Whitbread demounts
Page 14
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• Peterborough-based Ray Smith Demountables has supplied a demount system to brewers Whitbread with a 1,067mm-high (42in) deck height and full-length curtain sides. The units have gone on test as part of a pilot programme in Blackburn, Lancs, serving the Lake District.
Four 16-tonne Iveco Ford Cargos and one 32-tonne Scalia, all with Hendrickson Norde air suspension on the rear axle, are now running out of Blackburn with bodies which can be raised and lowered. Whitbread is confident that the demount system will cut stockholding and it is working the trucks on a three-shift basis.
Ramped-end tracks laid along the top of the chassis have been fitted to the bodies with rollers fitted to the front of the demount units. The tracks are flat-topped and have no guide lips, allowing the inner faces of the longitudinal members of the body understructure to act as the main guide runners, sliding along the flanks of the tracks on the chassis.
The tracks stand proud of the chassis sides and because they do not have guide lips the body cross-bearers sit directly on top, allowing the bodies to be mounted as low as tyre clearances permit. The tracks can be as shallow as 50mm.
Low-profile 275/70-22.5 tyres are used on the rear axles. All 14 demount bodies, which were supplied by Marshalls of Cambridge, have racks under the tail for stowing carbon dioxide bottles.