Managing director, Kevin Webb, was looking for a new vehicle to handle urban duties, where high volume and manoeuvrability are prerequisites, and so looked to Krone.
“At the time, we were looking for an 18 Tonne rigid for urban areas or a 9-metre urban trailer,” said Kevin. “Krone’s area sales manager, Alan McKee, came along and said, ‘we have an 11-metre mega with the rear-steer lifting axle,’ and I thought, ‘that’s a big trailer to be getting into those places,’ so we tested it.
“What swung it was that we could get the City Liner into places where you wouldn’t dream of putting a trailer. A real test recently was a customer requested 26t Rigid to load from the rear entrance of The London Palladium. We felt this would be great test for the 11m urban. To gain access you have to dodge sleepers, flowerpots and posts. Our experienced driver drove the trailer in with ease and reversed to the rear doors. Leaving was a different situation and required a little more patience with the driver making few shunts and raising of trailer to clear the posts. Once in, one of the crew at the Palladium said, “how did you get that round there”?
The Mega City Dry Liner trailer offers greater degrees of flexibility, manoeuvrability and capacity than rigid vehicles. It is fitted with a front lifting axle and a rear-steer axle, rendering it capable of accessing areas that are out of bounds to both larger and smaller trucks.
At 11 metres, the body is two metres longer than those of conventional 18- or 26-tonne rigids and has a payload capacity of around 19 tonnes – roughly double that of a conventional rigid truck – and a gross vehicle weight of 30 tonnes.
The trailer’s greater capacity and flexibility have also allowed EGS to cut costs and emissions by putting fewer vehicles on the road, which also reduces loading times.
“We have a show booked in where the client wants four 18-tonners. We’ve got it down to two 18-tonners and the Krone trailer,” says Kevin, who plans to acquire another Mega City Dry Liner. “The customer receives a better service as you are loading/unloading less vehicles, saving drivers, fuel and running costs, not forgetting the reduced emissions.
“We’re looking closely at the environmental side of things now and, from that point of view, it’s one less engine on the road. Your CO2 emissions and impact on the environment are much lower – and you’ve only got to load and unload one truck, not two.
“Because it has an 11-metre loading space – and 18-tonners are about eight metres – you add an extra three metres and being a Mega the volume gain is invaluable. You also go from 18-tonne to a 30-tonne GVW, so your actual capacity is much greater. It gives us so much more flexibility.”