Can anyone tell me when 40’ trailers got replaced with 45’ trailers.?
40’ Tri axle with super singles or 40’ Tri axle with twin wheels; would either set up still be used by fridge operators in late 80’s early 90’s? By the Irish or Scotch operators or had 45’ become the norm?
I need to know for a model Im working on.
Cheers guys.
Chopsticks:
Can anyone tell me when 40’ trailers got replaced with 45’ trailers.?40’ Tri axle with super singles or 40’ Tri axle with twin wheels; would either set up still be used by fridge operators in late 80’s early 90’s? By the Irish or Scotch operators or had 45’ become the norm?
I need to know for a model Im working on.
Cheers guys.
I thnk it was either 1989 or 1990 but i could be wrong
Chopsticks:
Can anyone tell me when 40’ trailers got replaced with 45’ trailers.?40’ Tri axle with super singles or 40’ Tri axle with twin wheels; would either set up still be used by fridge operators in late 80’s early 90’s? By the Irish or Scotch operators or had 45’ become the norm?
I need to know for a model Im working on.
Cheers guys.
I asked this question a while back and the answer was January 1991. Robert
And it can be found on the drivers forum ,may be someone could provide the link ?
the old 40ft single axle trailers used to sort out the men from the boys!
It happened when the trailer measurements went to 13.6 metres which is nearly 45 foot.
Cheers Dave.
In 1990 Artic max length went to 16.5m from 15.5m, semi trailers going from 12.2m to 14.04m, we had done away with the imperial measurement by then although most people used it to round off the metric figures to 40 and 45ft. Artic length had changed to 15m (49ft 2 and a half inches) from 1968 until the changes above. Franky.
As far as your 80’s/90’s model is concerned operators would still be using the pre 1990 length trailers, they were expected to get very long lifespans out of trailer stock and there would be a mix of tri-axle double and super single types around for a period also although Fridge operators would soon see the benefit of running single wheel tri axles due to the unladen weight difference of the two, fridges being heavier than your normal flat or box trailers.
The first few tri-axle 'fridges we had at Turners (Soham) Ltd. in 1990 were still 24 pallet capacity trailers, we also had some tandems at 24 pallet capacity, the earlier tandems were 21 pallet jobs, but the 24 pallet tandems were wider to accomodate two length-ways pallets side by side across the trailer. After 1991 all new trailers were 26 pallet tri-axles.
Just something about Turners that might be of interest, they have always fleet numbered their trailers sequentially and when I started working there in 1989 the oldest trailers were numbered in the high 400s. I have one of their newest fridges in our yard now after helping them out over the Christmas rush and that is T3027. Turners expect about 12 years life out of a fridge or tanker, so that gives some idea of how that company has grown in the past 20 years or so. Having said that we bought four powder tankers off them 6 months ago and they range from 13 to 20 years old but they’re still very servicable and in good condition.
Chopsticks:
Can anyone tell me when 40’ trailers got replaced with 45’ trailers.?40’ Tri axle with super singles or 40’ Tri axle with twin wheels; would either set up still be used by fridge operators in late 80’s early 90’s? By the Irish or Scotch operators or had 45’ become the norm?
I need to know for a model Im working on.
Cheers guys.
I can tell you that McKay who had the real McKay on their trailers were still running 24plt trailers well into the 90s as they bought a batch of 24plt trailers off Solstor when they switched over to all 26plt in the early 90s.
They were Chereau trailers with TK fridge units. I took a couple up to Scotch Corner and met up with their drivers, before I went to Gray and Adams to pick up new 26plt trailers, that was 92/93.
Some operators had their old 40-footers stretched. This TIR-tilt I did some Middle-East trips with, had been stretched. It left a short bay to the rear, which was rarely an inconvenience. Robert 
Having said that, I was still pulling 40-foot tilts around on traction work as late as 2003, like these for example: robert
A company I worked for in 2002 still had a lot of 40foot trailers in its fleet. About 20 flats and 12 boxes all in. Anything bigger was usually rented.
