From memory again…that only came in during the late 70’s?
With older systems if air dropped it was possible drive off with no air, and no brakes!
Drain the air from an old trailer and it will move with no brakes. That is why we needed to set the mechanical handbrake on them. (Assuming it wasn’t jammed)
Drain air from a current trailer and it will have the brakes locked on by a spring.
The low air pop-out button I remember only from F7s /F10s onwards. Can’t remember F86 or F88 having them? Open to correction.
Most UK spec units had secondary brakes operating on trailer plus front unit axle.
Some imports did have the secondary hand brake operating on only the trailer I seem to remember.
Some owner-drivers etc liked using trailer brakes when on traction work to save the unit linings.
I do remember one driver of a UK F10 talking about using the “trailer brake” a lot. He ended up melting the plastic nut covers on the steer axle!
Spring brakes were pioneered in the UK by ERF in the 1966 and appeared on LV-cabbed units.
The trailer brake operated in the cab (usually a dashboard-mounted lever) was outlawed by EU at some time during the '80s IIRC. Judiciously used, they were a useful safety device to help guard against jack-knifing, especially on loose gravelly surfaces. However, they were open to severe abuse by traction drivers seeking to preserve their unit brakes by burning out someone else’s trailer brakes, (which is exactly why they were outlawed from what I remember at the time).
I had a few Scanias the first a P cab with a tag axle and all were fitted with a trailer brake.I was one of those drivers that abused the Norfolk Line trailer brakes but to be fair the brakes on their trailers were pretty poor
You can just imagine big trailer leasing companies and traction people like CTR, Euro-something, Rentco, Ferrymasters, Van Daele, Cross Channel Services, Norbert Dentist-strangler, etc etc banding together to lobby the EEC / EU in Brussels, can’t you. It must have been costing them a fortune in brake wear!
That would have been a cost but safety would be compromised as well.
If using the trailer brakes only they would easily over heat.
So when the footbrake was used it would be effective on the unit and less effective
(if at all) on the trailer. Exactly the opposite of what you want.
Judicious use of just the trailer brake might well be OK, but there is far too much scope for (avoidable) error, that they do not seem a good idea to me. You and I, dear reader, might be excellent and infallible but the others aren’t.
Quite correct. That’s because I have the intelligence to perceive when I am driving more correctly than those around me. This is because we are not all equal, are not blessed with equal gifts or equal opportunities. Welcome to the real world.
A double drive Thorny 8 wheeler, what’s not to like. Where I was gainfully employed we had 3 (Thornys own engines) They were great machines.
Re Concorde. I regret to this days not booking a ticket. Summer Saturdays an Air France Concorde had a few hours ‘downtime’ so for £100 a ticket it would do Heathrow to Leeds/Bradford (everybody off) and then (another full load) a quick 1 hour blast out over the North Sea. Back at LBA, load up again and back to Heathrow.
It would have been worth the £100 just for the take off experience.
Then evening flight to New York
Not very clear, but I would have roped those barrels a bit differently.
Roping over a fly-sheet is naughty, but we had old ones we could rope over, as well as decent ones we didn’t rope over.
I would put ropes in line with the ends of the pallets to keep the drums centred on the pallets.
Having said that, the load looks neat and safe enough.
