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Combined road/rail transport has the go-ahead to use 44-tonners on six axles. Coincidentally the Channel Tunnel took its first freight last week. Is this the start of a wider use of 44-tonners in the UK?
When the Queen and French President Francois Mitterand, opened the Channel Tunnel recently, many hauliers must have wondered how it would affect their business, especially as, almost coincidentally, the UK Government had just given the go-ahead to use vehicles up to 44 tonnes on combined road/rail transport.
When the new regulations were laid before Parliament in February, Minister for Public Transport Roger Freeman said: "With long-distance freight services through the Channel Tunnel due to start soon, intermodal freight operators must be competitive if they are to succeed. This measure will put rail operators on a footing with road-only transport by allowing them to carry equal payloads," He added, for the benefit of any environmentalist who might have been listening, "the 44-tonners will be no bigger and cause no more wear and tear than existing 38-tonne five-axle vehicles."
The move to allow these heavier vehicles comes at a time when the Chunnel is open for (limited) rail freight and is designed to put freight movements by rail, either within the UK or in the rest of Europe, on a competitive basis with road transport. Today's 38-tonne artics carry a payload of up to 26 tonnes while a 44-tonne six-axle artic has a 30-tonne payload, sufficient to carry a fully loaded 40-foot container. As a typical container weighs around four tonnes the maximum net payload is effectively the same ie 26 tonnes,
At present there is no possibility of using 44tonne vehicles for general road freight but this limited exercise will provide val
uable experience and doubtless pave the way for more liberalised 44-tonne operation at some time in the future.
Freeman was correct about the 44-tonne vehicle being no bigger as many vehicles in service today are quite capable of running at 44 tonnes, some having manufacturer's plates of 52 tonnes or more.
However, switching to 44-tonne operation is not straightforward, and a number of technical and operational constraints have to be complied with before any freight can move.
Take the vehicle considerations. Artics and drawbar outfits must have six axles and they must be replated to a maximum weight of 44 tonnes before they can go to work. A new style plate showing maximum UK, EU and manufacturer's design axle weights will be provided by the Vehicle Inspectorate for a fee of £13.50.
Operators failing to renew their plate will be fined for overloading even if the vehicle has a manufacturer's plate stating that it is capable of operating at 44 tonnes.
The DOT also advises operators to check that their fifth wheel or drawbar coupling is compatible with operating at 44 tonnes, for although the base vehicle may be rated at that weight or above, it could be the case that the coupling or its substructure is limited, by virtue of its design, to 38 tonnes.
The regulations stipulate that vehicles running at more than 38 tonnes, be they artics or drawbar combinations, must run on six axles, and in the case of artics, three of these must be on the tractor, Again, in the case of both artics and drawbar combinations, the brakes must comply with the relevant requirements and the drive axle, or axles, must have twin wheels and be carried on road-friendly suspension, which effectively means in all but a few cases, full air suspension. If this is not the case, no axle weight may exceed 8.5 tonnes.
The regulations do not stipulate doubledrive axles but any operator who has experienced wheelspin with a 6x2 vehicle in bad weather or on hills in the wet, will be wary of operating at 44 tonnes on a single drive axle. Drive-axle weights are not increased for 44-tonne operation and whereas a traction factor of 27.6%, (10.5-38), could be considered sufficient, a factor of 23.9%, (10.544), is at best marginal.
In order not to overload bridges, the axle spacing of the heavier articulated vehicle is controlled by new regulations for minimum allowable spacing between the rear axle of the tractive unit and the rear axle of the semi-trailer.
As can be seen from the accompanying table (left), the spacing increases on a sliding scale according to vehicle weight, from the present 6.3 metres for 38-tonners, to 8.0 metres for 44-tonners. These longer spacings are unusual for semi-trailers designed primarily for use with 4x2 tractors and will almost certainly necessitate changes to existing units.
Operational requirements.
Having satisfied the vehicle requirements, the operator is still faced with some stringent operational requirements. It is a prerequisite that vehicles exceeding 38 tonnes are used only for journeys, part of which is by road and part of which is by rail, within the UK.
In effect, such vehicles can only be used to either deliver or collect, containers or swap bodies, to or from a railhead. And the journey cannot be made arbitrarily: it must have been planned and agreed with the Railways Board before the journey begins. The vehicle must carry a suitable document., referring to that particular journey, stipulating the railhead to be used, the date the contract was made and the names of the parties involved. If the vehicle is on a journey from a railhead, the document must again specify the railhead and also give the date and the time at which the container or swap body was collected. Such documentation is designed to discourage unscrupulous operators from carrying 30-tonne containers and missing out the rail leg of the journey. But with the number of "legal" containers already moving by road on six-axle artics it is difficult to see how DOT inspectors will spot the difference. Stopping vehicles at random will certainly detain many of those bone fide operators, who will continue to work within the 38tonne regulations, and cause them unnecessary delays.
The difference in maximum weight will not necessarily show up on the tax disc either as in the case of an artic the VED for a six-axle outfit is .£1,240 whether it runs at 38 or 44 tonnes. Drawbars attract different VED rates but again, the current VED for a three. axle truck plated at between 21 and 23 tonnes, which could be capable of running at 38 or 44 tonnes, is £1,420, while the VED for any trailer over 12 tonnes gross is £360.
Only time will tell if this experiment will prove of interest to hauliers. The Government's aim is to subsidise the track cost element up to 100% in some instances, and thus hopes to attract heavy freight away from the UK's crowded motorways and interurban dual carriageways. Inevitably, it will take some time for these costs to be agreed and even then they have to be weighed against any change in delivery schedules before the customer can rationally decide between road or rail.
In practice it is unlikely to appeal to those operators moving loads solely within the UK. However, it could prove attractive for getting fully loaded deep-sea containers to the ports, or more particularly, for containers going via the Channel Tunnel to Continental destinations.
In reality this heavily controlledand very limited exercise could prove to he the thin end of the wedge that ultimately brings UK weights in line with the rest of the EU.
El by Gibb Grace