There’s something about Mary this semi-trailer. You can tell by the way it looks and stands that the 2013 Scania R560 V8 6×2/4 tractor isn’t just towing some run-of-the-mill, tridem axle curtainsider.
Note the massive, single rear cargo door, literally from top to bottom. I’d say the semi’s job is transporting forklifts. Not hard to guess I have to admit, because it’s written all over the tractor and semi-trailer.
The driver knew the equipment had hit bottom, nothing to worry about though.
These pictures, taken by the combination’s owner, explain it all: independent wheel suspension and the semi-trailer’s floor is sitting on ground level for the loading and unloading process. Body-on-frame it ain’t. And bonus points for the full trailer (low bed) in the background, hooked up to a Land Cruiser 100-series.
Axle load-wise, there’s no difference between this specific construction and the usual tridem axle set-up (27 metric tons in both cases, that’s 59,525 lbs). The registered payload capacity is 26,810 kg/59,106 lbs.
Manufacturer Burg posted this picture of a similar combination on their website, a highly appropriate freight included. Forklifts, stacker trucks, reach trucks, you name it. They all fit.
The independent air suspension is a product of the Tridec company, also known for their semi-trailer steering systems.
Independent wheel suspension is also common on double deckers, livestock (semi-) trailers -like the Berdex above- and on dedicated big rigs for transporting heavy objects vertically, like flat glass and precast concrete elements. For a grand collection of examples, simply image search inloader.
Makes gobs of sense. I’m not sure when it was first done, but what comes to mind is the FWD Citroen H vans. Of course they didn’t have air and the ability to raise and lower.
“Triebkopf”, that’s what I’m thinking of. XXL-version (truck-related, not train-related).
As soon as the ignition is on a Scania lifts to normal ride height plus they have a remote control to make alterations in cab, nice trailer, clever, 27 tonnes is my normal edible oil load now though I have capacity for 30 tonnes I dont have a HPMV permit for that weight.
When fully loaded, the legal maximum gross weight of the whole rig is 47,945 kg (39,000 kg GVWR for the Burg plus 8,945 kg tare weight for the Scania).
A tractor like that with such a big, steel cab and a 15.6 liter V8 doesn’t come “light at heart”, so to speak.
That’s a pretty ingenious design, would make loading and unloading easier. But I do have one question: Why the sliding canvas sides? Are they there to aid in strapping the cargo down? Or is it something just for show?
Protection against the elements. Bad weather, especially. Better deliver brand new equipment utterly neat and tidy.
I think he means why not just metal? (and if he didn’t mean then that I guess I’ll ask the question!) It doesn’t seem like you could side load as with many of the other curtainsiders.
In this specific case, weight and price must be the main reasons. More generally, a curtainsider in Europe is the counterpart of a fully enclosed semi-trailer in the US. A standard Euro-curtainsider is always body-on-frame (flatbed-on-frame, basically). Unibody for the US enclosed semis, as far as I know.
Furthermore, these semi-trailers have a “convertible top”. According to the owner’s website, they can transport machinery up to an overall height of 4.25 m (permanent permit). Which is above roof height.
Setting reefers and all other temperature controlled bodies apart, the only fully enclosed semi-trailers I see around here are hauling furniture, motorcycles and such.
The local Forklift repair company has a unique drop floor trailer that they used when they took our Forklift to install a new battery pack. It drops to the ground but uses hydraulic rams to do the trick of pivoting the axles up for loading or down for driving. So it doesn’t ride on the hydraulics there are sleeves that slide into the space between the cylinder body and clevis. It is an open trailer and only designed to carry 1 Forklift at a time.
I’m having a bit of a problem understanding that suspension. To me it looks like the pivot/mounting point, air bag and wheel mounting surface seem to be in the same plane or not to far off of each other. With the wheels on the featured trailer it looks like that they would be in the way of the tire and wheel assembly.
Click on the Tridec link in the article for more images and info. Below another one.
That is a slick setup, and obviously impeccably maintained. What looks like linkage for the wheel brake would be trouble here in wintery western Canada though…
I really enjoy these glimpses into trucking and commercial transportation equipment in Europe.
I have a love for trucks and trailers that are custom-built for a specific and narrow purpose. Around here, it’s very common to see older versions kept in very good nick, because (a) they’re very expensive to replace, and (b) old ones have little to no resale value outside that industry.
I still see 30+ year old Ford C-series beer trucks doing beverage delivery on a regular basis, for example.
What a great design.
Back when I was a teenager, I worked in shipping and receiving for a local store. Nothing mechanized, so unloading trucks was done manually. We had a receiving dock on the main floor, that was good for most things, but many of the heavier items were stored in the building’s basement, so for those, we just unloaded them while the truck was parked in the parking lot.
Those deliveries weren’t terribly popular with the truck drivers, who would have to bring each box or item to the rear of the truck for us to take from there. It was tons of work. A truck like this would have cut the time and effort involved by at least a half.
I would like to see this design incorporated into a midsize truck pickup truck. While it’s applications are limited I can think of a few that it would make many times more efficient.
Like these?
That suspension is a pretty slick set up. The modules would make installation very easy to work with. I like having the load bearing bushing in front of the tires. The torsion axles used on some of our lighter trailer were mounted off to the inside of the tire rather than being in front.
Another point is the corrosion protection, that would be an extra charge over here in the US. Last tri-axle flatbeds I purchased for hauling drill rigs were hot dip galvanized, was a $5000.00 option, the trailers that they replaced were 12 years old and rotted so bad they weren’t worth fixing.