tony.latham wrote:My son has a new truck to drive,
Amazing.
Are those multi-trailer rigs common there? Are the containers built for a specific cargo?
Tony
Multi trailer rigs are the norm here - can't make a living one trailer at a time..
The most
uncommon semi-truck here is a single trailer rig.
The old "18 wheeler" - bogie drive prime mover, pulling a bogie axle trailer - is pretty rare.
Usually that'll just be a local short haul delivery truck for a grain farmer or a quarry. Someone who needs to get trailers out of town to where he can put a train together will pull singles, but they'll have three axles, not two.
There are specific road train routes that go all the way into the Port Adelaide, the main shipping terminal in the capital.
The rules are pretty complex, but I believe they can drag A-Doubles and B triples and B-Doubles in and out of there. Once out of the city, there are marshalling yards, where they can put some of these rigs together and pull triples out.
Then north of Port Augusta, they can now pull full "super quads".
https://www.truckandbus.net.au/quad-roa ... et-for-sa/My son's truck hauls some sort of sand, I forget what.
Once upon a time they used ordinary tippers for such work, that hoist the tray with a big hydraulic ram and tipped over the back axles.
These are a common thing, but have a couple of problems - they fall over easy if some of the dirt hangs up around the hoist well, and you either have to break up the train or jackknife it to tip the front trailer. I've had 4 of these fall over, and countless jackknifed rigs get bogged in their own cargo.
So some mobs use side tippers. These tip the whole tray to one side.
Big improvement on a standard tipper in my opinion, but I've had one of these fall over too.
The son's rig looks to have side opening gates. So you pull up on a grid, open the gates, the cargo falls out either side of the trailer and then you drive out. Quick, efficient, safe, barely get your wheels dirty.
If you look closely you'll se that as well as the bulk cargo boxes there are smaller boxes, I believe these are for back loading bundles of cathode copper out of Olympic Dam.
Speed limit is 100km/hr about 62 mph, but Kalari have stuck with the old 89 km/hr limit. It's all remotely monitored for speed and driver drowsiness, There's a camera in the cab, if it detects rapid blinking of the eyes or no blinking, they call you up to see if you are having troubles staying awake.
You actually have to do a mandated fatigue management course before you are allowed to drive the big gear.
My son called 'em up one night - can't stay awake stopping the rig right here for a sleep.
Mentioned at the next safety meeting as a positive example.
Of course, if you were doing it every night...........not so tolerant I'd expect they'd be asking whether you slept through the fatigue management course.
by MickinOz » Tue Jun 01, 2021 11:03 pm 
