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EW 1HE 7ELLIE
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711117 FL(111 L —1 TENRIErliI2 by Ron Cater, AMInstBE REFUSE DISPOSAL COMPANIES, face( by a rise in the volume of the country': rubbish, a drop in the number of dump site and the often consequential task of carryini litter greater distances than before, an seeking new methods of transporting it. On firm, AG Homes Refuse Disposal Ltd, o Therapia Lane, Industrial Estate, Beddingtoi Farm Road, Croydon, Surrey, has reacte by, among other moves, acquiring a nev outfit which takes advantage of the fact tha a second man is no longer required on drawbar-trailer combination by the Construc tion and Use Regulations.
Besides embodying a new concept in bull rubbish handling, the AG Homes outfit will point one way to the economic use o both machines and labour in the handliq of containers in general.
Roll-on loading The combination comprises a Volvo FB8I six-wheeled load carrier and a Reynold Boughton Engineering Services Ltd drawba trailer. The towing unit is equipped with th, Bennes-Marrel roll-on loading mechanise manufactured under licence by Boughtoi and marketed by CAF Mechanical Handlin; Equipment Ltd, Hay Hill, London W1)
and with 40 Cu yd skips the outfit can mcommodate up to 80 Cu yd of loose refuse. Arhen it carries compactor-type skips, this mount can be increased by 200 cu yd. Relative increases in capacity are possible, since the compactor skips can take refuse compacted to a ratio of 5 to 1, and with a basic capacity of 35 Cu yd each this would raise the potential to something over 300 :Ai yd.
:ontainer trailer The trailer is purely a container-transportrig slave which is in use only when skips are )eing transported over the highways. Its lesig,n is such, however, that a container can )e lifted off the ground by the towing unit and leposited on the trailer. The towing unit hen picks up a second container and when his is in place the trailer is hitched up for the ourney to the tip.
When the tip is reached the trailer is mhitched and the towing vehicle goes to the .ip face to deposit its load. When its container s empty the towing unit returns to the tip ntrance and lands the empty unit on a second trailer. The container which it has towed to the site is then lifted off its trailer and taken to the tip face and when this is done the vehicle returns, collects the trailer on to which the first empty skip has been placed and goes off to its next pick-up point.
Good system That is the system .and, as I found out recently when carrying out in southern England an evaluation of it, it is one that works very well indeed. Unfortunately, the trials were marred by a still unexplained accident. While I was driving at about 12 mph round a slight uphill bend the towing vehicle turned on its side although the trailer remained upright. All four occupants of the sleeper cab were slightly injured.
However, the value of the cab strength required by Swedish law was highlighted when the vehicle came to rest with the cab roof jammed against a lamp standard. I would not have gambled on the chances of the occupants had the cab been constructed to lesser standards.
With the operators, we shall be carrying out an investigation and any results will be published in CM later, although perhaps I should say at this point that the vehicle had given no hint of instability during much rougher manoeuvres earlier in the test.
Under the current drivers' hours regulations, permitting 10 hours of driving time daily, it is possible for a man driving a solo vehicle to complete four round trips from the collection point at Therapia Lane to the tip at Dartford. But if and when the hours are reduced this will result in only 7hr 10min of a man's time being used up doing three, instead of four round trips. The lorry and trailer carries twice the yardage of a solo unit and can complete the journey in precisely the same time, while the spare lhr 50min of the probable future 9hr shift will provide ample time to carry out the changing over of skips and trailers. And there will be a bonus of 80 ot .100 cu yd shifted, to provide a very useful boost to productivity.
The time-cycle for the operation of the outfit we tried out was as follows: °spotting on container, coupling the lifting tackle and hauling it onto the towing vehicle-2min 48.2sec; 2) spotting the vehicle on to the trailer and transferring the container-3min 12sec. The first operation is repeated to load the towing vehicle, so a total time of 8min 48.4sec was utilized in this way.
When the vehicle was loaded I took it to the local weighbridge where it scaled 31 tons 11.cwt, made up by the towing vehicle at 20 tons 15cwt and the trailer at 10 tons 16cwt. The manoeuvrability of the outfit was proved straightaway by its being able to enter the weighbridge in a direction whioh full-size artics could not negotiate. This showed that even on full lock the cut-in of the trailer was less than 6ft. We left the weighbridge at 11.25 am and arrived at the Dartford tip, 22 miles away, at 12.30 pm, having covered the distance through suburban south-east London at an average speed of 20.3 mph. Handling was no problem, the outfit tracking almost within the width of its twin wheels at every corner.
Because areas from which rubbish has to be carted are usually highly populated it follows that there will also be a high traffic density and thus the owners of the vehicle had, quite rightly I feel, specified a final drive ratio that gave a maximum road speed of 45 mph. In fact I cruised at just around 30 mph for most of the journey when this was possible. At one point on the route the road was being repaired and this section was on a hill with a gradient of about 1 in 14. Traffic lights controlled the traffic and where leaves had fallen from the trees and been mashed up with clay from the works, the road surface was covered with about in. of very slippery leaf mould.
We halted facing up the gradient and when trying to move off experienced some wheelspin. The FB88 has only a single driving axle but with the addition of a diff lock gives as good traction as most three-dill double-drives. I switched in the diff lock and we moved off with no trouble; it was kept engaged for only a few yards and the rest of the gradient, which became considerably steeper, was surmounted with no trouble.
At the tip On arrival at the tip the trailer was disconnected and the towing vehicle taken to the tip face. Manoeuvring the trailer into position and tipping the towing vehicle's load at the face 0.2 miles from the entrance and returning took 15min. Much of the ground over which we had to travel was quite hard with a 2 to 3in. skin of wet mud on top. At no time was there any sign of wheelspin even when we were forced to stop and restart. The total time involved in transferring the skips to and from the trailer and tipping the load was 35rnin and it took 4min to hook up again ready for the road. The total time actually on the tip was 54min and the journey back to the depot was completed in precisely thr.
That made a round trip time of 3hr 8mir which, as it was the first time the combinatior had ever worked as an outfit, and taking int( consideration the fact that I was "feelirq my way" with the numerous operation: involved in the transferring of the skips was very pleasing.
Because in 10 years' time it is estimate( that tipping areas to the south-east of Londor will be used up, AG Homes Ltd is alreadl planning the use of rail as an economies method of moving hundreds of tons of refusl to pits as far removed as the West Country All the skips designed for use with the nev outfits are fitted with ISO corner-locks n enable them to be carried by any standard container carrying vehicle, road or rail, an these are also used to secure the skips to th trailer. Also, the construction of a new bull transfer station is shortly to be started am this is to be provided with both rail and roal access.
Radio-control improves the productivit of the fleet enormously. Throughout the da that I spent with the machine, message flashed back and forth from vehicles to basi changing destinations, re-routeing loads an preparing the workshops to deal wit problems. I found it hard to imagine hol such a diverse operation could =nag without Sinclair Communications' little bo of tricks.
When at the end of the day the test wa ended so abruptly with the vehicle doing slow roll-over, a message to base flashed ovc the radio—which could still send but Jai receive---and thence by 'phone had my wii informed of my predicament hours befor the police arrived with the news at my hom and a clearing-up squad on the job befor the occupants of the vehicle had been stitche up. As a footnote perhaps I might add that we had been wearing safety belts, none of t would have been injured.
1. The Bennes-Marrel gear gives a good angI of tip and this 35 Cu yd compactor container is tapered to permit the load to slide out easily.
2. Handling is excellent; this gateway was only 5ft wider than the outfit and we did not mount the kerb.
3. The controls for the hydraulic system are operated by a battery of air valves through' the push buttons mounted on the Volvo's engine cover. The large pressure gauge to the right of the picture signals the oil pressure in the hydraulic system, the pump for which is of the variable awash-plate type and always running.
i0ME two and a half years ago the Society if Motor Manufacturers and Traders levised a scheme which was intended to olve the problem of correct matching of ractive units and trailers. Both mechanical :ompatibility and the legal requirements of he Construction and Use Regulations egardina axle spread, weight and overall ength were taken into account and the ystem, although considered complicated by ome operators, did go a long way towards wiping to solve what is, in itself, a very :omplex problem.
British Road Services Ltd operates the iMMT scheme but has adapted it to a :olour-coded system and has also extended ts scope to include unplated trailers manuactured before 1965, some of which are still n use and which were not covered by the riginal SMMT scheme.
Although the SMMT scheme was des;ribed in some detail in Commercial Motor a the time of its introduction (CM October 15 1968) it may be useful to outline the letails again. The system used consisted of t categorization code to be displayed on nformation plates fitted to the tractive units Hid trailers. Two categories were provided, k and B. Category A included tractive units hat had a fifth-wheel location more than [Sin, ahead of the driving axle while Catetory B consisted of units with a 9in. fifthvheel location.
.oad bonus factor Each category was divided into classes hat referred to the permissible gross train veight so that, for example, Class 30 would nean the unit was plated to 30 tons gtw. An irbitrary datum weight was fixed for each :lass of tractive unit and a load bonus factor vas, therefore, stated on the plate which thawed for any difference between the fixed latum weight and actual weight of the unit :oncerned. Accurate allowance could thereore be made during permissible payload :aleulation.
A similar plate was fitted to the trailer vhich stated the category for which it vould be suitable at its plated weight. In tddition. the trailer plate stated on it any thernative choice of tractor to which it :ould be coupled and operated satisfacorily.