PUTTING ON WEIGHT
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ALAN WISELY, FLEET ENGINEERING MANAGER AT RAILFREIGHT DISTRIBUTION has the daunting task of gearing up for the company's switch to 44 tonnes on 300 trucks spread across 20 depots.
The move to 44-tonners concerns Alan Wisely more than most. As the man in charge of engineering within Railfreight Distribution's road fleet, he has to grapple with the proposals and modify a national operation which, by its very nature, is combined with rail.
"So far the 44-tonne proposals are a little vague," he says. "I'm watching kingpin weights on six-axle attics while matching turning circle requirements and achieving the required percentage of load on the drive axle. I'm also trying to think about the road surface."
Wisely should know what he's talking about, especially when it comes to what suspensions are really "road friendly". His fleet is dominated by air-suspended twinsteer tractors; a product of the unpredictability of weight distribution when handling ISO containers. He reckons that twin-steers beat all other three-axle tractor configurations and that with air suspension they are far and away the most road friendly. Twinsteers only lack an 11-tonne drive axle, he believes.
But Wisely is against wholesale changes for other reasons too. Not least of these is the cost of reequipping and the fear that, with cabotage, 6x2equipped foreigners will enjoy an advantage.
CM talked to Wisely during a brainstorming session at Railfreight's Paddington office. He favours the open office atmosphere where engineering mixes with operations, because otherwise "it's too easy to get entrenched in your own discipline". From here he controls 300 trucks and 780 trailers, as well as assorted dock tugs, cars and vans through 20 depots, mostly railheads. His core activity is not haulage but operating a scheduled railfreight service as a division of British Rail. "We have an internal customer to satisfy," he explains Nonetheless, Railfreight Distribution runs one of the country's larger truck fleets. Like his counterparts at Royal Mail and others, Wisely believes in thorough investigation, including in-service testing, before any new piece of equipment is adopted. Five years' experience has led him to embrace forged alloy wheels, vertical exhaust systems and relatively small, 2701it fuel tanks among other things. All these innovations have a cost-effective role to play in Railfreight's operation—but not necessarily elsewhere, he points out.
Category One ABS has been fitted on all tractors commissioned since 1989, and it was standard on Railfreight's skeletal trailer fleet for many years before that.
Wisely explains the speccing of vertical exhausts: "Drivers are often asked to switch off engines when idling by gatehouses. Why? Because of exhaust emitted from ground level outlets. Shutting a turbocharged engine down for a couple of minutes is the worst thing to do when it's hot, so we encourage our drivers to keep them running. The vertical stack removes the problem." Vertical exhausts are also better in dusty environments, as any tipperman will tell you.
PRIORITY Fair enough; but why go to the expense of alloy wheels? Wisely explains that low unladen weight is his overriding priority. The nature of container haulage in the UK makes details like alloy wheels on light Foden or ERF chassis a must Pressed-steel fixed fifth wheels are another requirement.
Wisely keeps abreast of the forthcoming exhaust limits as much of his fleet operates in or around urban areas. The need to know keeps him well versed in electronic engine systems and the laws they chase. Listening to him speak, you could easily be sitting in the engineering block of a major truck manufacturer.
When Railfreight buys it uses public money so speccing and price are always under the closest scrutiny. Wisely specs his trucks, but the buying decision is left to another department conducting competitive tendering. The job is also constrained by company policies, such as the need for an eight-year service life for tractors and a 15year life for trailers.
Outside of the job, Wisely has strong views on some aspects of the industry. For example, he's against the bunching he feels results from speed limiters with next to no tolerance: "You must have full power control in emergencies." He's also against the kind of wholesale electronic diagnosis which forces the truck into the dealer's workshop for the simplest check-ups: "This has got to be resisted," he says. "You become trapped and lose control over the vehicle. Everyone must have access to affordable diagnostics so that they can analyse the fault's seriousness and decide whether to take the truck out of service."
The UK Construction and Use regs could do with an update, Wisely adds. Stop lights should be wired into retarders, given their braking power, he believes, but the C&U regs forbid this. The Jacobs engine brake is one of the items he has under test.
Despite the recent advantages in materials and electronics technology, Wisely believes truck design has a way to go: "Electronic engines, if marketed properly, won't cost any more. We need the inbuilt speed limiters, anti-hijack, mechanical protection; things like that. I can see the day when the engine, gearbox and ABS systems are all linked. These things will radically alter the way we run and maintain trucks."
Wisely is inspired by the potential of new technology, and he is scathing of those who complain about change without getting involved: "I don't think you can complain if you don't bother to put something in. If you dig in and resist everything we wouldn't have windscreen washers, would we? There's a lot to be gained by talking to other people."
But this attention to the future does not stop him looking after the basics: "We're into tyre pressure management because the savings are there. Casings tend to let go when they're hot, and that happens with underinflation. A simple thing can save a lot of cash—public cash. It's a mistake to believe this job is all hi-tech; a lot of it is plain engineering. It's just how it's applied.
"Whatever technology you introduce, there's no point if you don't give the people the training," he concludes. "Whatever you are, you're a product of your instruction. The difficulty is in convincing yourself and others of the need to pay for it."
El by Danny Coughlan