Longer pillarless Boalloy
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• Boalloy will be launching a 13.5m version of its pillarless Tautliner curtainsider trailer body early next year. The Congleton-based bodybuilder has already produced a number of 10.97m pillarless Tautliners for the Royal Navy's road fleet and is about to launch a 12.2m version for use with 15.5m artic combinations.
Now it says that it is "in the final stages of R&D on a 13.5m version which will be available in February 1991".
The pillarless Tautliners have double-depth cant rails which provide enough support for a full-length span without any need for intermediate pillars, not even sliding side ones. The pillarless roof is cambered like all regular Boalby curtainsiders, but the boxsection cant rails are 152mm deep compared with the normal 76mm. Two full-depth crossmembers are included in the roof bracing.
The centre of the pillarless Tautliner roof is 100m higher than the ends, but is pulled level when the curtains are tensioned — the cambering gives extra stiffness to absorb downwards tensioning from the outer straps and the load holding straps hanging from a spine tube which runs down the middle of the trailer roof. The lack of pillars allows easy access to any part of the load deck.
Boalloy says that the curtain straps are tuned so that their elasticity can compensate for any major movement between the roof and trailer floor.
The all-bolted-construction pillarless Tautliner is available in heights up to 4.2m and costs around 2250 more than a regular Tautliner. There is no major difference in body weight. Boalloy has considerable experience of pillarless curtainsider trailers having built more than 20 for Scottish and Newcastle Breweries — those models had fixed rear bulkheads and air suspension, but Boalloy boss Gerald Broadbent says that the latest design is strong enough to be specified with rear doors and on trailers with steel suspension.
Boalloy is to supply 40 of its 7.5-tonne body kits to Indian haulier and bodybuilder Southern Roadways which set up its manufacturing plant in October last year. They are the first bodies to be assembled there. It is Boalloy's first order for India, although it supplies companies throughout the Commonwealth.