Dropped Curtains

NEW AND WANNABE DRIVERS (INTERACTIVE)
1

So. There you are, you’re in a curtainsider 18t wagon, and you’ve pulled the pole from the O/S/F socket on the curtain and pulled the offside curtains to the rear of the vehicle.

The forkie removes the pallet(s) there and he wants to access the next, so you pull the curtains mostly forward, then unhook the rear bar and then slide the rest of the curtains forwards.

Now. In all my years working with 7.5t curtainsiders, I’ve always had a brake of some kind in the channel to stop the curtains departing the upper rack.

Except for this truck :frowning:

3 of the rollers came off. Despite it being a double-deck trailer I felt it would be unsafe to climb up and reattach it. The boss did it the following day with the help of the forklift.

What would you have done in this situation?

And how would you have carried on your duties for the day, securing the vehicle and curtains and any differences in your driving due to the air pocket?

2

Not a lot you can do, the idea of curtains is that you tension them longitudinally and laterally. If the rollers are not in the track, you cannot tension them properly.

I never undo both ends together so haven’t had this problem, untension the straps, then slacken the rollers, pull the curtains forward, let the forkie do his job, then pull them back reattaching the back roller, before opening the front part

3

Perhaps you could of got the folk who tipped you to put a stack of empty pallets on your trailer? Then you could of fixed it yourself.

Not the end of the world. It probably took you longer to take the pictures than it took your boss to mend the trailer.

Al

4

I took the piccies when the forkie was unloading the other side :wink:

Although yes, the boss only took 5 minutes to sort it. However, taking the piccies were less than that on my phone. But it’s not happend to me before… :blush: :blush: :smiley:

5

Ruddy curtains!

Some days I love 'em, some days I hate 'em! Mind you, anything beats a tail lift (work of the devil!)

I’d probably have just tightened the curtain the best I could and driven carefully for the rest of the day.
If there was only one or two drops left on board I’d probably have asked the gaffer if he wanted me to come back right away or not.

At least it’s not like a damaged box or anything, curtains aren’t load-bearing so its only a cosmetic thing as long as they aren’t billowing and causing a hazard.