off after falling through the bridge at boroughbridge , many years later obviously another diamond with the same registration was photographed hauling many heavy loads. hope of interest , tony g. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
radiomike7 Posted February 3, 2011 Share Posted February 3, 2011 The incident at Boroughbridge in 1945, new trailer, DT and roll housing in the river Ure with what looks like some sort of BARV helping with the recovery. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
utt61 Posted February 3, 2011 Share Posted February 3, 2011 Somewhere I have a print of this photo which is, if I recall correctly, less cropped at the bottom. If my memory serves me right, it is an armoured bulldozer of some kind working in the river. If I can find the picture tonight I will check. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
diamond-t-steve Posted February 3, 2011 Share Posted February 3, 2011 (edited) There is 3 photographs of this incident taken from different angles in Les Freathy and Robin Pearsons book. There is a bulldozer working in the river but it's not armoured. According to the same source Pickfords had 12 Diamond's in all. Steve.... Edited February 3, 2011 by diamond-t-steve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adrian Barrell Posted February 3, 2011 Share Posted February 3, 2011 Somewhere I have a print of this photo which is, if I recall correctly, less cropped at the bottom. If my memory serves me right, it is an armoured bulldozer of some kind working in the river. If I can find the picture tonight I will check. It is an armoured Caterpillar D7. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
utt61 Posted February 3, 2011 Share Posted February 3, 2011 There is 3 photographs of this incident taken from different angles in Les Freathy and Robin Pearsons book. There is a bulldozer working in the river but it's not armoured.According to the same source Pickfords had 12 Diamond's in all. Steve.... Speaking of this - excellent - book, there is a photo in it of a DT signwritten for "Middle Garage" Combe Martin in North Devon. Does anyone know either what became of it (the DT) or where exactly in Combe Martin "Middle Garage" was? Bearing in mind the nature of the roads in and out of CM even today, it must have been quite something to meet a DT coming the other way! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Graves Posted February 3, 2011 Share Posted February 3, 2011 hi, the machine in radio mikes photo is an armoured cat d7, the machine in les,s book is a cat d8 dozer, all the best .tony g . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
diamond-t-steve Posted February 3, 2011 Share Posted February 3, 2011 Hi Tony. I have only just joined the site and seeing this photograph promted me to reply. The Diamond in the photograph belonged to a company called Albert Road Recovery that was originaly based in Albert Road Romford. It was indeed fitted with a 110 Scania engine and the power steering was from a volvo F88. The soft top Diamond was painted maroon inside the cab and had a rather loud pair of railway locomotive horns under the bonnet, controled by a lever on the floor to the left of the drivers seat. It did have an home made copy of a tfl extending recovery crane in the back that was removed before Albert (the then owner) sold it. The soft top was replaced after the canvas one rotted with a metal roof that rattled like hell when the engine was ticking over. I have a 15min film of the soft top "T" pulling over part of a disused Tarmac plant in Upminster in 1987 that I paid a budding film maker to shoot as I did the job.. It was good to see the photograph as it re kindled some good memories. Steve..... P.S The truck to the left of the pic is a Leyland Martian and the other side was a 15 tonne Coles crane... Hi all I have at last had the VHS film I had made of me pulling over part of a disused tarmac plant back in 1987 transfered to DVD. I am trying to upload the film onto youtube but it is slow going as I only have a mobile connection and it is not very fast. In the meantime here is 3 stills and if anyone wants to see the film I will let you know when I've managed to upload it. Steve.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Graves Posted February 3, 2011 Share Posted February 3, 2011 hi steve, i clearly remember the yellow diamond, a bowaters 8 wheeler had gone over in dagenham loaded with huge paper reels and i remember the diamond winching the reels upright, it had the original hercules in it and was named :chicago crawler:. a chap named john hume bought it and took it to beltring one year, after that it was totally stripped down in his front garden and i do not know if it was finished, i lost contact with john but it would be nice to know if the diamond is still around and john as well, all the best tony g. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
diamond-t-steve Posted February 3, 2011 Share Posted February 3, 2011 (edited) Hi tony There is some black and white pictures Les Freathy posted on this thread ages ago of the same DT. It had A.I.D. Wreckers painted on the battery boxes. A.I.D. was the owners initials, Albert Ivor Davies. I worked for them for about 12 years on and off. I would like to see the old girl again and I could fill in some of her history for the current owner. It was that DT that started me off in the hobby, I used to love driving it. Did you know that she was used together with an Antar and a Martian to pull the top off of a gas ometer that failed to collapse after it was blown down, at the Ford factory at Dagenham next to the old A13 ...unfortunatly I did not have a camera then :-( Steve... Edited February 3, 2011 by diamond-t-steve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
diamond-t-steve Posted February 3, 2011 Share Posted February 3, 2011 "AT LAST" I have managed to post the DT film on youtube ( I am the camera shy grubby one in the film ) God I feel old after watching it. Steve... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyFowler Posted February 3, 2011 Author Share Posted February 3, 2011 Nice one Steve ! Well worth the wait ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
diamond-t-steve Posted February 3, 2011 Share Posted February 3, 2011 I'm glad you like it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dizzy-t Posted February 4, 2011 Share Posted February 4, 2011 To the person wishing to know where MIddle Garage in Combe Martin is, I think there is only one garage there and its down near the harbour, this would actually not be half way, as the village street is the longest in the UK, as you are coming down to the harbour the garage would be on your left, if my memory serves me correctly, I have never seen any breakdown truck there. Thanks for putting the video on this site, I have watched it and think its one of the best on YouTube. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
diamond-t-steve Posted February 5, 2011 Share Posted February 5, 2011 To the person wishing to know where MIddle Garage in Combe Martin is, I think there is only one garage there and its down near the harbour, this would actually not be half way, as the village street is the longest in the UK, as you are coming down to the harbour the garage would be on your left, if my memory serves me correctly, I have never seen any breakdown truck there.Thanks for putting the video on this site, I have watched it and think its one of the best on YouTube. Thank you for your comments on my film. I did wonder if anyone would like it as it is a bit long unfortunatly I don't know how to edit films on my computer. Steve... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gritineye Posted February 5, 2011 Share Posted February 5, 2011 Thank you for your comments on my film. I did wonder if anyone would like it as it is a bit long unfortunatly I don't know how to edit films on my computer. Steve... Sometimes long is good, shows that those jobs take time, no overdubbed heavy metal track is good too! Good shot of using the scotches chained to the jib just as cosrec described in the recovery thread. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adrian Posted February 5, 2011 Share Posted February 5, 2011 Speaking of this - excellent - book, there is a photo in it of a DT signwritten for "Middle Garage" Combe Martin in North Devon. Does anyone know either what became of it (the DT) or where exactly in Combe Martin "Middle Garage" was? Bearing in mind the nature of the roads in and out of CM even today, it must have been quite something to meet a DT coming the other way! I think Jim Clark will back me up on this one but i am sure that Jason Jeffries owns this one and is in the Bristol area. If it is the one I am thinking of it regularly pulls Jim's Sherman. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mickeyfinn Posted February 6, 2011 Share Posted February 6, 2011 I want to make a model of the diamond T featured in message 313. I have got the airfix model and it appears to me that the model features a longer bonnet than the actual vehicle. Does anyone know if they did come with two length bonnets or am i just seeing things, There are some more shots of the diamond T here http://www.eye-kay.freeserve.co.uk/trams/blackpool/diamondt.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
les freathy Posted February 6, 2011 Share Posted February 6, 2011 I take it by airfix kit you mean the old Matchbox now Revell kit of the 980/981. It can be altered to represent the Blackpool wrecker you want to model which does have a shorter bonnet and also different shaped mudguards but you can buy a resin kit of the wrecker in 1/76 from Convoy models based at Hastings in Sussex i think they have a web site but not sure also in white metal BW models from Aberdeenshire produce models of the hard and soft top kits numbers bw231 and bw237 the web site is www.bwmodels.co.uk cheers Les Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
utt61 Posted February 7, 2011 Share Posted February 7, 2011 To the person wishing to know where MIddle Garage in Combe Martin is, I think there is only one garage there and its down near the harbour, this would actually not be half way, as the village street is the longest in the UK, as you are coming down to the harbour the garage would be on your left, if my memory serves me correctly, I have never seen any breakdown truck there.Thanks for putting the video on this site, I have watched it and think its one of the best on YouTube. There are actually three garages in CM at present - coming into the village from the Blackmoor Gate direction there is a filling station on the left as you enter the built up area, then about halfway to the front there is Hansons Garage (no fuel sales now, just car sales/servicing) and finally there is Lovering's right down towards the seafront. They are all on the left as you head towards the sea. I *think* that Hansons is what used to be Middle Garage, but no-one seems to know for sure any more, hence my hope that there was a DT expert here who might know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
diamond-t-steve Posted February 9, 2011 Share Posted February 9, 2011 Nice project on milweb for someone. An early 980 with a rogers located in Holland. All for just over 10k. http://www.milweb.net/webverts/56056/ Steve... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Graves Posted February 9, 2011 Share Posted February 9, 2011 hi steve, i thought the film of the t pulling the towers down was fantastic, i have a disc here of collecting my bishops heavy wrecker after 21 years laying in their shed and would like to know how you put the film on the website here and you tube, all the best tony g. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
diamond-t-steve Posted February 9, 2011 Share Posted February 9, 2011 (edited) Hi Tony. Thank you for your kind comments on my film I'm glad you like it :-D:-D . In answer to your question I will try to explain. Here goes, DVD's are in the wrong format to upload strait from a disk to youtube so you need to copy the disk to your hard drive first to re format the film to an mpeg, which you can't do to the disk. I found this site http://www.winxdvd.com/landing/free-dvd-ripper-02.htm?gclid=CLn1t5GB_KYCFUYifAodtHjnEw to download the softwear to my computer to do it. First download this softwear (it's free:cool2:) then open the program and use it to copy the disk to a file on your hard drive choosing the option of mpeg format when the program asks you. Once you have done that you log on to youtube and go through there instructions on uploading the film from the file you have created of the film on your hard drive and not from the disk. I hope you can follow this as I'm not a computer wizz. If you have a problem don't hesitate to ask but you should be ok. Good luck uploading your film and I'll look forward to seeing it. :-D:-D Regards, Steve.. P.S. The free softwear also has an option that allows you to capture still shots from any part of the the film, that is how I got the pictures that I posted on here. Edited February 9, 2011 by diamond-t-steve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Graves Posted February 15, 2011 Share Posted February 15, 2011 hi steve, we spent two and a half hours downloading the film onto u tube only to find after the 100% had finished the film was too long, 21 minutes, so i am going to put the video into part 1 and part 2. we are returning to the uk middle of march for two weeks and with the help of my son-in law we will try to post it on this site for you, all the best tony g. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dizzy-t Posted February 17, 2011 Share Posted February 17, 2011 Hope you have a good holiday Tony, will look forward to the film. Any more news on your other find. Carry on digging. Regards dizzy-t:computerrage: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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