Last two days had to reverse triaxle 40ft trailers, admittedly in a tight yard, onto a bay.
Today was better but still these trailers are hard for me compared to 1 or 2 axle. I dunno if it’s my imagination but even normal 45ft trailers seem easier. I’m not very experienced, but these seem to take forever to get a bend on, then if you want to correct, you can never catch it in time because of the sluggish response.
The good thing is I can always shunt straight forward 2 or 3 times to get it right, but it still knocks my confidence!
TBH and this sounds ungrateful, but when other drivers help with directions it can be a hindrance, I think on my own I’d take longer shunts forward rather than use a lot of steering.
Is it just getting used to these? I think it’s easier to “steer” the trailer by going forward then back, just takes ages at the moment.
They are no different to any other trailer. What you are freaking out on is if there is no box, it’s harder to line up the chassis but if anything they are easier than any other trailer.
foresttrucker:
Last two days had to reverse triaxle 40ft trailers, admittedly in a tight yard, onto a bay.
Today was better but still these trailers are hard for me compared to 1 or 2 axle. I dunno if it’s my imagination but even normal 45ft trailers seem easier. I’m not very experienced, but these seem to take forever to get a bend on, then if you want to correct, you can never catch it in time because of the sluggish response.
The good thing is I can always shunt straight forward 2 or 3 times to get it right, but it still knocks my confidence!
TBH and this sounds ungrateful, but when other drivers help with directions it can be a hindrance, I think on my own I’d take longer shunts forward rather than use a lot of steering.
Is it just getting used to these? I think it’s easier to “steer” the trailer by going forward then back, just takes ages at the moment.
If you are backing onto a bay and it drops down a slope, the trailer will pivot differently, get your lock on slowly and off fast and just follow the wheels.
It will click all of a sudden and you will wonder why you wrote this post. (Honest)
You should have tried those old short neck 20ft skellys from when noah built the ark , FFS if you didnt pay attention you could end up parked along side yourself , cor blimey …
ROG:
Twin axle pivot point is the front trailer axle
Tri axle pivot point is the middle axle
Does that help?
It does help. But also, what little experience Class 1 I’ve had has been cage work, and the 1 or 2 axles seem easier to turn. The triaxle is easy to come back straight, but the wheels move/scrub across the ground in the previous direction a fair bit before turning.
Two problems right now.
(1) setting up the reverse is too rushed, I need to visually check directly/indirectly where the back of the trailer is before turning left to set up the reverse, not being careful means the arse end of the trailer requires lots of steering input to bring it back on target.
(2) I’m not bringing the truck far enough forward to straighten up and then come back gently again. When someone is trying to help me and gesturing what side I need to be closer to, I get flustered and tend not to use the space ahead of me, too little forward movement + too much steering.
It was hard these two days, because there’s no space to the “left” of the loading bays, you sort of have to snake around. Ah well, a lot of places will be like this, have to get used to it!
Oh yeh one last thing to bore everyone with, today after a mediocre reverse I came back to the port, and one of the guardhouses was closed, to cut a long story short I had to reverse back down the HGV lane (good side) for a couple of hundred yards back into the car park, and it wasn’t a problem. Feeding steering left to right etc, taking bend on and off, was fine and didn’t even think about it.
OK that’s nothing to you guys who can do it with your eyes closed, it’s ironic though that going backwards down a one-way lane is fine, but I struggle with the yellow loading bay bananas!
(1) setting up the reverse is too rushed, I need to visually check directly/indirectly where the back of the trailer is before turning left to set up the reverse, not being careful means the arse end of the trailer requires lots of steering input to bring it back on target.
(2) I’m not bringing the truck far enough forward to straighten up and then come back gently again. When someone is trying to help me and gesturing what side I need to be closer to, I get flustered and tend not to use the space ahead of me, too little forward movement + too much steering.
And now you know where the problems lie, you’re well on the way to sorting them. I had crazy troubles with reversing when I first started so you have my sympathy. It comes with practice and patience. And, I quote, you’ll wonder why you wrote this post!
Practise , practice, take a good look everywhere when lining it up for your reverse. Sometimes fatigue can set in & make it harder to consentrate, stick with it, it’ll come good in the end
I share your pain foresttrucker…been trying to get to grips with a steered single axle trailer put a left turn on, start going back and WHAM there’s the trailer at 90 degrees to the cab!
Trouble for me is that I don’t drive very often so don’t get much opportunity to practice
The art of reversing is best learned from someone who drove lorries before power steering, they did it first time every time, far too much hard work shunting with Armstrong Steering
It’s all about positioning, get yourself as straight as possible to start with and then you should really only apply a small bit of lock to get it started in the direction you want to go, the rest of the time you’ll be taking the lock off as you push the trailer around
That’s the theory, in practice it’s a little different, a little early or late with either lock and you can tie yourself up in knots
You often hear the phrase ‘practice makes perfect’ well when it comes to reversing an artic, that isn’t the case, sometimes even the best drivers will make a complete balls up of it, the only difference is they don’t care what the other drivers think anymore, whereas a newbie does
I find that im ok backing up tight lanes and blind side in to loading areas buy when i get back to the yard to dekit and have all the room in the world for some reason it just goes to pot.
I havnt been out with many 45ft tho just 35ft rear steer and 27ft trailers so god knows what id be like in a 45ft.
I found with reversing, if you are using loads of lock on the steering you are making the job hard for yourself. If you have the room and set up correctly, you can usually get on the bay with small steering inputs.
I find watching the trailer’s middle axle (3 axle trailer) is crucial. But, you need to assess where they WILL be going given the angle of the trailer, and correct (if necessary) to where you WANT them to be.
As has been said it comes with practise. I still balls it up, other drivers do, sometime it’s in one, sometimes in two and sometimes it’s 3 or 4 shunts. Do I care? Not a ■■■■ mate. As long as it goes on safely and without damage it’s a good reverse. If in doubt, get out and look as well.
The test allowing you only a couple of shunts and only getting out once is ■■■■■■■■. In the real world there are no prizes for only getting out once - especially if the result is expensive damage. Take your time and once you realise it’s not quite there, sort it. Don’t try to feed lock on that isn’t there.
Keep at it and you’ll be banging them on the bay in no time!