3m 39s: Lenght
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1971 BEDFORD TK KGA 20TON (19.5T) ARTIC LORRY DRIVETRAIN. KM TYPE 466/70 SERIES TWO SPEED REAR END COUPLED TO 1966 23FT PRIMROSE SINGLE AXLE TRAILER (13TON)payload. my late father joey and jim spurgeon of spurgeon transport of hitchin were users of the bedford mart for many years this lorry was restored as a tribute to these men and many others who ran or drove these motors the above people hauled produce to all the fruit and veg wholesale markets around the uk. we mostly collected produce from east anglian and kent farms and all hand balled on and off until the late seventies and all roped and sheeted. many small hauliers like ourselve's from all over the uk were employed on market work and many other makes of lorry too including commer dodge ford aec and leyland etc. some areas standardized on certain lorries to a degree e.g kent hauliers on soft fruit liked AEC'S and ford six wheeler flats while others such the cambridgeshire fens and bedfordshire hauliers liked dodges and commers but many like us ran bedford our first was the chev type of the early 30s since then we've had o/s/a/j tk kh/km tm tl rigids and artics.along with a few others britishs marts.... i like to thank eddie and jims son andy 'both hard working drivers whose families were involved with the market haulage game for many years for all their help with this motor 'good drivers who'd handle any motor 'bless them. this would have been loaded in its day with 12 ton loads of potatoes or onions or carrots 'the spuds had to have straw on them in the winter before the sheet went on 'then straw on the top of the canvas sheet then the fly sheet or the whole load could be rejected at the stand in the market due to blight or wets. happy days then came the supermarkets and life got stupid. although compared with the non mass produced lorries bedfords and ford d series commer ts3 dodge k series and bmcs boxer/mastiff and the perkins engined seddon 13 series were at the cheaper end of many larger fleets but if you look at any archive footage of covent garden market the bedford rules out right with ford close behind but only in the later part of seventies many people feel the bedford KHA artic unit with the leyland 400power plus engine was best out of a bad bunch i can only give my account of the 446 bedford engine which worked in most of our lorries from 12ton to 24ton it proved it self time and time again 'whether pulling a 16ton load of spuds axle deep out of a field or pulling up hills like the jubilee way dover with new cyprus potatoes. slow but sure. jimmy spurgeon ran many km artics always maximum weight. lots of people ran better or faster motors ''and some motors of the day like the erf and albion were built to last 'but the bedford is still out there