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Bogie option for Noise tests Merriworth kangaroos proposed
Page 61
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• Although TIR semi-trailers designed for piggy-back transport by the Kangaroo system, as employed on French Railways, need no longer be equipped with a special high-articulation bogie, thanks to the increasing availability of improved rail wagons and gantry lifting, Merriworth (Engineering) Ltd has decided that it will continue to offer its high-articulation suspension for such semi-trailers. Both this and normal four-spring suspension will now be standard options. Merriworth Kangaroo TIR trailers are also fitted as standard with lifting pockets to suit the claws of the French gantry cranes.
Merriworth has retained high-articulation suspension because of the versatility it brings to this form of road-rail transport. A trailer equipped with this type of suspension is suitable for travel on the earlier Kangaroo wagons with sloped-floor "pouches", on the improved Kangaroo and Super Kangaroo
(for semi-trailers up to 15m in length) wagons with flat-floor "pouches", and it can also be lifted by gantry crane.
Transit times across France, or to French destinations, could well be delayed for a semi-trailer with four-spring suspension because of crane failure or non-availability of the latest rail wagons. Such hazards would not apply to a semi-trailer with high-articulation suspension.
Also, Merriworth points out, when no crane loading is possible the improved type of Kangaroo wagon still has to be loaded by the original ramp method. A normal four-spring suspension cannot accommodate the range of movement demanded by such a steep ramp and consequently all the imposed bogie weight has to be carried on one axle for a short time while the trailer is being shunted on or off the leading truck of the train. This situation is avoided by the high-articulation bogie.