Prompted by the “oops” thread, I’ve got a question about those half sized containers that sit in the middle of the trailer. When you come to unload one of those, does the trailer shink like extender trailers or is there a way to make the container move to the back?
I can’t see how the latter would work as it’s obviously many tons so you can’t just push it, but having never gotten close to one, it’s been a question I’ve had everytime I see one (and annoyingly they banned typing questions on TNUK while driving along the M1).
If it’s a sliding skelley it’s just a case of going on through the process of shrinking it, if it’s a fixed trailer which you sometimes see with 2x20’s on it’s a different process depending on which way round the boxes are loaded
Known as a ‘slider’. It literally slides forward so the box doors are right at the back of the trailer. Air operated locking pins keep the whole thing together.
I expect a trawl of Ytube would find someone opening and closing one up.
Since two people both answered and didn’t answer the question. There are two different sections of the trailer which lock together and are designed to slide. The rear section is the trailer wheels and rearmost twist locks, the other is everything else. If you look at the last 10ft of the top of the trailer you’ll see the frame steps down about 6 inches, that’s where they slide together. The two pieces are locked together by two pins attached to brake chambers, to slide the trailer the pins retract on both sides allowing it to move (with the trailer brake on). Then it’s just a case of jumping in and driving forwars or backward depending on the direction it needs to go. You’ll actually see a few pics of the mechanism on my profile gallery.
