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railer company
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s out in front
Graham Montgonterie takes the road to York
THE TRAILER MARKET i now used to being a bar meter for the whole tra sport industry. In the rece slump, the bottom fell out o the trailer market, but happ ly the situation has no improved considerably.
One of the manufacturer now taking advantage of th new bouyant market is the Yor Trailer Co Ltd which as well a increasing its sales over the pas few months has also bee increasing its size with th acquisition of Anthony Carri more and, more recently Scammell Trailers
For this, the CM Artics an Trailers special number, i seemed appropriate to find ou where York is now heading so spent a day at York' Northallerton plant talking t Mark Carrington, sales promo tion manager and Keit
Buckby, technical sale manager, about the past, pre sent and future of the company.
York Trailer was started b two Canadians Fred W. Davies, the current chairman, and James R Baird no returned to Canada Both had gone to Canada from Britain when they were young men ' Davies in pursuit of a truc trailer selling career and Baird to become a senior executive in vehicle manufacture Both succeeded and both later broke away from North American companies to set up their own organisation Davies, the salesman, and Baird, the engineer, set up the York Transport Equipment Group with its base in Toronto and subsidiary company, Davies Truck Equipment Ltd. in Rexdale, Ontario Looking for export sales. Davies came from Canada to visit Britain. Following on from this visit. York was incorporated in England in 1955 while 11 years later York Trailer became a public company with the first manufacturing plant centred at Carby.
In 1961, it was decided to manufacture basic components previously bought out and so a subsidiary company -York Technical Services Ltd -was incorporated for manufacturing axles, fifth-wheel couplings and landing gears The output of this particular York activity has increased over the years enabling components to be sold to other trailer companies -the current figure being about one third of Technical Services production.
The recent York expansion began with the acquisition of Anthony Carrimore in 1976 against strong opposition from Edbro Carrimore needed additional capacity and the company's product range was complementary to that of York Last year, around 85 per cent of Carnmore's production went for export -mainly to West Africa The acquisition of Carrimore has enabled York to offer a wider product range but it has also allowed economics in rationalisation to be made During the worst of the recent slump, the Carby plant was closed with the loss of 60 jobs. Now body kits from Carrimore's Heselaw plant are shipped to Carby for assembly prior to export.
Today more than 60 people are working at Carby and the company is still advertising for fitters and welders Carby was originally used for building trailers which mainly went for export, but now it is better suited as a specilist plant leaving Northallerton free for the volume stuff.
Now an operator can buy a complete tipping semi-trailer from one shop, which York claims brings a benefit to the customer in improved delivery time as all the production hang-ups are under York's own control Although the trailer was first shown at Earls Court last year, production really only got going in March 77 when three options of body height were offered on an 8.5m (28ft) length. The 1.02m (3ft 4in) sides model is intended for aggregate with the 1.4 (4ft 7in) version being for general use. The highest sides in the standard range are 1.62m (5ft 4in) for the grain body.
As far as the tipping semitrailer is concerned, the only major component which is not of York manufacture is the tyre. At the present time the existing' Carrimore dealers are used in addition to those of York with Carrimore selling Carrimore and York selling products from both ranges.
York considers Crane Fruehauf and Taskers as the main rivals, but neither of these companies can offer a suspention like York's.
The announcement that York Trailer had acquired Scammell Trailers from British Leyland came on April 1 of this year -a curious 'date to choose! The price was f:693,626 and the reason given for the purchases was York's need for additional capacity to anticipated demand.
Although Scammell is still, in effect, operating in competition with York, the move has increased the York group's production capacity by around 25 per ent. At the moment Scammell does not export very much while the York group currently exports around half of its total output. Thus Scammell can now go into Europe through York International and it is not unreasonable to suppose that various York components like axles and suspensions will find their way into the Scammell trailer range.
With the acquisition of the Leyland company, York must hold about 35 to 40 per cent of the trailer market in the UK. York has been very active indeed in energy conservation with the recent introduction of the Hobo lifting axle and the Air-0-Foil. The Hobo was designed to cut down fuel consumption and tyre wear on tandem-axle trailers by the simple expedient of raising the leading axle when running enpty.
Although this was the primary intention of the design, there have been some interest ing spin-offs. For example, one company found the Hobo ideal for its own particular applica tion which involved an outgoing load of high volume which weighed only 9 tons. The back load, however, was a full 20 tons.
Previously, the only alternative was to use a standard 40ft tandem-axle trailer which was obviously under-utilised on the outgoing run. Now this particu lar leg of the operation is run with the axle lifted, dropping it for the full return load. So the benefits of the Hobo are not confined merely to empty running, The Air-O-Foil was introuced by York in October 1975 lthough the company had leen working on drag reduction or some considerable time efore that When the Freightlaster van was introduced, this as fitted with 100mm (41n) adius corners to improve the irf lows.
However, it was only when he cost of energy escalated at he rate of the last few years, hat the possible cost of savings ecame significant The present hape of the Air-O-Foil was the
slow: °Bowing the acquisition of nthony Carrimore. York an now claim be e only anu cturer hich can fer a omplete ckage" the stomer. fact the ly parts made the ork oup are e tyres.
result of wind tunnel tests at MIRA and the biggest benefits are for those operators with high cube,' low weight cargoes Some companies have claimed fuel savings in the order of 17 per cent is more typical One advantage of the York wind-cheating device over its main rival, the Airshield is that, when the van is unhitched, the wind deflector is removed. Thus if a truck is switched from boxvan to flat trailer operation there is no unnecessary drag as with a cab roof mounted device.
I asked both Mark Carrington and Keith Buckby, technical sales manager, for York's view on any move to 40 tonnes gross. Both their replies indicated that whatever happens Yorks has the necessary bits available but that it all depends on which way the regulations lump Said Keith Buckby "We've done the design work -we're waiting for someone to tell us the rules.''
As a company York is not particularly bothered whether 40 tonnes means 6x4 tractive units or treaxle trailers. "There are problems on both sides.
With an existing 4x2 tractive unit, there could be problems with a shortage of traction, and tri-axle trailers, while very effective on long trunk runs, are not the world's best for conserving tyres on rural routes.
The other option -a 6x4 tractive unit with a tandem trailer -fares little bett Interchangeability will be kill stone dead with such a move It will be difficult to mix 6x with 4x2's and the van combinations of trailers whi will result. A dual kingpin o new trailer would be fine, what about the hundreds existing trailers? In York's vi there is no way that an opera can get a simple low-c conversion to get around t problem.
Thus the York vote corn down in favour of a trea trailer -by a very sm margin, and really only cause of the interchangeabil factor.
Double trailer systems? view of the recent, very s cessful, doubles trials whir CM carried out with Cra Fruehauf, Volvo and Re Transport, I asked how Y sees the future market for su operations. Mark Carringto recalling that York had go into this in 1968, said that, with the 40-tonne conce York had the necessary equi ment available In his o words -or in Six Million Dol
Man terms -We have ti technology