Watson’s Bulk Logistics (WBL) is a family-owned grain transporter operating in Southern New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia. It has been involved with the industry for 10 years and can move any load up to 58 tonnes, averaging 7,000 tonnes moved each week.
WBL Manager, Joel Watson, has been running B-doubles in the fleet for the majority of the company’s operations, but he is now beginning to switch over to road trains and other high productivity combinations.
Joel has counted on Chris’s Body Builders (CBB) multiple times during the last few years when looking to add Performance-Based Standards (PBS) vehicles to his fleet, which has allowed him to develop a relationship with the team. After experiencing the demonstrated high quality and reliability from CBB firsthand, he decided to return once again for his latest combination.
“We were happy with our previous purchases with CBB, which is why we decided to go forward with this combination in our third year dealing with them,” he says. “We purchased a 30m PBS A-double with two semi-trailers. The trailer has a capacity of up to 85.5 tonnes, which gives us a payload of 58.5 tonnes.”
Joel has been very pleased with the trailer’s tare weight, build quality and overall performance in his fleet. On top of that, CBB was also very accommodating to his specific needs.
“Their personalised service is excellent, and they are very flexible with what our requirements are,” he says. “We’ve found them great to deal with and I can’t complain about anything with them.”
The new A-double combination was developed with a new fixed drawbar dolly as opposed to the standard hinged option.
This drawbar features a dual bushed design which allows for easy change over between drawbars in the case of damage or different length requirements for different applications, such as A-doubles to AB-triples.
This dampening bush feature also reduces material fatigue and high stress areas around the dolly, reducing cracking and improving durability. The new drawbar is also known to reduce cabin slap experienced by the driver while at the same time increasing braking and roll stability of the vehicle through the removal of the additional hinge point.
CBB developed this fixed drawbar dolly earlier this year to allow its clients to operate under certain PBS schemes which require a tandem dolly configuration while getting the better performance characteristics of a more stable vehicle.
According to CBB, this particular combination is a well-designed and tailored solution that really benefits the operator. It’s a versatile dolly that has been designed to endure the harshest of environments while maintaining outstanding performance. Having everything removable by bolt-on or bolt-off, including the drawbar eye, means that the entire dolly is changeable for fleet operators, giving them a massive advantage over fixed options.
With extensive engineering put into the design and CBB considering every factor possible, Joel’s A-double is ensured to be a reliable solution going forward.
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