Ah, 'proper' Triumphs! My trumpet is one of the 'new' ones, despite the fact I've had it for 15 years since new.
However, the purpose of the posting is more to give our American cousins a glimpse into Airstreaming UK style.
In the UK we basically have three kinds of caravan (RV) park: Club Sites, Commercial Sites, and Certificated Sites.
'Club' sites are owned or franchised by one of the two huge RV touring clubs in the UK. Facilities can vary, but normally supply a mains electric hook-up.
Commercial Sites are privately owned and can vary from little more than a field to all-singing all-dancing holiday parks.
Certificated sites of which there are about 3,000, are small sites that can take a maximum of 5 units. They are affiliated to one of the two Clubs, and while some offer mains hook-ups and a WC, many are very basic but real retreats.
Anyhow, the only 'hook-up' provided (if any) is a 16 Amp 230 Volt mains supply. Only now are 'Service Pitches' being built where you can also hook up to mains water and run a pipe to a grey water drain. I'd imagine that Service Pitches account for less than a quarter of one per cent of pitches available.
Black water always has to be removed by hand from the RV in a cassette tank and disposed of in a designated WC disposal point.
So, a typical pitch at a 'Club' Site looks like this:
They are either all-weather hardstanding like this one, or grass.
In the background is the mains bollard:
So the services to the Airstream allow for an external fresh water tank and an external grey water tank. The vacuum toilet cassette is under the wardrobe.
You can fill the 40 litre inboard water tank either directly with a filler hose on site (normally only done by motorhomes) or, more commonly, using the 40 litre external tank and the inboard pump. Once the inboard tank is full you may go and fetch another 40 litres in the external tank and have an 80 litre supply on tap. It is also possible to operate from the external tank only, bypassing the internal tank and leaving it empty, which is great when you're touring because to save weight you naturally dump the fresh water before hitting the road.
So here are the external services:
To the left is the cylindrical fresh water tank which may be rolled along the ground for ease of transportation. The flatter tank is the 38 litre grey water tank... 2 litres less to account for all the tea we drink
There is no inboard grey water tank.
Next to that obviously is the mains electricity input.
As for propane gas... Normal procedure in the UK is to 'hire' two cylinders from one of the two major gas companies Calor or BP. When one cylinder is empty, you take it to a shop and exchange it for a full one. However, we have a relatively new system here called Gaslow Refillable, which as you might guess you can refill at any Fuel station that sells LPG. Mine is the first Airstream in the world (to my knowledge) to be fitted with Gaslow refillable. Here's a pic:
The filler cap is bottom right (indicated by arrow) and the hoses are pretty self-explanatory.
So here endeth today's lesson folks. I know that there is still loads to cover like the heating, towing, and stuff like that. But in the meantime, here's another gratuitous shot of my handsome outfit:
Happy Airstreaming one and all!
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