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A good tip f r artic opera ors
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There may not be all -nat many fleets of artic tippers around, but a small rural haulage company is finding -not they more an justify neir high inital costs. David Wilcox repot EN did you last see an :ulated bulk tipper? I bet it quite a long time ago.
'here are not any really sizefleets of articulated tippers, the smaller owner/operator 'obably often deterred by the tively high price of tipping ii-trailers. Flat trailers or fans are cheaper to buy inly and seem a better protion.
ut there is undoubtedly a for these impressive-looking 'ids and CM has been to visit tall company that is working arving a name for itself by
g artic-tippers.
. G. Dale is a small age company in the village 'wyford, a couple of miles h of Banbury in the classi, English Oxfordshire counide. While being an indelent company with its own on the side of its vehicles, is is also part of Cherwell ?,y Silos, whose main busi is making ingredients for nal feedstuffs manufacrs.
. G. Dale used to be just of a number of sub!racted haulage companies 'lady working for Cherwell ey, but operating almost exiively for the feedstuffs iufacturer it was logical for is to be taken over by CherValley Silos. This took place 374 when Dales was a very small mixed haulage fleet with just three or four lorries.
Since becoming a separate transport company under Cher well Valley's wing, Dale's fleet has become completely standardised on tipping trailers, which suits the parent company.
The fleet now comprises three Volvo Fl 0 sleeper-cab• tractive units and eight 28ft tip ping trailers. The latest of these are three Craven Tasker semi trailers with the unusual feature of barn doors in place of the normal tailgate.
Malcolm Brown, managing director and Frank Moore, transport manager of F. G. Dale, explained how the two companies work together — and separately! Dale's depot is on the Cherwell Valley 19-acre site at Twyford. Here a variety of raw materials (often by-products from food manufacture, such as coffee grouts from an instant, coffee process) are dried and processed to make ingredients for the animal feedstuffs, To transport this finished product ("Cherco'') to complete animal feedstuff manufacturers, Cherwell Valley Silos use Dales, plus about 15 other regular sub-contractors who are mostly owner-operators. Malcolm Brown estimated that about a tenth of Cherwell Valley's output is moved by Dales, meaning that the company is by no means dependent on Dale's vehicles.
Conversely, Dale's fleet car
ries other loads apart from those it hauls for Cherwell Valley, and Frank Moore said his lorries will. carry anything for anyone as long as it can go in a tipping artic. So the two companies, manufacturer and haulier, dovetail together nicely, getting the benefit of each other's business and the allied security, but also being free to offer their business on the open market.
Cherwell Valley Silos operates two feedstuffs plants on the Continent; one in Dieppe on the French coast and the other near Charleroi in Belgium. This means that Dale's fleet is doubly unusual in that it operates artic tippers on Continental work as well.
How many other articulated tipper operators can call themselves regulars on the Newhaven-Dieppe or DoverOstende Calais ferries? The vehicles are going across to the two Continental plants to bring feedstuffs I ngredients back for customers in the United Kingdom. At the suggestion that this must surely involve a lot of dead empty running. Frank quickly corrected me: "We carry all sorts of loads out to the Continent as back loads for the incoming Cherwell Valley traffic."
These loads out from the UK. include swarf, aggregates and other quarry products, clinker and grain, in fact anything that can reasonably be carried in tipping trailers.
This is where the barn door specification that Dales had Craven Tasker fit on their newest trailers comes in. Said Frank Moore: "With the barn doors open there is no top crossmember at the back of the trailer as there is with a conventional tailgate. So you can treat the tipping trailer like a container or boxvan, running a forklift inside or loading through the back instead of just the top.'" By covering the open top of the tipping trailer with a sheet, Dales completes the transformation into a boxvan, albeit a rather lower one than normal.
This means that the usefulness and versatility of the vehicle is drastically increased and loads are far more easily obtained, just through a simple and inexpensive modification to the standard tipping trailer.
The loads out to the Continent regularly come from South Wales and Sheffield areas. Not content with this, Frank Moore said he also usually has a load of Cherco out to the pick-up area so that even this usually empty leg is paying its way by working for Cherwell Valley.
So a typical Dales Continental run could begin with a load of Cherco up from Twyford to Sheffield, scrap from Sheffield. to France or Belgium, and the
"main incoming load from the 'foreign plants to the UK. The result is a very low dead mileage figure — as little as ten per cent estimated Frank.
Using its growing Continental experience, Dales is trying to establish a regular traffic to and from there, and is picking up new loads as time goes by. Just through the novelty element of its vehicles being seen on French and Belgium roads, Dales is getting more and more traffic back from the Continent.
French agent Frank told me how a French agent had one day spotted one of Dale's Volvos abroad and immediately got in touch with him via the telex number on the vehicle. -He was so excited at the prospect of finding an English tipper on a Continental route that he has since found us
all sorts of loads."
Thus the Volvos can r seen pulling their tipping laden with such things a potatoes, fruit and vege These mostly come from established areas aroun tany, Paris, north Franc south Belgium and sor loads that would not nc be considered tipping loads if not for the bar conversion.
On the subject of Conti operation Frank Moore s considered the ferry sc quite good on the who ideally would like frequent departures o Newhaven-Dieppe His drivers generally driving on the Continer looked forward to their f and Belgian trips.
Both Frank and Ma commented on how pl they were with their Volvo They had previously h F88, an F86 and a DA! drivers had preferred the and so they had been rei with Fl Os which have proved very reliable. FUE sumption is around 7-71/ which Frank considered ti reasonable figure beani mind the high proporti laden mileage.
The most recent F10 Dale fleet came equippei the optional high ratio dil tial and this has proved sc that the diffs on the oth( have since been changed.
Frank said the d reported a big increase i speed, the fuel consurr was better, and the unit" ling power was not aff( Overall the higher ratio di really transformed the I said Frank, and makes tf .far more attractive propc
uyer when Dales come to em.
lcolm Brown said it made to operate a foreign truck ntinental work, where they far more common than ) units, and pointed out n a small company like the drivers had a lot of isibility and were "'flying ig for the company' so it forth keeping them happy. nk Moore is also pleased his eight 28ft tipping trailers. The three new n Taskers with their barn specification are used on )ntinental runs where their i versatility is most ben, while the other five coninally tailgated trailers are or United Kingdom work. 30k mentioned that he rred the donkey engine ring the tipper gear to be of lanual hand-start variety, than having an electric r. This is purely for simf's sake and so that tipping )t be delayed because of ) electrics or a stolen -y.
also likes the donkey ento be mounted low down e chassis side, rather than ) of the chassis at the front. ; on the chassis side the can stand on the ground 1 cranking the handle, as a driver can slip off the I the trailer chassis when Ito start a donkey engine. one time Dales had exiented with having a power )ff on the unit rather than ig a separate donkey ento power the tipping gear. :he idea was abandoned use unit/trailer flexibility ;red — Dale's subractors, such as owneritors with units having no 1:ould not pull the trailers with no donkey engines fitted. So a side-mounted donkey engine will be specified in future so that any unit can pull any trailer.
In such a small fleet, each driver naturally has a particular unit allocated to him regularly, but Frank Moore says he likes to go one step further and where possible keeps the same trailer with the unit and driver as well. This is not always possible of course, but it does encourage drivers to look after the trailers as well as the units.
To service, maintain and repair the Volvos and trailers Dales has its own maintenance pits and fitters. These are also used to maintain the other mechanical handling equipment and plant that Cherwell Valley uses, such as the Volvo BM shovel loader shown in the photograph. Cherwell Valley Silos is also an agent for distributing handling equipment used in the grain and feedstuffs industry If Dales needs to supplement its fleet or replace a vehicle that is being serviced or repaired it can hire a tipping trailer from Eurofleet, Craven Tasker's own rental company. Units can be rented from the local Volvo dealer, Dawsons of Leighton Buzzard.
The entry to Dale's depot at Twyford is over a weighbridge, capable of weighing outfits up to 50ft long and with a load capacity of 50 tonnes. Every
vehicle, including subcontractors', goes over this and it is also open as a public weighbridge. Michael Brown said it is surprising the number of lorries that come to use it. A weight limit has been introduced on the lane through the village leading to the A41 London-bound road and lorries now have to take a longer route when heading south.
The whole Dales and Cherwell Valley Silos site is wellsurfaced and neatly laid out. This is primarily for the benefit of loads which can be tipped virtually space is short and reloaded using the shovel loader without getting the load dirty.
Frank Moore said that over the past couple of years F. G. Dale has concentrated on consolidating the fleet and getting it up to scratch. It had now achieved this aim and has its three new tipping trailers and three new F10 Volvos.
In the coming year or so the emphasis is going to be on building up the Continental work, hoping to establish it on a more regular basis. Dales already has the knowledge and the vehicles and is in the process of acquiring more loads, Both Frank and Malcolm confirmed their faith and belief in tipping trailers:. Commented Frank: "At one time we ran tilts but never really had a lot of success with them although they are the most commonly used vehicle on Continental work. Tipping trailers have suited us and both Cherwell Valley and ourselves have done a lot better with them".
Frank added that at the moment he wouldn't buy a boxvan or flat unless a specific contract came along which justified the purchase — he was happy enough to stay with the tipping artics.
Obviously, F. G. Dale and Son has found a niche for running its bulk tipping trailers and has recognised them to be rather more versatile and valuable than they might appear at first sight. Using Dale's type of tipping trailer you can carry a lot of boxvan loads, but how many tipper loads can you carry in a boxvan? On reflection, perhaps a British tipping artic on French and Belgian roads is not such a surprising sight after all.