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Garages And Service Stations

mw0njm. said:
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Great picture. Thanks for posting.
 
We had 6 commercial vehicle inspection pits when the Oil Terminal I worked at first opened. In all the years I worked there and at other similar locations I have never known anyone fall down an open pit. I know nowadays they are frowned on with ramps being the safer option but I don’t know of any ramps that would take a fully loaded 44 tonne fuel tanker.
 
nickcc101 said:
We had 6 commercial vehicle inspection pits when the Oil Terminal I worked at first opened. In all the years I worked there and at other similar locations I have never known anyone fall down an open pit. I know nowadays they are frowned on with ramps being the safer option but I don’t know of any ramps that would take a fully loaded 44 tonne fuel tanker.
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Dad did, he was accident prone. Mum drove. She parked outside a building and he was sitting behind her, he opened the door and disappeared.
 
Pits are not dangerous. The people who walk past and into them are (I know from personal experience, a couple of times!)
 
Some of the garages I’ve worked for have covered the open pits with pit boards/planks, great idea but no one bothered putting them back so you were left with piles of pit boards which often disappeared like the wooden wheel chocks we had to renew every year for the PSV annuals.
 
caretaker123 said:
Worked there early 80s apprentice hgv. Cooper was in charge of workshop. Nice chap
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Coop was the main breakdown mechanic who we all tried to work with even missing our day release. We had an old Atkinson wrecker with hand winches and dreadful brakes. Terry Jordan was the lad who usually worked with coop. They used to go down the pits in the syndromic section and pretend they were rock singers. One day some of the lads, me included, thought it would be great fun if we put the exhaust extraction pipe on the steps leading in to the pit board covered pit starting up one of the wagons and filling the pit with exhaust gasses, should have seen them run out of the pit. Wouldn’t dare do it nowadays but in those days. H&S wasn’t really heard of.
 
This reminds me of 3 little garages near me in Coventry. One became a carpet warehouse, another the office part is a thriving café, the third is now flats. One used to have 2 pumps the other 2 just one. I can't remember the petrol but it was obscure. I think one had a purple logo.
 
Lloyd said:
Pits are not dangerous. The people who walk past and into them are (I know from personal experience, a couple of times!)
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My dad fell in a pit. He was accident prone.

We have a pit in our garage here at home, it has been covered over with hardboard , the girls' grandad put sand in when they were little , in case, as it had oil and rainwater in but you can't stand on it. I am assuming the then owners did up cars. There are various pulleys and a generator and a ceramic coke stove. The first occupant in 1906 was the joint ? MD of the Standard Triumph Works when the house and next door were one big house.The other joint MD maybe they were the seconds in command? who lived in the house which was then next door now flattened for a care home. It has 4 properties between it now and us. There is a a third house near the local station formerly owned by the Standard Factory still a big house and a fourth but newer. Now a Restaurant. I went for a job interview there as a young lad
 
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