What a cool idea for a hot summer day! Have two classic flatbed rigs loaded with straw bales by the local forage supplier and then drive them to the show nearby, thus giving the visitors the full picture. Or telling them the whole story.
A true showpiece, this conventional 1991 Scania T143 V8 6×2 truck with a 2009 Cuppers trailer. The Scania follows the traditional 6×2 recipe, which means the third axle is a non-steering, liftable tag axle with dual wheels.
The truck maker’s 3-series was introduced in 1988 and has become a sought-after classic in the past years, most certainly the 143 cabovers and conventionals with the hammering 14.2 liter V8.
An older and much more down-to-earth duo, the 1980 Groenewegen trailer, coupled to a Scania LBS 111. The letters LBS refer to a cabover with a 6×2 drivetrain, either a truck chassis or a tractor unit.
No license plate on the truck, so nothing to go on, but it must be about 45 years old. There’s an 11 liter inline-six underneath the sleeper cab, likely with a maximum power output of 305 hp.
The sun visor and especially the Trilex wheels are rather ‘un-Dutch’. My best guess is that the truck was imported from Switzerland, not only because of the little flag on the side of the cab, but also because such wheels have always been highly common over there.
I mentioned the local forage supplier, this is one of the company’s modern combinations. A 6×2 straight truck is still in charge, but the trailer set-up is completely different. Instead of a full trailer, the Volvo FH tows a center-axle trailer (which is as big as these get).
Full trailers, center-axle trailers and semi-trailers are all utilized in this line of business. International transport is commonplace, as straw is imported in large quantities from countries like Germany, the UK, France and Spain.
And for protection against the elements, a curtainsider is the way to go. Certainly when there’s a long way to go. (contemporary flatbed rigs: photo courtesy of Maas & Waal Fourage en Transport)
Great photos! I always liked the ‘chiselled’ looks of various Scania conventionals. Definitely influenced some of the design in North America. The last pic is beautifully presented.
Not sure if it is one company, or various Dutch companies, that popularize concentric lines in their vehicle graphics. Besides Dutch police using red and blue concentric lines in their bodyside graphics. It is a bold and graphic look, I like. It was popular here in North America, about a decade ago. My local transit service used concentric lines in their bus branding, at the time. A clean and modern way of evoking motion.
Fun fact: the VSB Group (see company name on the Scania T143) sold multiple, used Scania COE tractors to Canada in the recent past. All with a V8. One of them pictured below, already at work in Canada.
Cool discovery! Would love to see them, in the metal, here in Ontario. Appears like an Alberta licence plate.
I saw a Scania truck a couple of months ago, here in North Bay Ontario. It was headed west (or north, that bit of highway I saw it on is both Highway 11 and 17). I don’t remember what licence plate was on it, though.
Very cool! Being the Trans-Canada Highway, it would make a lot of sense.
I just went to VSB’s FB-site, here a 4 other ‘Canadians’. Many pictures from Canada are posted there, taken last winter. The image below shows them side by side in a winter wonderland, obviously.
The owner’s address is:
441019 Range Road 254
T4J 1R2, Ponoka
Alberta, Canada
According to Fermatrac’s own website, that is 🙂
I’ve seen the truck on the right on Hwy 401 EB a few years ago. I’ve had a picture of it on my old phone, since one doesn’t come across cabovers, let alone Scania in Canada too often.
The original, brutally-square Scania design was by a Brit, Lionel Sherrin. He went on to design locomotives. He’s otherwise practically unknown.
Ital Design replaced it with a very evolutionary theme, with the 1980s ‘stack of wedges’ sides.
Scania masters modular building, for a long time. The cabs are the same (COE/conventional). That’s apart from the true classics, dating back to the days of Scania-Vabis.
Those look like oversize bales which New Holland and I’m sure other balers make. There’s no attempt to criss-cross them like Legos. I personally helped load a truck that size when I was about 11 years old. The truck driver felt bad for me and tried to give me something but I refused. At that age I just did what I was told.
An advantage of these big bales is that (un)loading manually is impossible…
The poor Animals in Greece need the whole Load !
Straw is not the same as hay.
My cousin in Ohio is in the hay business, but its just a side hussle for him. He has a connection with a few different “hobby farmers” in the area. So the load is usually small square bales on his gooseneck trailer. Towed with an old Dodge cummins dually.
His customers want the ones you can easily pick up, I remember he barely broke even the 1st year he did round bales. sat on them forever before finding a buyer.
‘old school’ hay has become a side show here, compared to the immense bulk of grass silage. Granted, in both cases the starting point is cut grass.
Hay haulers here in the western US are one of the last jobs often done by cabovers. Often Peterbilt 362’s or Freightliners. Usually a full truck and trailer combination, not a semi. But conventionals are taking over.
Yes, I remember the many pictures of western hay haulers from the books by the late Stan Holtzman. Almost all of them were cabover trucks with a full trailer, indeed.
Those are some very good looking rigs. Although they all seem to have minimal ground clearance for trucks.
Never thought of rain protection for a load of hay bales. I bet they could retain some serious weight in a rain storm.
The large bales certainly is a big labor saver compared to the old days.
When I was young kid I helped bale on several farms, many of my relatives were farmers. We would get some pretty large loads on the trailers behind the tractors. My grandfather used a drag skid for hauling in the hay bales, very easy to stack a high load and the main reason was a very steep down hill trail from the alfalfa field to the barn. It would have been close to suicidal to do with a regular hay wagon.
Nice looking rigs, the Orange Scania 143 looks like an alternate universe of one of Bounds Hay’s Peterbilts that you see around Oregon
Very nice, and that’s a serious full trailer!
Neat rigs As posted I see some large farms moving hay and straw with cabovers still here in the US (mostly when I travel to PA or the midatlantic), but that’s very rare here in the North East. Just a couple bigger farms still seem to do it. Most of the farms in New England are pretty small so most of the time Hay and Straw is moved on conventional flatbeds or even more often now gooseneck trailers hooked to one ton or medium duty pickups. A friend runs a small farm and raises poultry pigs cows and sometimes goats, as well as having a few horses. His land is somewhat heavily treed (most of the farm production is poultry and pigs with cows are basically just for the family) so he leases fields in couple towns for hay production and he hauls it around with a ram 3500 and a 40′ gooseneck trailer.
How timely. We’re about to start oats harvest here, which means soon we’ll have some 5000+ small square bales (14x18x36″) to make. And at least 1500 of them will go on a semi. It’d be impossible without an accumulator and a fork that pick up 10 bales at a time.
Yep, it’s grain harvest (and thus straw) season alright!