Yair . . . I don't see many detach goosenecks running up here in Queensland What about down South? . . . and if they are not common why do we not need them when they seem to be almost universal in the 'States? Personaly I just can't see the point except for very specialised applications . . . but then as you know I'm stuck in a time warp. LOL. Any comments? Cheers.
I have never seen one. I can't really see the point of them either. A pair of ramps seems better to me.
What is the max overall height in AUS?
Scrub,there used to be quite a few folding goose neck trailers around, Steco is one that comes to mind, I think the army had quite a few of them. There would be some advantages, lower height, easier loading for track machines. Some of them had the pivots welded up and were converted to rear load, in later years. The problem with the folding goose neck, was that you needed a winch to lift it up again. Swishy, down in Melbourne has detach and folding goose neck trailers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW-tpJWMv78&feature=plcp http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwgaNLd1f7s RnR.
Yair . . . RocksnRoses Yes mate. Guessing that's a typo and you meant lower height. I get that but I still don't understand. Even with those US style low decks it seems a lot of complexity and B/S just to avoid having to walk a machine up a set of ramps and forward over the trailer wheels. . .when they're alive. For special applications like recovering dead ones I can see that they'd be handy . . . but you hardly ever see them set up with a recovery winch mounted on the back. Cheers.
Scrub , If you don't mind put up some pics of what you have for trailers . Company I work for had a smaller tandem axle trailer with ramps for a while . Rubber tire stuff it was ok but steel tracks made it spooky .
It can be dangerous tracking over the rear, especially is the winter. If the trailers not level its nothing for a dozer to slide off the side and roll. Its safer and easier to just split the trailer. It might take an extra 5 minutes. Where i work you're considered lazy if you don't split the trailer and extremely lazy if you side load.
I have loaded machines on both beaver tail trailers with ramps and de-tatch as well. Splitting a de-tach is no big deal at all, really not a lot of trouble. And I would much prefer loading something like a 400 size (or bigger) excavator on a split de-tatch as opposed to walking it up ramps. jmho.
Well Scrub the simple answer is it's a max allowable height issue. The States set the max height allowed without special permits. In most States is 13'-6" and some allow 14'6", in Alabama it's 13'6". Federal reference - http://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/freight/sw/overview/index.htm Alabama regulations Reference - http://www.dot.state.al.us/maweb/doc/Title32Chapter9.pdf There are a lot of fixed neck rear ramp trailers in operation in the States, I know several local guys that's all they use. The rental houses have folding hyd tail trailers as they haul a variety of equipment but when it comes to heavy haul, a detach trailer is the most popular option. A detach gives you the extra height leeway to haul different types of equipment. Say you are hauling a Cat 725 artic truck, it's 11.25' tall - that doesn't leave much wiggle room on the height of the trailer and keep it within the 13.5' max height regulation, if one is moving it in my area. A detach gives the heavy haulers a more versatile trailer to haul different kinds of iron and help stay away from permits.
Scrub Puller - The issue is one of design to meet local conditions. I've never seen a detach on Australia, and I see no need for them. Here, we largely have newer infrastructure with plenty of clearance - apart from some of the earliest-built parts of inner Sydney and inner Melbourne. America appears to have large amounts of infrastructure that consistently has severe restrictions on height. The Americans need to haul items with tracks nearly dragging on the road. We have very little infrastructure where there's serious height restrictions. In the 1960's and 1970's, nearly all overhead wiring here in Australia was relocated to 16' as standard height. This gives us the ability to use trailer decks with 3' to 4' height with no major problems, with most equipment. A rear loading trailer with ramps is very fast to load and unload, but it requires skilled operators on the part of the truck driver and the machine operator to ensure that the trailer is level, and care is taken with loading and unloading. You haven't had loading fun, until you've driven up and over the ramps of a U.S. military trailer, that's fitted with 14.00 x 24 tyres, with an armoured D8H, in the tropical rain and mud! It's at least 5 1/2' to the top of those ramps, and you can't see your tracks, at any time! Talk about seat pucker factor! http://i50.tinypic.com/2cngl0g.jpg
Yair . . . Tiny . These folks make a decent trailer http://www.draketrailers.com/ pretty typical of what we use in Aus. I ran one of their early four axle units behind this truck in about 1965 . . . the trailer you can see me slightly overloading was configured with two rows of eight which used to bend the unsupported centre section of stock grids . . . didn't make for good customer relations with the cockys and we replaced it with the Drake OzDozer . I hear you about the operators and I think thats one of the reasons the detaches or folding goosenecks are so popular . . . they are probably seen as being "safer". To be honest I've never had a major problem with loading. I would imagine it may be a little different with snow and ice . . . I can't remember any issues in my one sojourn to the high country though. Don't quite understand the ramp set-up on that Army float. Why so high? Some of the Freighter drop centre floats had ten hundred twenty's on the back with about six inches of tyre projecting above the deck and we just used to walk over them with the grousers, never seemed to hurt them. johndeere123 . As far as I can see the maximum legal (I suppose non-permit) height in Queensland is 4.3 meters or in Google speak 14' 1"19/64th's. As OzDozer mentions above though we have the advantage of being a younger country and much of our infrastructure is relitivly new. Thanks for all the responses and Cheers.
Scrub , If most of the trailers there are close to the pics on that site , Its the deck height that would kill it for us . Getting a permit for over 15 feet 4 inches takes an act of congress almost .
An updated , Company just got the bid on a bridge repair job . They are going to have to section repair a bridge girder on the Kansas turnpike (eastbound I70 just west of Kansas City) . A gent with a load on a lowboy hit the bridge and rolled the beam . bridge is closed for now , 14 feet 6 inches
You'd trust the powers that be, that control the bridges in the county, will have enough brains to install high load, early physical warnings, such as the horizontal pipes on chains, well ahead of the bridge on I70, to ensure that even the most switched-off trucker, gets a wake-up call, before he slams another load into the bridge, causing another $500,000 in damage. We have one low bridge over a local suburban rail line - about 13' 6" from memory - and it got hit pretty regularly about every 6 mths, mostly with van body trucks. Then came the day a trucker slammed into it with something so solid, it took a heap of bridge beams out (I never saw what it was). The authorities closed it for about 4 mths for major repair, and installed early warning pipes on chains. Those pipes get hit about twice a month at least, often hurling the dangling pipes up and over the support beam. It sure wakes up a lot of the dozy drivers. But the bridge has never taken a hit again in the 5 or 6 yrs the early warning has been up.
Over and over again - http://11foot8.com/
Phildirt - Yeah, I remember seeing that bridge video site. A classic! Maybe there's a need for an electronically-actuated, hammer device in the cabin, that whacks the switched-off drivers around the head, so they get back into into "switch-on" mode! LOL
the lower the center of gravity the less likely the trailer will tip simple as that
How low can you go ??
Thought I would updated this thread . I mentioned before that the company I work for had a bridge repair job on I70 , Major east west interstate through Kansas ( actually runs from Utah to Maryland ). The pics will give you an idea why the detach necks trailer are a requirement . They sectioned the outside beam .
We use them so we can save every inch of height. 13'6" is max, 14'2" need a permit and over 14'2" needs a pole car and survey. We can squeeze a 773/775 on a lowboy and just get it under 14'2" the park brakes are left off so when the truck leans and the tire touch they just rotate. Some overpasses are still too low so the truck has to exit and drive straight over and back on to avoid going under it. Similar to this google pic. We sometime have to pull the front wheels. The rears stay on because they use the beam trailers and it fits between the rear wheels
Yair . . . Thanks fellers for the the responses to this thread. . . I now understand the problem and why you use them in the 'States Cheers
Scrub, once you go detach you never go back to anything else, about as simple as it gets.
I second that Randy88, we have both beaver tail ramp trailer and a detatch lowboy as well. It really doesn't take more that a few steps and few moments to work that detatch trailer. I had to go in the field last week to replace a rubber track on a Komatsu dumper. Loaded up a new rubber track on the rear of detatch, Polaris ATV buggy, 15K lb Nissan forklift, T190 Bobcat with forks, and cribbing blocks needed to support dumper while replacing the bum track. Once that detatch is busted apart, everything is low to the ground, and I don't think that 15K lb Nissan would much like the ramps on a beaver tail ramp trailer.
Yair . . . Randy88 I hear what you are saying . . . but its horses for courses. As others have said height is normaly not an issue over here. Since I started this thread I have actualy seen a detach! Talking to the owner/driver he reckoned it was a pain in the azz and could not hack five hundred miles of desert corrugations (washboards). He was going to weld it solid as they never bothered to detach it . . . he reckons it was much less of a hassle on his other trailer to load over bi-fold hydraulic ramps. The only reason he bought it was it was heavily discounted in a yard because no one wanted it and he got it very cheap. This site linked below works well on my computer and shows another manufacturer of the standard style of Australian equipment trailer. You will note there is no concession to extreme height reduction and they would be of little use in the 'States. http://www.tufftrailers.com.au/low-loader/ I just can't get my head around percieved problems loading and it must be a breeze these days with widening trailers and the fancy ramps. Cheers
Wow, nice trailer scrub, but if we had to pull those in the U.S., with the turns we have to make, we'd scrub the tread off of the tires.
Willie You must have missed the part about the self tracking axles. Several axles in those trailers shown self steer to reduce scrub.
its quiet common for the front (1st) and rear (4th) axles to be lift up and the rear 2 (axle 3 and 4) to be self tracking steerable so tire wear is no worse than the tandems u guys use cheers the learner
Yair . . . I have been out of the game a long time but I think the tracking axles are a comparitively new innovation in Australia . . . some fellers in the industry might chip in and set me straight. I know they were common in Europe many years ago and also in New Zealand in the early 'eighty's I know I was pulling similar four axle spreads in the 'sixty's with no such fancy touches . . . we were mainly on dirt though and I wonder how the fancy suspensions would stand up in tough going. Any comments from you Aussie blokes . . . and how many of the four axle floats on the highway have the self steering axles? Cheers.
Yair Scrub Quite a few quads getting about down here with BPW steerables, seem to stand up to the rough stuff pretty well, a lot easier on tyres, they are generally fitted with an air operated lock for reversing, need to be a bit careful on deeply bermed undulating roads that are common around here though, have seen results of one cut in on a tight sloping corner where the 2 rear steerables have taken most of the load and swiveled sideways caster wheeling the trailer into the table drain and almost overturning the trailer with a 35 odd ton machine on board, lifted the drive on the pm 18 inches off the ground on the uphill side with the opposite corner of the steer flattened to the stops. took a half day with another machine and a heavy recovery truck to hold it up and pull it out, old mate more or less had to flick that pair of jocks.
You guys down under, sure have a different idea of a trailer than we do, I'll grant you that, liked the photo's so we could see what you run down there, I don't think I'll trade with you though for anything, either you don't have winter with snow and ice to contend with, height issues, or uneven driveways to contend with, theres no way on earth I'd ever get to where I needed to go with an axle spead like that, steerable would be somewhat better, but just more to fix and go wrong over time, also whats the legal width down there, here its 8 foot 6 inches, those sides hang over past the axles pretty far by the photo's, we need outriggers here for wide loads and 3-4 feet off the ground is pretty far up to have almost nothing sitting on the trailer and everything sitting on outriggers and boards. I'm also curious, how many machines have you laid over the side either while loading or unloading or had slid off the side and flop onto the machines side? Don't you have tight corners and trecherous hills to work around? With the machines sitting above the axles and over the sides past the width of the axles, your pretty top heavy and your center of gravity is high, how do you handle that issue. Also what tire size and brake drum sizes are on the trailers down there, by the photo's I thought they looked smaller and in metric didn't mean anything to me, around here 22.5 run larger drums and brakes than the smaller 17.5's do and have less brake problems with brake fade, almost all detaches have the larger brakes, drums and tires on them, deck height would be over 4 foot heigh to get the best of all worlds, also are machines down there somehow smaller in size or designed lower loaded height than here in the states? I know you mentioned in meters which was about 14ft 1 or 2 inches, but does everything fit in that height or less and do the equipment manufacters cater to the traler industry somehow to get that? To me those look like a glorified step deck with a hydraulic tail on them, do the outriggers hydraulicly widen out too somehow? And also does the trailer main frame narrow or shorten up in height as it goes over the four axles or how does that work, do they run double frames above the axles or are the axles underslung like truck steer axles are here or how do they work, I couldn't tell in the photo's? Sorry for all the questions but I'm trying to figure out how you can haul 50 ton plus on those trailers and have the frame heavy enough to do so, how about really heavy loads like say 80 ton plus, here they run steerable axles out the back and a dolley up front between the truck and trailer to scale more axle weight, hows it done down there or how do you add to those trailers to get up to get up to really heavy haul?
Simple answer Randy. In Oz & Europe we can run much higher axle weights - or maybe the US has a lot more bridges, overpasses, etc, that have onerous weight restrictions on them. Check this out. This is 300+ tons (load + trailer + bogies) on only 12 axles, so close to 30 tons/axle. Note the distinct lack of bridges power lines, and other height restrictions. Or this one. Same model of loader on even less axles ...........
Nige, so is there no towns, rural areas, cities, rivers, streams, creeks, culverts, bridges, overpasses, anything there but wide open terraine in the whole continent or those loads banned from running there, also what are the roads made of over there, pavement four feet thick and considerable rebar in them, no swampy area's, marshes, rainy, snowy, anything, is the whole continent void of weather or during those times, loads are not allowed to move? Also are there no hills like say miles of 7-8% slope to run up and down winding and turning as you go or shorter steeper hills or is everything flat likes in the picture. 30 tons per axle, holy sh** what type of tires are you running anyhow, solids or 30 ply to carry that weight on 8 tires, or are there more inside the frame we can't see, like 16 per axle instead of the standard duals set up per axle or what? As they say now you have my curiosity up.
Yair . . . Hello again Randy88 It's always pleasing to start a thread that creates a bit of interest. As far as you specific questions go you will realise I am pretty much out of the loop with the modern equipment so I hope some of the younger blokes who are actualy running this gear will chime in. To be honest I have have never had a problem loading or getting off. I have seen a few issues though, most caused by operators not knowing how to give me half an inch of controlled movement with a power-shift . . . most of my work was dozers and scrapers. I've had a couple of dozers come off. One was to much exuberance on my part combined with an off camber bend at the bottom of a hill . . . the other was that the wheels dropped right through the bitumen after heavy rain. I was lucky there was no damage to speak of. . . we never chained the dozers on in those days. I am talking of a different era of course when the speeds were much lower . . . the Macks and Pete's I drove back then had 28 or 32mph diffs and that was it. It was mostly dirt road though and even today under those conditions 30mph with sixty tons would be quite enough. The recent trailers I have seen have a hydraulic power-pack (driven by Honda gasoline engine) and a hand held remote to operate the ramps and widening . . . I believe some even do it with their iPhone. This "gallery" section of this link may give you an indication as to configurations for heavier loads . . . they just add extra axles. I trust these links I post here work on the other side of the world? . http://www.draketrailers.com/index.php/gallery/deck-widener#2-DSC05893 Cheers.
Yair . . . Guday Randy88 . . . your #32 post came up while I was typing. I was just going to ask Nige where his #31 post pictures were taken . . . those trucks some how look "foreign" to me. Cheers.
heres a pretty wide range of the aussie trailers the site tells you roughly what weights we run on each size trailer http://www.lustytrailers.com.au/trailers/ http://www.trt.co.nz/trt2_Manufacturing.cfm
Looked over the trailer links, you've got far different terraine over there than anything I have here, none of those trailers would do me any good anywhere, dirt roads seriously, around me if its not paved or graveled with extensive tile in the road beds, you couldn't walk on any road let alone dirve anywhere, ever. Those widening trailers only had one picture that showed the swing widening, how do the others work and are the axles solid across the trailer or do they seperate with the widening halfs as well I thought I saw pictures of both ways. With dirt roads I don't need to ask about salting the roads in the winter, thats abviously not a worry over there, with road salt and gravel dust, any pull out outriggers never work around me, nobody wants them for that reason, its swing out out riggers with a board on top. A really neat idea would be to put the swing hydraulic widening on a detach, but doubtfull the swiing portion would work for long, it would either be rusted solid or packed with gravel dust in days and wouldn't work anyhow or froze up in the winter. Thanks for the info, you guys down under definately operate in different conditions than I do, I'll envy you in a couple months from now, when its 30 below and I'm digging my trailers out of a snow bank and trying to get my brakes unfozen so I can move the trailers to haul my equipment around.
Yair . . . Randy88 Some good info and general arrangement drawings on that second link posted by The Learner . I sympathise with you about the snow and ice of your Northern winter. This has been an interesting discussion and shows how different folks build and adapt to different conditions. Seriously though, apart from the height limitations imposed by your infrastructure (low clearance bridges and underpasses) I doubt any US conditions would be a problem for a Kiwi or Aussie trucker using their familiar home grown equipment . . . the legality would be a whole other ball game. It is obvious the various American manufacturers have put a lot of thought and research into developing gear to get 'er done under difficult conditions and the detachable goose-neck is just one of those solutions. Cheers
Randy, to answer a few of your questions. Both the trailers in those photos are 8 tyres per axle. You can't see the inner ones because of the way the photos were taken. Not sure about the jeep in the 2nd photo, it appears they are only duals but they look pretty big to me, maybe 14.00x24, maybe even bigger than that when you compare them to the tractor tyres. The bogies under the first one are actually 100% hydraulically steerable from a control on each bogie. Moving's also relatively simple. Call the police, they send a car to act as escort at the front. Support truck behind as 2nd escort and have at 'er....... The first photo, believe it or not, is climbing an 8% grade, that's why there are 3 tractors hooked on to it. Usually there would only be one. Simply there are no terrain features that give you perspective how steep it is. That particular load moved from 1500ft above sea level to 10,000ft ASL in 90 miles....!! The 2nd one was hauled close to 500 miles from the dealer's yard to the customer. Of the 500 miles maybe half or more was on dirt roads. The roads are no different to maybe what you have in US regarding construction, thickness of blacktop, etc, but with one difference - it's doesn't rain - ever ..!! The area where those photos were taken has not seen rain for 300 years according to the Discovery Channel. Basically the road is desert sand heaped up from both sides, compacted and then blacktop laid on top of it. For Scrub puller's interest. The tractors in the 1st photo are an Astra (made by Iveco's heavy haul division), an Iveco Turbostar, and a Volvo FH16 pushing. The 2nd photo is also a Volvo FH16. Oh, and lastly it's typical (anywhere outside the US from my experience) that all utilities are laid underground so generally they are no phone, power, or other hanging cables to worry about.
Scrub Puller, Nige, thanks for sharing the information, climate and conditions play a vital role in many things, no rain in over 300 years, as they say just add water and then see what would happen in that area, I can imagine burying the infrastrucure would be the safest place for it, without water, you don't even have to worry about those set of headaches even with it buried. theres no freeze thaw or frost heaving to deal with, no torn up roads due to salt eating them away, no moisture damage to contend with, just exactly what do you have to deal with over there? I know we'll send over some engineers to help install round abouts for you to contend with, that would eliminate those travel congestion areas for you, we can also have them escourted by the DOT to make sure they get there safely, they'll help revolutionize your safety standards for everyone's benefit.
DOT. Nooooooooooooooooooooo thanks....!!! You can keep them to yourself. Somewhere on YouTube there is a video of us hauling a Cat 797 up Highway 5 in Chile. 2 lowboys, one with the chassis complete with tyres, the other with the bed. A sight to see heading up a 2-lane highway. Can't find it right now but I will and will post it later. This is a different clip but this lowboy with a 797 on board is heading down the same hill that the 994 was heading up in the first photo of Post #31 ...... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=431VopzI0L4&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxjcPEE4jIg&feature=related
Compare this photo of a 994 chassis (90 tons or thereabouts) leaving the factory with the ones in Post #31 above. The complete machine weighs 3 times that .........!!! You guys in the US sure have to jump through some hoops.
Nige, yea I'm thinking you might have a few dot issues if you were here in the states, not really sure how you'd ever get the load in post 41 through a round about here either, thanks for you tube video, I can't say I"ve ever seen a haul truck travel down a two lane road before quite like that without some prison time involved for someone. Is there nobody ever on those roads, or are they shut down to traffic while those loads get moved?
The road in question is a public road. It connects the Pan-American highway in Northern Chile to a border crossing over the Andes to Argentina. However there are 2 major mines almost at the end of that road, and they paid for the upgrading of the road during their construction phase & they continue to pay for maintainance of the road as a concession to being able to move all their materials up & down it. Prior to the mines opening it was only a dirt road, and from a point East of the mine gates to the Argentinian frontier it still is. Result of it all is that because of the amount of money they invested in the road the mines pretty much control all traffic on it, with the approval of the Govt and the police, although it is still a public highway that anyone can drive on. So to move a truck (either on a lowboy or under its own power) like that just needs the police to be informed and a couple of escort vehicles eqipped with 2-way radios to ensure that traffic at the most critical areas on the road is out of the way when the oversize load goes past. Simple as ............. I still need to find that other YouTube video.........
And I have finally found it ......... took me a while. That's me in the white pickup early in the clip taking to the dirt to get past the convoy to get ready for a turn into the mine about 5 miles up the road. Never realized anyone had caught it on film....!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elNyQ0xZ6mY&feature=related Plus another 797B coming down the road from Escondida. One tractor ahead, 3 behind to provide braking on the 8% grades down the hill. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOWQpI8Izew
Thanks for the video's, never seen large equipment moved quite like that before, just out of curiosity, how wide were they, how long and how high?
I don't have exact figures, but the complete rig including the tractors was around 200ft long, 26ftwide, and about 30ft high to the top of the truck headboard.... Movements like that happen literally all the time. Every machine to get overhauled will be pulled out of the mine and sent to the dealer's shop. One of the reasons is the anal safety/security rules on most of the big mine sites, the hoops suppliers have to jump through to get men & materials on to the site, and often something like obtaining sufficient accomodation on site. Despite the cost of moving the machine off the site and back again something like an overhaul (or a new build for that matter) can be done much faster & cheaper off the mine site. There is also the small matter of the altitude to consider. The mines are generally at around 10,000ft, some are as high as 15,000ft - the dealer shop is at 1000ft...... Human beings work better when there's oxygen in the air, or so my experience tells me.
I think your width may be conservative, but it also may be a different style body. They 97s we put together up in fort mcmurray were 31 ft wide. Any way you cut it its wide for a two lane!
My apologies - I messed up the Metric/English conversion. The bodies on those trucks in the clips are actually closer to 32ft wide .......
Here's an amusing photo that was shot on a highway in Chile .........
Kalgoorlie has wide enough streets to drive the biggest dump trucks down them, for the annual St Barbara's Day parade (St Barbara is the patron saint of miners). http://i48.tinypic.com/j0ffdi.jpg
Thanks for the information and photos everyone, the best part of HEF is seeing how the rest of the world functions and gets things done.
im to lazy to detache i just side load lol
I guess you do have low bridges down under!