Born and red

Is it cold, dark and raining right now? If so, here’s some blue sky and summer sunshine. Presenting to you: Saltash-based Burcombe Haulage’s Scania S500 and its driver, Emma

- Dougie Rankine

The more rural parts of the country, areas such as the north of Scotland, Northern Ireland, mid-Wales and north of the Pennines, by nature seem to breed drivers, as well as some of the most exciting trucks on our roads. Trucks need to be powerful to cope with the prevailing terrain. Drivers from these localities tend to be born into it one way or the other, either through family or simply being obsessed with anything with wheels from a young age.

The south-west of England is just such a place. Cornwall is home to some fantastic trucks and we admit that here at T&D we need to be getting on down there a bit more this year! The hilly terrain, the tight roads mean you’ll often see trucks specced to be ‘well on top of the job’ – and a company with this philosophy is Burcombe Haulage, located in north-east Cornwall, “just over the bridge” (the Tamar Bridge, that is) from Devon.

Machinery mad

Emma Todman’s journey to becoming the driver of this immaculate Scania S500 started when she was a little girl.

“I was always fascinated with trucks and machinery. I can’t explain it, I just was,” she smiles. We’re visiting on one of the finest days (28°C; bliss!) of summer 2019. “I used to operate some plant equipment for my dad, and it was just a matter of taking that leap of faith onto trucks.”

She started off on Class 2 rigids, working through skip lorries and tippers for a year to gain experience. “I got my Class 1 while working at Burcombe’s and after a while a job came up for an artic driver on long-distance distribution,” she says. “At the time there was only one other person on that side of the work. Now there are 11 of us.”