… since I featured an old vehicle on my blog? I can’t remember now but it may well have been about a year ago, and it might have been a Citroen lorry. And so here’s another old Citroen lorry that I saw on Thursday.
Now despite the fact that it’s a rare-enough lorry as it is, this vehicle is practically unique and there probably won’t be another one quite like this anywhere that would be still running on the road.
Do you see what looks like a boiler at the side behind the cab? That had me puzzled for quite a while and I thought at first that it was a tar-spreader.
I ruled that out though because the jets are in front of the truck, meaning that to do its spreading it would have to travel in reverse while it was working and that wouldn’t be very likely.
And then the penny dropped. We are at a sawmill, aren’t we? Yes, and what this is is a lorry that runs on wood-gas – like they did in the war when there was no petrol. And he was here to fuel up with his wood chippings because, astonishingly as it might seem, he still runs it on wood-gas.
The owner had gone off to chat with his friends otherwise I probably would have been still there now chatting to him. But it’s a good job that I had to go out – I would have missed this lorry otherwise.
After the customary couple of hours on the web pages I went out and carried on with the framework for the greenhouse, but I didn’t have enough chevrons. In fact, doing a considerable bit of mix-and-match, I was just 10 cms short.
So after lunch I had a good root around here, sorted out a pile of stuff for the dechetterie at Pionsat (there were four dustbins full of tin cans), went down there to dispose of it, and then went to the sawmill at St Gervais for some wood.
And it was at the sawmill that I saw the lorry.
