Dual-purpose vehicle carries chocolate
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• How to eliminate, as far as possible, unladen mileage; this was the problem facing transport manager Mr. James Young. As a result, a new articulated outfit—Leyland Badger tractive unit and dual-purpose single-axle semi-trailer----has entered service with Lesme Ltd., the North West London-based chocolate manufacturer. The semi-trailer was built by Rippon Bros. of Speke, Liverpool, with tanks by Andrews of Aintree. It is designed to carry either 2,000gal of liquid chocolate or 12.9 tons of dry cargo.
The transport operations of Lesme have a seasonal flavour. As a supplier of chocolate to the Walls organization it obtains considerably higher vehicle utilization during the summer than in the winter. With this problem in mind, and coupled with that of hauling cacao seeds from Avonmouth Dock to its Willesden factory, Lesme decided to take a look at a dual-purpose machine.
The vehicle eventually decided upon utilizes a perimeter-framed flat semi-trailer, beneath which are slung four singlecompartment tanks. These are cylindrical, manufactured from 12-gauge FDP stainless steel and designed for pressure discharge with a safe working pressure of 35 p.s.i., generated by a pto-driven Drum Engineering rotary compressor mounted on the tractive unit. The tanks are secured to the main frame by belly-straps which pull them up to inverted bolsters. There are three straps to each tank and they terminate with a screwed eye bolt at each end. The trailer is the seventh one of its type to be built.
Closed-cell polyurethane insulation is foamed in situ between the tanks and a surrounding glass-reinforced plastics outer cladding to a minimum thickness of 3in. The vehicle is decked with 23mm marinegrade plywood; trap-doors are situated above each manhole cover to facilitate loading and cleaning operations.
To control the temperature of the liquid cargoes carried within an extremely narrow band, the tanks are wound with an electric element which is wired through thermostatic controls arranged to be plugged into mains supply points.. These enable the vessels to be pre-warmed at the loading point and in the event of an unscheduled stoppage make it possible to keep the load in a liquid condition.
Despite the fact that the trailer is of extremely heavy construction, Lesme's specification of being able to carry a minimum dry cargo payload of 12 tons has been exceeded by a .comfortable 18cwt. It so seems to me that many haulage requirements might well be served by dualpurpose vehicles such as that described here.
The whole outfit is painted in the familiar Walls livery and an illuminated headboard is fitted to the tractive unit. The four clocks fitted to the headboard are thermometers recording cargo temperatures and the oblong protrusions at the bottom of the tank-shell house the thermostats, plugs and switchgear for the heating system.