Walking around Tennant’s newly delivered DAF CF Euro 5 tractor unit admiring its recently applied traditional livery, it made me think how far road transport has progressed in the last century or so.

Yes, this is a story of great progress over four generations which was literally staring me in the face, as in one hand I carefully carried some black and white photographs of the firm’s first horses and carts, no doubt produced back then at some expense and in the other hand was my digital SLR camera, ready to record several instant colour images of this new high tech 6×2 prime mover.

Away back in 1900 some principles were the same as today; in that for your business to survive, often as not you must diversify.

Peter Tennant started with his horse and cart delivering all manner of goods around his home village of Forth, most of which was collected from and delivered to the nearest railway station at Wilsontown.

A charabanc was amongst the first motor powered vehicles to join his fleet and this double purpose vehicle, which carried cargo through the week and passengers at the weekend would set a business precedent for later years.

In the 1930’s, Peter’s two sons; Peter Jnr and Tom, assisted by sisters; Nance, May and Cath also ran a coach fleet alongisde the road transport concern and this dual operation continued right up until the mid 1990s when the coach operation finished.

In the heydays coaches accounted for about 50% of the fleet and at one stage were 20 in number.

Back in the pre-driver legislation days, it was quite the norm for the weekeday lorry drivers to drive the coaches at the weekend and there was some fierce competition over who did what tour route!

The family business, which in all the years has operated from the same premises in their home village’s main street, survived the two world wars and nationalisation intact, despite some of the bus fleet being requisitioned by the War Office during the latter conflict.

In the early days Ian Tennant recalls that most of the haulage work was local, with agricultural work being a cornerstone of the business. Up to ten cattle trucks were operated at a time alongisde the general haulage fleet.

Tennant Transport started the collection of milk from farms in cans and through time the cans were replaced by milk tankers. This work expanded over the years and the company had a dedicated milk depot at Lanark where they operated 12 farm collection tankers, collecting milk from as far South as Abington to Stirling, Fife and as far east as Haddington.

This milk was then transshipped into 10 artic bulkers for onward movement to Aberdeen, Newcastle and Manchester. This mainstay would often throw up a few challenges, particularly in the harder winters of years gone by, when accessing some of the more rural farms could be difficult if not impossible.

The 1960’s witnessed progress in leaps and bounds as the next generation; Ian and the third Peter Tennant, who followed in the tradition of joining their father in the business.

Ian recalls that their first venture into long distance in the early 60s was moving cattle feeding from Birkenhead to the local Lanarkshire farms.

This was followed by their involvement with Turner & Newell moving asbestos from Clydebank to all over the UK. The fleet at this time consisted of a fine selection of British lorries, primarily Albion, Chieftains and Reivers, Leyland and ERF.

These vehicles, although they did sterling work, always seemed to have major overhauls on the go. With so many different models requiring a wide variety of parts, they almost had a full time spares collector on the road!

Every day you could bet on a tyre, road spring or half shaft failure and the mechanics were never short of work….

Artics arrived at Forth and Tennant Transport moved into heavy haulage becoming involved at Ravenscraig Steel Works moving metal to various destinations South of the border.

The introduction of the new Swedish trucks (Scania and Volvo) arriving on the market at the time dramatically raised the bar across the road haulage sphere, as these Scandinavian marques set new standards for drivers, operators and mechanics alike, offering increased potential on all fronts for long distance transportation.

Fourth at Forth

In 1999 Tennant Transport lost the milk haulage contract that they operated for over 70 years. This was a big loss to the company, however as one door shuts, another usually opens. Current customers were expanding and the company was in the fortunate position to pick up this increased business. One of their main customers, Bison Concrete Products who operated out of Falkirk for many years, had just moved to new premises in Uddingston which created higher production volumes.

The business is now run by fourth generation John Tennant and Graham Sorbie. Both have been involved for over 25 years and are ably qualified to carry the business forward.

John has taken over from his father Peter running the workshop and ensuring the vehicles are always ready for the road. John takes pride in the fleet and all vehicles in the Tennant Transport livery are painted by him.

Graham came to the company as the accountant in 1981 and has run the office and administration side of the business.

Both are ably assisted by Ian Tennant who still takes an active involvement in the concern overseeing the day to day operations.

Around 48 vehicles make up today’s Tennant Transport operation, most of which are tractor units. DAF trucks still dominate the fleet. Staying true to their long founded principles of diversity means that the large trailer fleet, numbering around 100 examples, consists of a wide variety of types including; tippers, tankers, flats, extendables, curtainsiders and crane offload.

The benefit of this ‘real general haulage’ operating strategy allows the firm to offer a plethora of services to existing and potential clients.

The Forth premises have expanded gradually over the years with the family logically buying adjacent blocks of land as they came onto the market, however with such a large fleet Tennant’s also own a dedicated trailer parking area in the locale.

John Tennant enthuses about the all round performance of the DAFs in the fleet noting:

“The CF and XF models have great driver acceptance, good reliability and an attractive price all complemented by superb dealer service and back up from Imperial Commercials at Cumbernauld.”

The aforementioned dealership’s Jim Bennie also earns high praise from Tennants for his continual ‘over and above the call of duty’ help and support to the business.

The DAFs are purchased with a two year warranty in lieu of a Repair and Maintenance package as all servicing and repairs of the Tennant road going equipment is carried out in-house.

“Warranty claims”, John notes, “have been few and far between, but Imperial Commercials and DAF will always listen to us and we get acceptable feedback.”

The latest CF Space Cab 6×2 tractors have been delivered with Euro 5 engine specifications and the weight saving smaller centre axle, which helps compensate for the additional PTO and blower gear fitted.

With a number of Euro 4 trucks already on the road, the shift up to Euro 5 was quickly embraced with the firm citing higher residual values and possibly easier access to central London with the forthcoming legislation, as just some of the obvious factors justifying the progression.

Carrying such a wide variety of goods, it’s essential that vehicle and load weights are continually monitored; so on-board measuring equipment is supplied by PM Weighers.

The varied trailer fleet consists of a number of different makes and interestingly after trialling disc brakes, the firm have moved back to specifying drum units on its trailers as the more traditional stopping equipment has proved to require less attention between services.

At the time of my visit, six new platform triaxles were on order from manufacturer Montracon and four tipping trailers from Kelberg.

Family run firms seem to suffer less with personnel issues and this is certainly the case at this Lanarkshire outfit, with most employees seeing and speaking to the bosses on a daily basis.

“It has always been the family philosophy that staff, who are our front line ambassadors, are treated personally as individuals,” adds Ian “we have no recruitment problems and in fact we have generations of drivers from several local families, some accumulating over 50 years of service.”

Communicating with staff and customers is of course an essential daily requisite and all the Tennant fleet are equipped with mobile phones and satellite tracking to monitor vehicle movements.

It’s a real statement of trust and commitment when Tennant’s customers, who have vehicles on dedicated service, also have access to this positioning data allowing them to time their next deliveries and arrivals accurately, thus ensuring maximum benefit to their own business.

Local work still accounts for a fair percentage of any day’s schedules and the supply of materials to the construction industry sees the two tone blue and red lorries making site deliveries all over the United Kingdom.

The rusty red colour of Lanarkshire’s roads has fascinated me for years and all was revealed during the course of our conversations at Forth, when I learnt that the surface originates from the nearby Cloburn Quarry, a valued, long standing main customer of Tennant Transport, who produce the renonwed and distinctive Redstone raw materials and finished products.

It’s quite obvious to me that over the last 100 years the Tennant business has been adept at looking to the future and changing with the times. No one in the industry can predict the future, but after such a long journey, this well known Forth contractor will no doubt be moving forward and adapting as necessary.

Reproduced from Transport News, June 2007