seth 70:
When the rear lifts were first brought out there werent many units without crumpled back wings or bent and smashed back lights held on with tape and tiewraps,they went alot further up than the tags do today,tyre scrub was bad aswell if they were only single wheels looked good thow
You’re right about the wreckage! The worst was in the various docks doing traction work, where everyone was picking up unfamiliar old foreign tilts with long or short pins - nightmare. The other problem was that tag-axles tended to get attached to quite long-wheel-base units and the gap between the cab and a 12-metre trailer could be said to be not very air dynamically favourable, to say the least. Here are some I drove in the mid '80s like that. Robert
hey Robert, If i say that green trailer is a Van Daele, is it?? Lash did a lot of cabotage work here in Belgium in the late '70’s and '80’s,and had even Belgian numberplates with a right hand drive MB. Because of a Belgian envious haulier
who made a complaint. But even in the late '60’s and begin '70’s was a UK haulier hier with two Merc’s 1418 a nose and
a forward control, dark green cab’s with a red chassis.
Cheers Eric,
You are right Eric! I used to do a lot of casual driving for Lash. 95% of it unaccompanied roped and sheeted flat-bed trailers, so it could be hard work at times, but they were good to work for. I think all the work we did was for Van Daele in Belgium. When I was doing it, the fleet consisted of '70s Mercedes New Generation 1626s and 1625s. Just before I finished there, a 2033 came along with the big G-cab and I remember doing a couple of trips to Wales in that. Robert
Like Bewick said there were a lot of very bad conversions, in the 80’s it seemed that every one that had a shed was offering either a tag on a unit, or extra axle on a trailer, and I saw some shockers. The Swedes had them sorted out long before with the S and T ride, but it was usually lack of finances that caused the decision to be made. For me the dodgy conversion was the extra 1.3 meters on the back of a tilt, with the short bay and extended tilt cover, which was never quite the right colour.
Here’s some that I had the pleasure of operating and /or driving.
Bewick:
Some of the 12 wheeled tri-axle trailers I followed at times made some horendeous cracks and bangs when going around tight bends and on roundabouts they literally left a layer of rubber behind them,and as for braking well the slightest touch had the wheels locking up and clouds of smoke billowing out from the back of the trailer.They were “overbraked” with having 6 wide brake drums with 9ins shoes,and when some operators started to convert to the mini super singles but on the narrow track old axles this caused another load of agg.with the additional strain on the hub studs etc.And there’s more,so there is Some of these older tandems that were converted had been accustomed,and designed,to carry 20 ton and all of a sudden they had to start hauling 25ton,and what happened ? trailer necks started snapping like carrots in front of the landing legs. Cheers bewick.
Just a little end to my quote Bewick which i know will be close to your heart (or bank account) we could all get at least an hours overtime on fridays just waiting to fuel up. regards ardennes
You’ll have to explain in more detail this last post “ardennes”,we had dual derv pumps pouring out 100ltrs per minute,none of the units hung about on the pumps in the Milnthorpe depot IIRC. Bewick.
Hello Bewick,when i said chaos it really was,at one time there was one very slow old pump.It was not in a good position and you could only get one truck at a time.Many times the driver had filled up but could not move as others had filled the spaces in all the yard.Drivers myself included had to do any transhipping in any space we could find,one trailer to another with a fork truck took even more space and there was not any depot staff.the transhipping had to be done as they where trunk loads.In the dark ,in the rain ,not good.Preston depot had out-grown itself by i think 73/74 ,more trunks,Kilwinning,Westerburn St,Johnstone and South Mimms plus twice the number of preston day drivers.We did get 2 pumps in the middle of the yard but the whole depot was to small for the increase in traffic.When we moved to the new depot at Bamber Bridge all the problems went away and the space we had was luxury,made everthing a whole lot easier,remember it all well but we got through it every time albeit at the expense of overtime.Can still say it was a job and a company (WH Malcolm)that i enjoyed working for.Regards ardennes
Bewick:
Some of the 12 wheeled tri-axle trailers I followed at times made some horendeous cracks and bangs when going around tight bends and on roundabouts they literally left a layer of rubber behind them,and as for braking well the slightest touch had the wheels locking up and clouds of smoke billowing out from the back of the trailer.They were “overbraked” with having 6 wide brake drums with 9ins shoes,and when some operators started to convert to the mini super singles but on the narrow track old axles this caused another load of agg.with the additional strain on the hub studs etc.And there’s more,so there is Some of these older tandems that were converted had been accustomed,and designed,to carry 20 ton and all of a sudden they had to start hauling 25ton,and what happened ? trailer necks started snapping like carrots in front of the landing legs. Cheers bewick.
Just a little end to my quote Bewick which i know will be close to your heart (or bank account) we could all get at least an hours overtime on fridays just waiting to fuel up. regards ardennes
You’ll have to explain in more detail this last post “ardennes”,we had dual derv pumps pouring out 100ltrs per minute,none of the units hung about on the pumps in the Milnthorpe depot IIRC. Bewick.
Hello Bewick,when i said chaos it really was,at one time there was one very slow old pump.It was not in a good position and you could only get one truck at a time.Many times the driver had filled up but could not move as others had filled the spaces in all the yard.Drivers myself included had to do any transhipping in any space we could find,one trailer to another with a fork truck took even more space and there was not any depot staff.the transhipping had to be done as they where trunk loads.In the dark ,in the rain ,not good.Preston depot had out-grown itself by i think 73/74 ,more trunks,Kilwinning,Westerburn St,Johnstone and South Mimms plus twice the number of preston day drivers.We did get 2 pumps in the middle of the yard but the whole depot was to small for the increase in traffic.When we moved to the new depot at Bamber Bridge all the problems went away and the space we had was luxury,made everthing a whole lot easier,remember it all well but we got through it every time albeit at the expense of overtime.Can still say it was a job and a company (WH Malcolm)that i enjoyed working for.Regards ardennes
PS Thinking hard (very) it was probably later in the 70s when it got really busy and got chaotic.
Bewick:
A shot of part of the Milnthorpe depot with the 80,000 litre derv tank,the motors could pull along each side to fill up from the high speed pumps.
sheer luxury compared to Lostock Hall,your drivers had it easy,i bet they wern"t transhipping in the open in winter at 7-30 at night,still it was part and parcel .best wishes ardennes
I know a few firms and owner drivers running on landfill work run tag axle units seems to only be scania and volvo. I was talking to a driver who said even though they havent got the off road ability of a double drive they can usualy get by i it isnt two sticky and been single drive they can cope with a bit of general haulage or weight sensiive bulk haulage better than a double drive landfilll spec tractor
The sheer amount of Scania 112s with tag axles that P&O bought , 83 to 84 , mainly for the new 38 ton work on USL indicated that they were to be worthy work horses and they were , some had single wheels as well as twin , care had to be taken with the wheels up for fear of catching the underside of the trailer and soon mudguards were regularly ripped of , could`nt quite lift the axle fully loaded and screwing round looked like the tyres would rip of , but they did have excellent traction , so good in fact pulling out of roundabouts in the wet would often send the Lorry in a strait line regardless of the steering and the ride loaded was bloomin horrible and would shake the fillings out of your teeth. incidently it was reported Drivers parking up overnight with axle in the up position found the wheels had ben swiped .
regards Frenchy
thats a very good question, imo the tag is still the king, on containers the amount of times you close your slider and cant move for ■■■■ in a twinsteer.
fancy backing this trailer on a bay with a twinsteer■■?
i wouldnt have liked to try and line these up with a twinsteer in a tight space!!!
seeing as your takin stacks and tags this picture applies
Hi all
I used to run a Danish Spec 141 6x2 bogie lift and a Dutch spec 112M 6x2 bogie lift and I think that they were the best set up.
I hardly used snow chains because if traction was lost, you just raise the tag a bit to put weight on the drive and away you go. Also they were good for the Hungarian weigh bridges, because you could juggle the axle weights around to avoid the fines, by raising the tag as the front axle rolled over the weighbridge, then lower it as the drive axle rolled over it, then raise it a bit again as the tag rolled over and raise it some more for the trailer axles if you were heavy !! Which I nearly always was.
Load 20 Tons at Astran, put two and a half thousand litres of diesel in ( red of course,1150ltrs on the unit and 1500 ltrs under the trailer, then top up the load with another four or five tons in Rotterdam for some extra pocket money…know what I mean !!
GS
For 6 axle combination, it was the way to go on this kind of work. With a close coupled fridge the rear end of the truck chassis/run up ramps/rear wing stays were prone to damage on tight turns up or downhill if the axle was raised.
The truck F12-400 was one of the worst Volvo produced, my old 385 peed all over it and much to the drivers derision so did a 350 Merc SK going up Somosierra after loading out of the same packhouse. So long!
Deffo agree with that bullit but i must admit i drove an early 143 with the old five over five box and the later three over three with a splitter was a much better drive
kr79:
Deffo agree with that bullit but i must admit i drove an early 143 with the old five over five box and the later three over three with a splitter was a much better drive
the GR801 (ten speed) was the box that was in my k reg 113, once you got used to getting 6th was a nice box to drive, but yes the GRS900 that was in the later ones was easier to keep the revs right with the splitter. i’ve got that box in my 124.
Some of these older tandems that were converted had been accustomed,and designed,to carry 20 ton and all of a sudden they had to start hauling 25ton,and what happened ? trailer necks started snapping like carrots in front of the landing legs. 
Cheers bewick.
this is before we got it uprated to 65 tonnes