0 ne of the most challenging jobs that
Page 44
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
recovery specialist Adrian Butterfield has ever had to tackle involved a bus that had caught fire and burnt out, The heat was so intense that it melted the tyres and in effect welded the vehicle to the road surface.
When a truck or bus is in that much of a mess it simply isn't possible to tow it away with a recovery wagon. Nor is it always possible to tow vehicles with accident-damaged wheels and axles—not easily, anyway.
"If a rear hub on a truck goes, for example. you can end up having to tow it the wrong way down the motorway, and that's not really a good idea," Butterfield says.
Although underlift towing gear has become more advanced over the years, executing a suspended tow on a broken-down coach can be problematic too. It's quite likely that the back end will start scraping the ground as soon as you move away.
The answer is to invest in a very large lowslung semi-trailer with a powerful winch and an equally beefy crane so that you can heave the stranded vehicle aboard if you have to. on Gigant liquid suspension," he recalls. "It only went down 50min when it was fully loaded—it would carry around 18 tonnes— and with a 600mm running height you could put a 4m-high bus on and still clear the motorway bridges."
"It was over 15 metres long overall though, and that was its main drawback," he adds. And the ramp had to fold up vertically behind whatever you were carrying. You also had to be careful where you took it because it was so low. It could ground on sleeping policemen, and the back end could ground when you were going up a steep slope."
The King trailer is shorter, more manoeuvrable, and the ramp can be locked horizontally. "There have been several irritating difficulties with the ramp, though, and the trailer has been back to King at least once," he says.
Butterfield accepts that there will be teething problems but he is disappointed it hasn't been sorted out more quickly. After all it is, as Butterfield says, an expensive piece of equipment.
Vehicle recovery isn't Butterfield's only line