J R HUMBLE / MAN TIPPERS
(^28) July 2019 Truck & Driver
L
ocated high in the North
Pennines, among the
high fells and grouse
moors, is Weardale,
County Durham. This is
a beautiful part of the country,
bordered by the A69 to the north,
A68 to the east, A66 to the south
and the M6 to the west. The
terrain is as unforgiving as it is
picturesque, and numerous
heavy industries have come and
gone from the area, each leaving
its own mark.
It’s in the small village of
Cowshill on the A689 where we
meet brothers Michael and John
Humble who, together with their
brother Paul and his son Wayne,
run J R Humble & Sons Haulage.
The family-run company was
established by their father,
Michael Ralph Humble, in 1965.
“He worked for various
companies over the years,
driving four-wheeler Commers
and Bedfords,” says Michael.
“Tilcon was big in the area,
with quarries at Frosterley and
Newlandside. He moved up to
Foden eight-wheelers with the
good old Gardner 180 engines
and Rolls-Royce Eagles.”
Those quarries are no longer
operating but Heights Quarry
near Westgate is. Today it’s
owned by Aggregate Industries,
and the Humbles do a lot of work
from there, shifting dry
aggregates with their three MAN
artic tippers and eight-wheeler
tipper, which also handles tar.
“From the 1950s through to
the 1970s the quarry would
transport material from the
rockface all the way down the hill
using cable-cars, just like a
ski-lift,” says Michael.
Time of flux
The family has been in the area
for generations and has seen
many changes over the years.
The area was extensively mined
for crystal silica in the 1800s and
there were many lead mines. A
number of new mines opened in
the ’70s and ’80s to extract
fluorite, a flux used in steel
making – but when that industry
collapsed, the mines closed as
quickly as they opened.
The Weardale Railway was
closed to passenger traffic in the
’50s but continued in service
until 1993, transporting goods
from the Blue Circle Cement
plant. This closed in 2002 with a
devastating effect on the area
- 150 jobs were lost, and many
families had to move away.
MAN followed the Fodens: Paul’s MAN, one of four on the fleet, is a TGS (left)
“To be honest, transport and
trucks is all we’ve ever done,
it’s all we’ve ever known and
it’s all we’re ever going to do”