What happened to Duke's Transport?

[robertdavey6]

Hi,
I might be my eyesight/memory playing up, but I can't remember the last time I saw a Duke's Transport vehicle on the mainland. At one time the Irish, of various fleets, used to fly past every day. now they stick much nearer to 56/60 mph.

Once on Shap, southbound, in the middle of the night, I got passed by 3 Irish boys running from the ferry. I'm in lane one at 56 and they came past using lanes two, three and the hard shoulder! Must have been doing 70+ and that was right about on the summit. Gawd knows what they were doing at Tebay!!!!

Robert

[G6 UXU]

Hello Robert, Has far has I know they where taken over by Montgomery Transport, you still see them now and again pulling old Duke trailors. Hope this helps.

[Western SMT]

News from 2001 & 2

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/1818977.stm

http://74.125.77.132/search?q=cache:...lnk&cd=2&gl=uk

[truckerjames123]

Dukes got into a lot of trouble with the authorities over Tacho's etc... Montgomeries took them over eventually or i think they just acquired the trucks, as at one point between 2001-2002 you would see Montgomery truck pulling old dukes trailers and vice versa.

Here is a photo of an EX dukes unit in Montgomeries livery

http://www.flickr.com/photos/3867894...-9SwS6C-bE2vsH

[G-CPTN]

On the (thread-drift) subject of tachos, our local bus companies don't run tachos on the buses that run 'halfway' (as they are within the allowable radius), but those that run all the way from Newcastle to Carlisle (60 miles) have, until recently, been on tachos.
However, one operator is now 'splitting the route' by changing the destination blinds at specified locations so that the complete run is done by the same vehicle and driver but with 'connecting routes'.

Not sure about the legality, but they seem to be getting away with it.

[coastie]

Tachographs these days look more like cd players than tacho's!