John Mitchell Haulage & Warehousing

John Mitchell (Grangemouth) Limited
Earls Road Industrial Estate
Grangemouth
FK3 8XA

Last Year’s Situation

On Friday November 26th 2010 the snow started in Central Scotland, little did we realise this was the introduction to the coldest December in 100 years. There was a cold front coming in from the north east and nobody knew how bad it was going to be.

Most areas experienced overall snow fall of well over two feet from when the snow started until the last falls in January but what was very exceptional was some days we experienced up to eight inches falling in less than four hours and temperatures not rising above -10 degrees for many days, indeed it was almost three weeks below -10 degrees in Grangemouth! On December 7th 21 inches of snow fall was recorded not far from Grangemouth and we were not far behind although I cannot find the actual depth of fall in Grangemouth that day.

These snow falls and low temperatures meant that salt had little or no effect on the snow to defrost it so things just got worse and worse.

Forth Road Bridge Closed by Snow

Forth Ports shut Grangemouth and Rosyth ports for days at a time, the rail network was almost at a standstill with freight terminals closed again for days at a time, Edinburgh Airport was closed for long periods and the road network was a disaster culminating with the M8 between Edinburgh and Glasgow being closed for two days, absolutely terrible and hopefully unique.

Every cloud has a silver lining. Due to the extremely low temperatures and no cloud cover for weeks December 2010 was the sunniest since 1963!

The Scottish Government were accused of not having any salt for the national trunk roads. I was told following a meeting with the new Scottish Transport Minister, Keith Brown, in early February at Traffic Scotland this was not the case. It came close but they did not run out. Mr Brown did admit to issues that could have been handled better and on discussion with him at the meeting in February and then again in November I do feel the Scottish Government has made significant improvements to the way in which they will communicate potential weather situations and in the way they will deploy resources.

All in all it was a terrible time but as I have said many times in the past I must give thanks to the team at John Mitchell. Traffic Controllers were at their work as required, drivers amazed me, they went out if they could and did their very best. Most of my team went beyond what was expected of them and thankfully no one was hurt during the terrible conditions.

 

What has John Mitchell done to improve on last year’s situation?

1. I met with Government officials, including the Scottish Transport Minister, several times over 2011 to contribute to improvements that could be made to the handling of bad weather conditions and their effect on the Trunk Road network. Some improvements agreed are:

•  If extreme conditions close in HGV’s will be parked up temporarily to allow snow clearing / gritting to take place
•  New clearing equipment has been procured including heavy ploughs and ice breakers

• Salt and clearing resource is now spread better across the Trunk Road network. Traffic Scotland Radio which broadcasts through the Traffic Scotland web site giving live and accurate updates for the road network. It is perhaps worth listening to Keith Brown’s address to the Scottish Parliament - 
• www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-15468489

2. I met with logistical chain partners to discuss any area where we can contribute / co-operate and have had limited success. Some Companies seem happy to “blame” the weather and accept that as a reason for non performance, astonishing! I didn’t make much headway here and cannot afford to adopt the “blame” culture.

3. Internal improvements at John Mitchell

• All vehicles and trailers annalysed for potential improvements.
• All vehicle drive axles are now fitted with Michelin XDN 2 GRIP tyres, recognised as the quality mud and snow tyre.
• All tractor unit middle axles set to stay up until the last possible design / legal moment keeping the maximum weight on the drive axle.
• No improvements were found possible to trailers.

 

Driver training:

• All drivers trained in SAFED principals and in winter driving principals.
• All drivers given a copy of Freight Best Practice Bad Weather Driving Guide.
• All drivers given a copy of the FTA Safety Advice for Driving in Severe Weather.
• All drivers are being issued with a shovel.
•  All office staff now receiving winter weather warnings from Traffic Scotland

•  All office staff aware of Traffic Scotland web site and the accompanying radio station
• Workshop staff trained in winter driving
• Workshop service vehicle kitted out for winter service
• Maintenance partners made aware of John Mitchell requirement
• John Mitchell depot now kitted out with John Deere Snow clearing shovel and salt/grit spreader.

 

The above actions are not an exhaustive list of what we have done but it is intended to give Customers and Partners a feel for how seriously we are taking the matter of bad weather. Hopefully we will not have to put any of our plans into action but if the weather closes in we at least have action plans, will they work? Who knows, Mother Nature is a strong character.

Bring on the sunshine

 

Iain Mitchell