I have read on the forum many times about tilt trailers.
What are they?
May be a stupid question but do they tilt backwards to be able to unload vehicles or is that a silly suggestion?
It shows I’ve never experienced them only fridges, boxes and curtain side trailers.
A tilt is one of these semi trailers (usually continentals) with a removeable frame which you often see with JCBs sticking out of the top. Basically you can roll back the top & sides, drop a load of boards & have a trailer which can take any sort of cargo.
As tallyman said, they are a curtain trailer but instead of the curtains sliding they roll back. The top and sides are all one and instead of snap buckles to hold the curtain sides in place they use a TIR cord threaded through eylets. They have boards between the uprights. They have in the main been replaced with Euroliners which are curtainsiders with a sliding roof.
Regards
westie
A bit like this. 
Its basically a flat bed trailer mad up to look like a curtain sider, and so makes it VERY adaptable.
It must take some work to dismantle one of them?
I bet it’s harder to re-erect it?
uktruckie:
It must take some work to dismantle one of them?I bet it’s harder to re-erect it?
Especially when it is windy or wet! (Or both!)
All tilts are evil…SEE HERE
Lucy:
All tilts are evil…SEE HERE
Gosh, don’t fancy that
As lucy says tilts are the Devils work, and whoever invented them ought to have one inserted up his arse one piece at a time over a long period, but they are being replaced sloooowly be euroliners.
Am i right in thinking that Health and Safety rules say you have got to be double manned for a complete stripdown nowadays■■?
Am i right in thinking that Health and Safety rules say you have got to be double manned for a complete stripdown nowadays■■?
Sadly not… 
Steel on tilts and overhead cranes, what a bollox that was! Thyer usually ok if you can load off the side or through the back doors. Once I tipped a load of paper in the east end, and it was a through the back doors job, great I think, half way up, the floors trashed, and the pallets are a bit over a ton apiece, not good on a pump truck! Was I glad to get back to doing general on a flat, ok, just as bad in a high wind, but i was loads faster with a sheet than a tilt!
I think they were originally developed to be able to carry a TIR loads because you can seal them like a boxvan but have the load flexibility and weight advantage of a flat.
I personally liked doing tilts, but that might be because the boss left us guys on tilts alone to do our thing and the guys on general haulage didn’t want to swap after Eddie Snax told them that we had to strip the tilt on every job. 
The little liar
werent they another great British invention for use on M/E work
DFDS use a lot of tilts over here, only haulier i can think of 
Tilts are two things:
Ruddy hard work and if i was offered a job that was £10 + an hour but with tilts i would turn it down.
Brilliant for the fact that as most foreign firms are taking our work at cheaper rates due to lower wages and fuel costs (allegedly)
So at least by them using tilts it slows them down a bit
Watched this one driver getting into a right tizzy a few weeks ago he had spent 10 - 15 mins opening the one side of his tilt then jumped back in his cab to have a well earned rest only to have the FLT driver come up to him and say "we tip from both sides , you have to open this side aswell…(to which the driver just stared down at Mr FLT blankly) OOOOPPENN THHHIIIIIISSSS SIIIIIDE TOOOOO…I SAID OPEN … OOOOPPENN (pointinging furiously at side of trailer) FLT driver obviously spoke fluent polish because the driver eventually understood him got out of the cab and threw a right hissy fit
He pulled the TIR cord through climbed up removed all the wood (how many trees were cut down in the making of this trailer??) and then got one of the boards and tried pushing the side up whilst at the same time climbing up the side of the trailer then with a shove tried hooking the side onto the roof and after about the fifth unsuccesful attempt of getting the side to stay there the FLT driver drove over and said do you want to stand on my forks and i’ll lift you up…To which the driver spouted a whole load of abuse at the FLT driver ( I think it was about 4000 words in about 4 seconds) and continued as before … 
So the FLT driver came over to me and said ■■■■ him if he thinks he’s getting tipped on my shift 
So its gonna be a long wait for me too then ? i asked…no mate i’ll tip you after ive had a cuppa and a ■■■ do you want one? To which i replied thanks very much white 1 sugar please 
So me and the FLT driver sat there drinking a cuppa and smoking a ■■■ and watched him spend the next 15 mins opening the other side (funny things never go so smoothly when your really pee’d off same obviously applies to polish tilt drivers
Lucy:
Am i right in thinking that Health and Safety rules say you have got to be double manned for a complete stripdown nowadays■■?
Sadly not…
That depends on who you work for I think.
I know that when Hanburys was still doing Norfolk Line on the rare occaision that a tilt came over then it was a 2 man job if it had to be stripped
It wasn’t just the wind & rain that made the job a pain.When I was running to Spain with 'em it was just as bad doing a full strip in 100degrees
I did the steel out of Corby a few times Mal I remember the first time I went in there,
Drove inside the building was told park over there and full strip
I spent the next 10 mins (oh alright might have been a bit longer ) stripping the trailer up to the front section pushing the sheet over the top as I went.
Then 2 more motors pulled alongside me and the overhead crane came along and pulled their sheets forward for 'em grrrrrr 
Oh and a quick tip if you ever do one dont tie 2 wheelnuts to a piece of rope (for throwing over trailer & pulling up sheet from opposite side) or if you do make sure some numb nut with a sunroof hasn’t parked the otherside of the trailer whilst you were talking to the forkie.
Youre right Sean, I forgot about the heat! theyre just hard work whichever way you look at it! I like the look of these euroliners though, sliding roof, you can carry just about anything.
We use tilts quite a lot, the worst load i had was a month ago
Loading 2000m up a mountain in Greece at a wind farm, load is frames going back to factory in Taranto Italy, didn’t even have to pull tilt over as wind blew it.
After unloading had to go to the docks in Taranto an load a 40 foot open top box, total strip down on me own to get it in.
Then back to the factory to load parts for wind turbine going to Korea. Had to take container to Hamburg freehaven much fun was had trying to get container lifted in the container terminal, dont think they would have lifted it at Felixstowe, Germans didn’t mind tho, didn’t help me, but were quite happy to lift it
sdj
Tilts are the reason hard hats were invented 
especially with the wooden roof bars
The worst thing that can happen is that when loading in a steel works, they want the roof out and it always rains and is very windy, or it is 40’c in Morroco and you have to rebuild one on your own.
Its funny that even the most persistant beggers and ner do wells seem to dissapear when you need a hand 
My worst experience was when the sheet blew over the front of the trailer covering the cab, it takes a crane to lift the sheet back on 
Been to Europe on holiday in the past with owner driver friends pulling tilts, so had learned how they work.
Only pulled one for a week whilst driving for another o/d on uk work. One of those weeks where you switch the wipers on when you start the motor up & switch 'em off again when you get home a week later! 
Loading scrap nickel somewhere just south of Glasgow. Opened up the leeward side by throwing 2 ropes over & hauling the sheet up. Just before finished loading the wind suddenly changed sides, blew into the trailer & lifted the whole sheet & moved it accross the trailer about 18."
What a hell of a job i had trying to sort that out. Finished up with the forkie lifting me right up to roof height on his forks no hard hat or high viz in those days! and me trying top pull the sheet back accross. Wrenched my shoulder.
Eventually managed to get it most of the way back, but no way would the eyelets line up with the metal loops. Luckily, I knew about the lacing trick. (those of you have worked with them will know what i mean).
Struggled a lot on my own there, praying for another truck to come into the yard. Now what I didn’t know until i eventually left 2+ hours later, though there was plenty or room in the yard, they hold incoming trucks at the gate until the one tipping/loading leaves. The guy at the front of the queue glowered at me…he’d probably been there ages. If they’d let him into the yard, he could have helped me.
Last year when being interviewed for my then job at P & O Ferrymasters & knowing that they move tilts sometimes I recalled the tale & explained that I would be very reticent to tackle a full strip out alone. Was told no problem driver, we’d send another driver in to help you in those circumstances.