Bewick:
I see that the Great Man has re-surfaced on this fine thread and is intent on imparting his vast knowledge on the haulage of coils and coil trailers to all members, does this Lad’s breadth of information on all transport related matters know no bounds ! Bewick.
Are you referring to the Leatherhead parcel delivery boy Dennis?, at a guess he’s probably never loaded 18t on a trailer full stop, let alone in one spot. So much for stgo and C&U malarky, it was the days when a combination of skill, experience, and kicking the tyres told how much weight you had on an axle…
Bewick:
I see that the Great Man has re-surfaced on this fine thread and is intent on imparting his vast knowledge on the haulage of coils and coil trailers to all members, does this Lad’s breadth of information on all transport related matters know no bounds ! Bewick.
Are you referring to the Leatherhead parcel delivery boy Dennis?, at a guess he’s probably never loaded 18t on a trailer full stop, let alone in one spot. So much for stgo and C&U malarky, it was the days when a combination of skill, experience, and kicking the tyres told how much weight you had on an axle…
Aye “kmills” that’s 'im ! but have you ever seen some of the old shots of the Carter Patterson horse drawn delivery vans around London ? well they all had a nasty little terrier dog chained on the tail board to deter the “jump up merchants” well I reckon The Great Man was the human equivalent on the Carryfast vans ! What do you think ? Cheers Dennis.
Bewick:
I see that the Great Man has re-surfaced on this fine thread and is intent on imparting his vast knowledge on the haulage of coils and coil trailers to all members, does this Lad’s breadth of information on all transport related matters know no bounds ! Bewick.
PLEASE GOD NO
Lets hope he keeps his ramblings on the Drivers Forum interactive pages and not hijack this thread with post after post of drivel.
Nice to see the photo of the E Curran Foden bulker. I used to see them in Sheerness Steel when my dad worked for JWQ. I think it was one of theirs who had a bad accident on the road off the Isle Of Sheppey years ago, head on with another lorry.
moomooland:
0 Here’s another busy shot for you Dean.
Well done moomooland you have found a picture for Dennis of I’m from Leatherhead, he can be seen in the busy loading picture bottom to right between the two hand carts with his hands behind his back, should imagine in some supervision position judging by the hat watching all the other men grafting, Dennis will be pleased, cheers Buzzer.
kmills:
Are you referring to the Leatherhead parcel delivery boy Dennis?, at a guess he’s probably never loaded 18t on a trailer full stop, let alone in one spot. So much for stgo and C&U malarky, it was the days when a combination of skill, experience, and kicking the tyres told how much weight you had on an axle…
Great so how much weight do you think was on the drive axle of that DAF hauling the two coils.
While Bewick’s answer is obviously to move the trailer axles forward so that 18t load is sitting on the trailer axles or preferably behind them.That’ll fix it.But what would I know.
Bewick:
I’ve noticed that quite a number of those Coilers have their tandem bogies well back on the chassis so surely this must have given rise to overloading problems on the unit drive axle ? just an observation from a long retired haulier ! Cheers Bewick.
As somebody with a few thousand loads of coils under my belt so to speak, obviously I defer to Carryfast in this as in all other matters. As has been said these trailers without rear overhang will be between 33 and 38 feet long, you must also bear in mind that most coil wells ended at the legs meaning that the front 10-14 feet of the trailer not being loaded, this counterbalanced the lack of loading at the back. M&G and AHP did build some trailers with an optional shallow front well which extended to the king pin for customers who sometimes carried loads of small 3-4 tonne coils, mainly out of Shotton.
As for the DAF in the picture having two 18 tonne coils on this is obviously not true. Those coils are quite narrow probably about 900mm wide and that trailer only has a narrow well, that is the width of the chassis rails, unlike what I would call a proper coiler which has a subframed well sitting on a stepped chassis giving a much wider well, therefore carrying the coils lower than that trailer, I would guesstimate those coils at around 9-10 tonnes for the front one a little more for the back one, giving a unit weight of about 15.5 tonnes, personally I would have had the back coil a foot or so further forward, bit that looks fine to me. Since you are using such a small propionate of the trailer length with coils an experienced driver together with a capable and cooperative crane driver (a rare thing indeed) could get axle weights very accurate.
flishflunk:
Great picture of Preston Docks from Paul. All the trailers appear to be Scammell couplings.
Yes indeed… BRS with a strong presence there, presaging Containerway, and note the bonneted Commers from the then young operation of Northern Ireland Trailers
moomooland:
2This is a brand new Seddon Atkinson 400 Series tractor unit in factory primer probably being delivered to a customer in South Wales on trade plates.
Notice how the rear wings and stays already seem to be coated in rust “Quality British engineering” at its best and people ask what happened to our truck industry no doubt mild steel wings stored outside and someone will be expecting the paint shop to rub them down and prep them when in reality they’ll have had a coat of primer and gloss and be rotting off in two years.
1Here’s a brand new 401 in the same factory paint job.
0The last Atkinson Defender to be built at Walton le Dale with the then brand new 400 Series moving up the production line all in factory primer.
To be fair to the factory, the rear wings were not factory-fit
moomooland:
2This is a brand new Seddon Atkinson 400 Series tractor unit in factory primer probably being delivered to a customer in South Wales on trade plates.
1Here’s a brand new 401 in the same factory paint job.
0The last Atkinson Defender to be built at Walton le Dale with the then brand new 400 Series moving up the production line all in factory primer.
How long did the Atkinson factory stay open after the merger , I thought everything moved to Oldham?
The takeover (rather than a merger) was completed late in 1970 after a long battle, during which both ERF and Foden tried to buy Atkinson, and in which the Atkinson board resisted with all means at their disposal. However, the success of the late Seddon bid was sealed when Leyland Motors agreed to sell their 20% holding in Atkinson.
The last true Atkinson was built in April 1975 (the Defender in the photo Paul posted: chassis FC29941, reg KVT 604P), after which the Walton-le-Dale factory built all the multi-axle 400 Series rigids (essentially Atkinson designs) together with tractor units according to spec.
The Atkinson works closed at the end of 1981, having built, if I remember rightly, the first 250 of the new 401 model. Most of the early 401 publicity photos were taken in the vicinity of the Atkinson works too. All staff were made redundant at that time too, including the Works Director, Stan Husband, and who was the only Atkinson director to stay on after the takeover. Some functions and staff had previously transferred to Oldham, including the much respected Atkinson ‘Publicity & Promotions Manager’, the late Frank Whalley. Frank later became Publicity Manager for Seddon Atkinson following the retirement of his Seddon counterpart
Bewick:
I’ve noticed that quite a number of those Coilers have their tandem bogies well back on the chassis so surely this must have given rise to overloading problems on the unit drive axle ? just an observation from a long retired haulier ! Cheers Bewick.
As somebody with a few thousand loads of coils under my belt so to speak, obviously I defer to Carryfast in this as in all other matters. As has been said these trailers without rear overhang will be between 33 and 38 feet long, you must also bear in mind that most coil wells ended at the legs meaning that the front 10-14 feet of the trailer not being loaded, this counterbalanced the lack of loading at the back. M&G and AHP did build some trailers with an optional shallow front well which extended to the king pin for customers who sometimes carried loads of small 3-4 tonne coils, mainly out of Shotton.
As for the DAF in the picture having two 18 tonne coils on this is obviously not true. Those coils are quite narrow probably about 900mm wide and that trailer only has a narrow well, that is the width of the chassis rails, unlike what I would call a proper coiler which has a subframed well sitting on a stepped chassis giving a much wider well, therefore carrying the coils lower than that trailer, I would guesstimate those coils at around 9-10 tonnes for the front one a little more for the back one, giving a unit weight of about 15.5 tonnes, personally I would have had the back coil a foot or so further forward, bit that looks fine to me. Since you are using such a small propionate of the trailer length with coils an experienced driver together with a capable and cooperative crane driver (a rare thing indeed) could get axle weights very accurate.
It’s obvious that the DAF example wasn’t hauling 18t coils.But even at best moving the rear one a bit further forward and I’d have also shifted the front one a bit further back,the flaw of the inbalance in weight capacity,created by the 4 x 2 unit,described by Bewick,remains regardless.It’s a similar situation to the flaw in the 6 wheeler rigid configuration in that regard.Realistically it was a job for 3 + 2 configuration to do it properly just as the 8 wheeler was the solution to the flaw in the single front axle in the case of a 6 wheeler rigid.Which is why the industry has now settled on the ideal artic configuration of 3 + 3.
240 Gardner:
]I remember reading an article in Comical Motor about Bowie, and their programme of re-cabbing some of these old LVs with B Series cabs: because of the axle position, the cab was mounted well forward, and the engine reached to the back of the sleeper cab, giving the false impression that they had 8-pot engines in them
Funny you should mention that Chris.
Here’s before and after pictures of KMA 640L transformed from a LV to a B Series.
1
0
moomooland:
2This is a brand new Seddon Atkinson 400 Series tractor unit in factory primer probably being delivered to a customer in South Wales on trade plates.
Notice how the rear wings and stays already seem to be coated in rust “Quality British engineering” at its best and people ask what happened to our truck industry no doubt mild steel wings stored outside and someone will be expecting the paint shop to rub them down and prep them when in reality they’ll have had a coat of primer and gloss and be rotting off in two years.
1Here’s a brand new 401 in the same factory paint job.
0The last Atkinson Defender to be built at Walton le Dale with the then brand new 400 Series moving up the production line all in factory primer.
To be fair to the factory, the rear wings were not factory-fit
It Looks like a pet reg tractor, front mount exhaust and firescreen thus the Weathered rear wings, steel for fire suppression maybe, so non factory
moomooland:
2This is a brand new Seddon Atkinson 400 Series tractor unit in factory primer probably being delivered to a customer in South Wales on trade plates.
Notice how the rear wings and stays already seem to be coated in rust “Quality British engineering” at its best and people ask what happened to our truck industry no doubt mild steel wings stored outside and someone will be expecting the paint shop to rub them down and prep them when in reality they’ll have had a coat of primer and gloss and be rotting off in two years.
1Here’s a brand new 401 in the same factory paint job.
0The last Atkinson Defender to be built at Walton le Dale with the then brand new 400 Series moving up the production line all in factory primer.
To be fair to the factory, the rear wings were not factory-fit
It Looks like a pet reg tractor, front mount exhaust and firescreen thus the Weathered rear wings, steel for fire suppression maybe, so non factory
Well spotted, that man, hence the steel rear wings. Although they would never be factory fit anyway in those days
To be fair to the factory, the rear wings were not factory-fit
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It Looks like a pet reg tractor, front mount exhaust and firescreen thus the Weathered rear wings, steel for fire suppression maybe, so non factory
[/quote]
Well spotted, that man, hence the steel rear wings. Although they would never be factory fit anyway in those days
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Fair point regarding non factory fit.
