BETTER IN THE LONG RUN
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Trans Oman Haulage used to run a fleet of nine artics. Now it has only three — but they have been joined by a trio of drawbars that are better suited to its business.
• Six-axled drawbar combinations are a common sight in mainland Europe and Scandinavia, where regulations frequently allow higher gross weights on drawbar trains than on artics. Britain is the only country which actually restricts drawbars to a lower limit than artics — and there are signs that the Dip intends to end that anomaly soon.
Nonetheless, at least one British operator has decided that six axles make sense on a drawbar rig, albeit primarily for TIR operation on Continental roads. For Trans Oman Haulage of Poole, Dorset everything seems to go in threes: the company runs three drawbar combinations, the truck chassis each have three axles and the trailers also have three axles apiece. There are also three artics in the Trans Oman fleet, with tri-axle "supercube" (step-frame) semi-trailers.
FERRY TERMINAL
Managing director Len Smith says the decision to go for a 3x3 configuration was quite a complex one. The 6x2 rigid chas sis can, if required, run solo at up to 24.4 tonnes GVW between the Trucldine ferry terminal at Poole and a UK destination or pick-up point.
Likewise, one of the trailers, laden to its full 22.5 tonnes plated gross weight, having travelled across Europe to Cherbourg as the back half of a 38-tonne combination, can be hauled legally on UK roads — usually over the short distance from Poole docks to Trans Oman's depot on the eastern side of the town — by any truck which weighs 10 tonnes or less.
Like many international hauliers, Trans Oman hopes and expects the maximum legal weight for drawbar trains in Britain will rise to 38, or preferably 40 tonnes within the operational life of its current trailers. The three-axle configuration would then come into its own, opening up the possibility of carrying payloads which are not only bulky (up to 15.4m long) but also heavy (24 tonnes or more).
SMALL WHEELS
A third reason for running three-axle trailers is that they can run on small wheels shod with 265/1270 x 19.5 tyres, which allow a deck height of only a metre, even when the air suspension fitted to two of Trans Oman's three outwardly-similar units is inflated. The low floor means easier handball uploading, and it increases available cube within legal vehicle height restrictions: each of the six-axled drawbar trains has a prodigious 120m3 of loadspace. This includes the volume of what amounts to a metal-panelled Luton head grafted on to the front of the TIR tilt body on each of Trans Oman's drawbar haulers, in which up to 900kg of freight can be carried.
Miles Nunn of Whitchurch, Hampshire built Trans Oman's two airsuspended drawbar trailers. The third, of identical dimensions, runs on leaf springs and was converted by the same company from a 12.2m Overlander supercube (85m3) TIR semi-trailer. Cutting off the semi-trailer's swan-neck at the frame step (immediately behind the leg gear) left the 8.7m length needed for Trans Oman's unequal-loadspace drawbar requirements. The Scania and Volvo 6 x2 prime movers both have 6.7m bodies. Simple arithmetic shows that, at 15.4m, the Trans Oman rigs offer more loadspace length than most. The use of Miles Ntum's own patented Spacesaver retracting drawbar A-frame closes the straight-line gap between truck and trailer to just 600mm.
It was deliberate policy to have a 2m deck length difference between trucks and trailers, explains Smith. The trailers can accommodate 8.2m Sunseeker powerboats, which are built in Poole and account for an increasing proportion of Trans Oman traffic. The boats, supported on purpose-made cradles, are hauled — usually via the Poole-Cherbourg channel crossing — down through France to destinations on the Mediterranean including marinas in Majorca and Ibiza, entailing a further ferry crossing.
Typically a 6.1m boat is carried on the truck and an 8.2m model on the drawbar trailer. Boats whose length and/or width overhang the vehicle dimensions are also carried with special permits from the French authorities. Carrying powerboats puts little mechanical strain on Trans Oman's trucks: most of them weigh less than four tonnes apiece. Nevertheless, they occupy a lot of space in relation to that weight, and the switch from artics to drawbars allows Trans Oman to haul two boats at a time.
Powerboat deliveries now make up about 60% of Trans Oman's outbound TIR journeys. The boats are carried out in the open. The tilts and their supporting structure — which does not include dropsides — are folded away and stowed at the front of each deck under the boat cradle.
RETURN RUNS
It is on return runs that the vehicles' payload potential is likely to become more crucial, although other light but bulky commodities, such as boots and shoes, are regular backtoads.
Two of the drawbar haulers are veeeight Scania 142s, with sufficient power to cope easily with train weights up to 38 tonnes or more. Both were bought new by Trans Oman, one in 1983, the other a year later; but neither chassis started out in its present configuration.
The older machine was originally a 4x2 artic tractor, which first had a Grarming add-on axle conversion to make it suitable for 38-tonne operation. Then two years ago a Miles Nunn wheelbase extension stretched it into a rigid for drawbar use. It now has over 960,000km running behind it, including an engine change necessitated by an overheating failure caused by a clogged radiator.
The newer (A-registered) Scania drawbar chassis started life as a tag-axle 6x2 tractive unit, which was then simply ex tended. With spares availability in remote places in mind, Smith insisted that both conversions be to a standard Scania wheelbase so that genuine parts could be used, particularly prop-shafts, attendant bearings and Ws.
Trans Oman's third prime mover is a 14-year-old, N-registered Volvo F88 bought second-hand just a year ago in good mechanical condition for its age, and at a bargain price. Its wheelbase had already been extended for the previous owner by Primrose. Trans Oman got Miles Nunn to put it back to a standard wheelbase to take a new 6.7m tilt body.
Despite its age, the Volvo hauls Sunseeker boats down to the Mediterranean very reliably. Its limited engine power means it cannot handle the heavier return loads, so instead it makes regular collections of one of France's more obscure exports: thatching reeds from the Camargue which are renowned, among thatchers at least, for their long service life in cottage roofs.
Three Volvo F12 artic tractors remain in service with Trans Oman, of the nine the company ran in the early 1980s before the benefits of drawbars became so apparent. Two are left-hand drive, which fits in with the company's predominantly Continental operation. They haul nine Van Hool and Montracon supercube semitrailers, hired from TIP and Trailerent. Smith concedes that a drawbar combination lacks the logistical flexibility of an artic, where a semi-trailer can be left at a customer's or consignee's premises for loading/unloading, while tractor and driver are working elsewhere.
In consequence, Trans Oman's load planning is particularly meticulous for the newer 18m combinations.
Haulage between the UK and the Middle East in the mid-1970s led to the choice of company name, says Smith. Overland freight to such far-flung destinations has long since dried up like water into the desert sands which Trans Oman was traversing a decade ago, using DAFs with specially-raised cabs to accommodate 14.00 x 20 sand tyre.
Today, albeit with a trimmed-down fleet, Trans Oman is as active as ever, the drawbar combinations having brought a new viability to the company's specialised transport activity.
LI by Alan Bunting