Alas, when I arrived at the show nearby my place, many participants had already left. Some guys were already vacuuming up the steel road plates (used as temporary pavement) from the soggy ground. An interesting process to watch!
Here’s the guys’ indispensable piece of equipment for the job at hand, a vacuum cleaner lifter with a lifting capacity of 3,000 kg (6,614 lbs).
I saw three big rigs in action, the drivers/crane operators used the vacuum lifter units to pick up the big steel plates and loaded them on the flatbed semi-trailers. Pictures say more than words, so here we go, featuring the rigs in chronological order of their appearance.
A 2022 Volvo FH 6×2/4 tractor and a 2012 Van Hool semi-trailer with super singles and a diesel-powered Kennis rolloader crane aboard.
A man and his machine. Nice hat, mister! ‘Betonplaten’ is Dutch for concrete slabs, so transporting them must be the combination’s daily job.
Next in line was this 2024 Renault T-series 6×2/4, towing a 2018 KWB semi-trailer with dual wheels.
The driver/crane operator is all set to pick up a road plate. Someone seems to call him, though. The crane’s clamp clamps the remote-controlled vacuum lifter, the lifter’s suction pad gets attached to the steel plate in no-time. That’s how it all works, in a nutshell.
The semi-trailers in this segment of on-highway trucking are ‘over-constructed’, given their demanding and weighty job of hauling bricks, (roof) tiles, and all kinds of concrete end products. And evidently, road plates. Typically, their payload capacity is around 40 tonnes (88,185 lbs).
Note how the combinations -and most certainty the tractor units- will always find themselves on the road plates. Thus, one drive axle will do. Not that a 6×4 drivetrain would have helped much in this case, given the extremely wet soil conditions, combined with the sheer weight of such rigs.
The Renault is a dealership’s demo/rental tractor. It’s powered by the same 12.8 liter turbodiesel as the Volvo FH.
In this line of business, the tractors are often equipped with a remote-control system, so that the driver can stay on the rolloader crane while moving the rig forward or backward.
Number three, the last one. A 2022 Scania S530 V8 4×2 with a 2017 Pacton quad axle semi-trailer (eight super singles).
Getting ready, with the rolloader crane still sitting at the front…
…but not for long. And meanwhile, the trucker has lowered the semi-trailer’s second axle.
Too late to the party, yet right in time for capturing these professionals at work. I got pictures of some stationary vehicles, to be uploaded another time.
Related articles:
CC Outtake: Loaded Up For Monday Morning
CC Global: Heavy Brick Haulers Photoreport – The River Delta Is Their Home Base
Wow, never heard of this process! Very interesting!
To be honest, initially I thought the ‘black box’ was some sort of magnet. Until the Scania driver told me otherwise…
Learn something new every day! And I did. Very interesting. Being late means that you missed food at the concession stands, too.
…one meal and you don’t have to eat for another two days or so.