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TILTING TOWARD! k SOLUTION
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Diversifv!.. might well be a mantra for truck operators who want to expand, but new work often demands new equipment. Faced with this challenge hauliers are increasingly demanding multi-role vehicles that can keep their capital purchase bills to a minimum. Demanding them is one thing: finding them is another matter.
Aussie operator Herb Blanchard I laulage, based in Grafton on the north coast of New South Wales, is a family-run business with a long history in timber haulage. But in April 2002 it bought NorernacTranspon, which prompted a significant change in its trailer-buying policy as company director Michael Blanchard explains: "Our major freight task was the haulage of timber poles with flatbeds, while the Noremae business was predominately curtainsider freight.The problem was we couldn't use curtain-sided trailers on the pole run.
"It was important for us to streamline the business as much as possible, and with many customers only loading curtainsiders these days—particularly some of our major customers —I went searching for something that could carry poles one way while returning with curtainsider freight on the other leg. -I still believed a curtainsider, which offers more flexibility for general freight,could he developed with a tilting roof taking it out of the way for overhead loading, but nobody seemed willing to give it a go.
Undeterred, he continued to search for that elusive two-in-one trailer until one day,while standing in the office of Bill Judge at Freighter Maxi-CUBE Queensland, the solution suddenly jumped out at him. Parked outside was a Freighter T-Liner trailer. Blanchard pictured it tilting to the side to allow overhead access to the trailer deck, then swinging hack to become a traditional curtainsider.
-The idea came to me to cut both front and rear panels at floor level, install rams and hinge the body to allow the roof and end panels to tilt for clear access to the trailer deck," says Blanchard. -Bill was pretty sceptical about the whole idea, but he had a think about the concept and then went to work to see if it could be done. Basically the idea was to take a 14.63m T-liner and turn it into something very different."
The job was entrusted to Wide Bay Sheet Metal in Queensland; the first unit went to work in November 2003, and the conversion only increased the trailer's weight by 950kg.
"I had virtually beat every trailer manufacturer over the head for 14 months trying to solve my freight problem," says Blanchard, "and now we have three on the road, all proving to be highly efficient and meeting H&S issues as well as customer requirements.' The concept has now been patented but it's still defined as a prototype so the exact cost of conversion has yet to be fixed.
Curtainsider that tilts in travelling mode the 'Tiltliner' trailer looks like any other curtainsider. However, a closer inspection reveals a hinge and locking system front and rear. an external connection point for the control hand piece on the rear panel and a power pack between the frame rails just ahead of the triaxle bogie.
The only other peculiarity is a small hinged frame mounted on the left of the rear panel to secure the curtain out of harm's way during upward and downward tilt operations.
(.M caught up with one of Blanchard's tilting curtainsiders with more than 324,000km under its belt as it was about to he relieved of its load of 10m poles for Koppers Logs on the outskirts of Newcastle in New South Wales. Driver Des Bailey said:"It takes only a few minutes more to prepare the trailer." After pulling the curtains back on both sides and plugging in the remote control units, he added: "All that's needed from here is to secure the curtains on the left side and then give the button a push to activate the tilt system.
A ram at each end of the trailer moved the body through an arc of some 45", giving clear access for the loader — which would be impossible with a conventional curtainsider. Bailey's load was poles and timber packs: one at each end of the trailer.At other destinations they would have lobe unloaded by forklift.
With the poles unloaded Bailey returned the body to its natural position where it automatically locked into place. It was then a simple matter of unplugging the control pad. unhooking the curtains from the holding frame. sliding them along the trailer and securing the strapsTlie entire exercise took no more than 10 minutes.
Blanchard says this prototype has performed very well, creatin new opportunities areas for the company:" result of its performance we have had anotl two built and added improvements to the original design.
"For example. those can tilt to either rid and also have rear doors, opening up forth uses by increasing flexibility and certainly improving productivity.so we can use the trailer for a host of freight requirements."
He has no doubt that the two-in-one trail delivering the goods:"What it's done is incr our fully loaded running and almost elimin the need to run two different trailers in the : direction when one will do the job,improvii our customer services and giving us improved vehicle utilisation."