Leyland Marathon 2

[Jeremy Rowland]

Hi Folks,

Thought I'd post these two pics for you which come courtesy of my good friend Martin Dawson who used to drive this particular truck.
The first pic shows the truck loaded ready for a trip upto Salford, Martin tells me he did three such trips in the same day.
The second pic shows the truck outside The John 'O'Groats hotel on Wednesday 14/05/1980 he had just taken a similar delivery to the nuclear plant up at Dounray and he decided to take a slight de-tour on the way back and why not.
This particular truck was powered by the Leyland TL12 engine and not the Rolls Royce or even less common in Marathons Cummins NT.

Jeremy

[argie]

Nice looking oldie with american style flat, great photos, thanks for posting.
Paul

[martyn williams]

Talking about Leyland's,a picture of Karl Boston's Martian recovery truck.The usefull mounted crane being used to remove the heavy bits off a D8 under restoration.
Martyn

[Jeremy Rowland]

Hi Folks,

Well Martin has provided me with two more pics, sorry for the poor quality but these have been taken with an old Poleroid camera as were the other pics of his that I have posted, and they had "blobs" missing out of them and were very faded so I've done me best with Paintshop Pro
The first pic is of a Smith crane unloading his truck up at Salford, you can just about make out the name "DEW" of Oldham on the side and the other pic shows the truck at rest on Hamilton services on the trip upto Dounraey.

Jeremy

[Neversweat]

Jeremy

That looks a sturdy trailer behind that Marathon. We used to look after some Marathons early 80's.The bloke i worked with left the tacho head open on one which came up thruough the steering wheel.Climbing back in with it on tickover he pulled himself in on the wheel instead of the grab handles and snapped the tacho face off.

Didn't laugh much

Steve

[IBH]

The crawler crane is a Smith and belonged to George Dew of Oldham who merged with Pitchmastic to become Dew Pitchmastic who inturn collapsed into receivership in 2006, with Dew Piling sold to Lagan and the civil engineering operations sold to DCT Civil Engineering who started Dew Construction (Oldham) Ltd:
http://www.dewconstruction.co.uk/

[essexpete]

The Marathon looked like a jacked-up ergo cab? I have never looked inside, did it have a flat floor?

Thanks for the photos.

[Jeremy Rowland]

The Marathon looked like a jacked-up ergo cab? I have never looked inside, did it have a flat floor?

Thanks for the photos.

Yes Pete I'm pretty sure it had a flat floor and as for the Ergo cab I believe that this truck was AEC influenced don't know whether it was built at Southall and I'm not sure exactly when AEC's Southall works closed.
The AEC was another great British truck although I never got to work on one or drive one, my friend who took these pics used to drive AEC Mandators when he first worked at GKN before they replaced them with Seddon Atkinsons.

Jeremy

[Jeremy Rowland]

Hi Pete,

Well I've just checked out me facts here and I can tell you that the Marathon was indeed a true AEC that was built at AEC's Southall works until the spring of 1979 and then production was moved to the Scammell plant at Watford.
The TL12 engine was also a development of the AEC AV760 engine its production was moved to a new plant at Leyland and the old AEC works at Southall finally closed in 1979

I will try and get a few pics scanned in from old literature that I have, I'm sure there is an internal view of the cab cos I seam to remember it having a flat floor, it certainly didn't have a bonnet hump.
I have never worked on or driven a Marathon but I know that the old AEC's always had a good name, although Martin tells me they were a "pig" to drive the gear change had to be precise (no Volvo automatic changes with these eh Robban? ).
Incidently the Marathon had the same standard Fuller RTO9509A gearbox that was fitted to most British trucks of that era, you could play some tunes on them too if you mis-timed your gearchange, I know cos I've done it when I was learning to drive HGV's

Jeremy

[Jeremy Rowland]

Hi Folks,

Well I just scanned in a couple of old literature pics for you, the first came from some old Rolls Royce diesel literature that I have and shows a Rolls 265L powered Marathon 2, the second pic shows a day cab interior (not such a good shot).

Jeremy