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Diesel News / October 31, 2013

Scania’s limited edition “Black Amber” R-series V-8 tractors are bringing a golden glow to the roads of Western Australia.

Perth-based Scania customers have purchased both the R730 and R620 V8-powered Black Amber tractors imported into Australia for their debut at the Brisbane and Perth truck shows this year.

Greg Goodchild from Greg’s Meat Transport bought the R730, and David Edghill from Express Freezer Transport purchased the R620.

Greg’s Meat Transport runs a mixed fleet of more than 50 trucks, six of which are Scanias. Greg has added two R560 V-8 6x4s and the Black Amber V-8 this year, with two P360 8×2 rigids scheduled for delivery in 2014.

“I have been in the transport industry for 36 years and the Black Amber is the best vehicle I have ever seen,” Greg says.

“I have always wanted a truck like this, and as soon as I saw it at the Perth Truck Show and looked inside it, I knew I had to have one.

“The truck is already on the road, being driven by Greg Howard, one of my long-time drivers. He is fanatical about keeping it clean. His SUV even carries a water-filled tank that he uses to wash the truck. He’s got towels all over the inside to keep it pristine.”

Although Greg’s Meat Transport specializes in the refrigerated transport of a wide range of meat products, the Black Amber is hooked up to B-double containing supermarket groceries. Each day it plies the Forrest Highway to Bunbury and back, from the company’s base in Jandakot, Perth.

“We are getting excellent fuel from the truck, better performance than we expected, in fact,” Greg says.

“The response from other drivers on the road, and just anyone who sees it is phenomenal. It has been a great image-builder for our business, too, and I reckon it will help us attract good drivers in the future,” Greg says.

“We started buying Scanias because we had a good recommendation from another transport operator who has run them. We really like the quality of build and the backup from Scania, because you’re dealing with the factory. The team at Scania Bunbury is particularly good, and so I will have the Black Amber serviced by them. They’re always on the ball,” he says.

Express Freezer Transport (EFT) has 10 trucks – eight of which are Scanias. Their trucks are also used in the distribution of fresh produce for supermarkets. EFT has purchased three new Scanias this year: a P440 6×2 tractor, the R620 V-8 Black Amber, and a soon-to-be-delivered R480 6×2 tractor.

“The first truck I bought was a Scania, a second-hand 82M rigid, and my first new truck was a Scania a 4-series, a 94 310 hp 4×2,” David says.

The Express Freezer Transport R620 V-8 Black Amber is pulling a sharp new 49 ft. jumbo slider-side single refrigerated trailer that complements its stunning looks.

“That’s my truck,” David says definitively, when asked about the new Black Amber.

“I drive it most of the time and when I don’t, the driver who gets the text message that says he’ll be driving it the next day has a very big smile.

“It’s a beautiful truck to go to work in everyday,” David says.

“In the first week of driving Black Amber, three guys came up and offered to come to work for me, just because we had it on the fleet. I reckon the Black Amber definitely elevates our profile. It says something positive about you as a transport operator.

“The Black Amber is such a distinctive truck, wherever we go not only do the fork lift drivers and dispatchers stop work to look at it, and pop their heads inside, but the office girls come out to see what all the fuss is about too.

“It’s like dating a movie star. I expected other drivers would be interested in it, but everyone wants to look at it,” he says.

David is not only a long-time Scania owner, he is also sold on Scania Maintenance and Repair Programs, which means his trucks will always be in prime condition.

“All our trucks work six or seven days a week, but cover only around 80,000 km a year because we are delivering around the metro area. But they are hard kilometers, which is why I have these three new trucks on the Scania Maintenance and Repair Program.

“It’s a no brainer for me because to be successful as a transport operator you have to know your costs as accurately as possible and control them.

“You need to be able to keep to your budget or know when you are not, so you can take action and adjust your prices to be in line with your costs.

“It’s about managing risk, so with the Maintenance and Repair Program, the risk is carried by Scania over 1,000 trucks, rather than my business across my 10 trucks,” he says.

The Scania Black Amber Limited Edition trucks were created by Svempa, one of Scania’s long-time collaborators in the production of eye-catching trucks.

In addition to the Black Amber metallic paint that really glows in direct sunlight, there are carbon-fiber look flames racing up the side of the vehicle, complementing the bold Black Amber name badge adorning the front of the Highline Cab.

The special truck has black and chrome highlight wheels and plenty of piano black gloss trim, and inside the luxury continues with premium, perforated leather upholstery, a wood-and-leather-rimmed steering wheel and special carpets, while a large wooden commemorative plaque is fixed to the back wall.

For Better Bus Business, Use The Better Bus

Mack Buses......outlasts them all

Note the Volkswagen advertisement that freely admits the design benchmark for the legendary VW "bus" was none other than the Mack C-Series municipal transit bus. Indeed, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

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Wörth / Molsheim

October 30, 2013

Mercedes-Benz’s Custom Tailored Truck (CTT) unit has expanded its offerings with the addition of 5-axle vocational chassis. Located in Molsheim, Germany, the CTT modifications center converts a standard Arocs chassis from the Wörth plant into a 5-axle variant. CTT handles development, production, sales marketing and service documentation, providing customers with a seamless solution.

End customers benefit from the fact that the trucks converted by CTT enjoy the same high Mercedes-Benz standards of quality as regular production vehicles, and the same warranty and after-sales support.

Custom-built trucks from Mercedes-Benz’s Custom Tailored Truck (CTT) unit are supported by Mercedes-Benz’s worldwide network of service locations. The Mercedes-Benz parts and service system provides detailed information on the full scope of the conversion including what parts were used.

With twin steer axles and a steerable tag axle, 5-axle trucks are very popular across Europe. In Switzerland, 5-axle rigid trucks are permitted to carry a gross vehicle weight of 88,185 pounds (40 tons). In the Netherlands, a gross vehicle weight of 110,231 pounds (50 tons) is permitted for 5-axle rigid trucks.

The new 40 ton-rated (88,185 pounds) 5-axle Arocs vocational chassis is purpose-designed for the construction industry. The Arocs is fitted with the “ClassicSpace” cab and has a wheelbase of 4250 mm (167.3 inches).

The 5-axle conversion involves adding a 9-ton liftable air-suspended tag axle to a standard 4-axle chassis with twin-steer front axles rated at 7.5 and 9 tons respectively (16,535 lb and 19,842 lb) and two air-suspended drive axles rated at 11.5 tons each (48,502 lb bogie). The added steered and liftable tag axle increases the chassis’ legal GVW to 88,185 pounds (40 tons).

With a total of three steered axles, the turning circle is reduced to 64 feet (19.6 meter) and a standard Arocs 8x4/4 becomes an Arocs 10x4/4. The chassis now has a technical off-road GVW capability of 97,003 pounds (44 tons).

As part of the 5-axle conversion, chassis modifications included relocation of the AdBlue tank and air reservoirs, and alteration of the standard fuel tank design for greater capacity and additional ground clearance.

From a very early stage, bodybuilders including dump body and concrete mixer manufacturers Meiller and Liebherr played an integral part in the development process. The modified chassis is built from the start with outstanding body-mounting ability, resulting in less cost-intensive and time-consuming dump and mixer body mounting.

Mack Trucks - The First Name in Fire Apparatus

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There is a little confusion above about Anzio and Normandy.

Please forgive me. I'm going to blame it on jet lag. I corrected it.

Speaking of the Kenworth-produced M249 (front unit) and M250 (rear unit), we're talking about the T10 (the gun it carried was designated M65/T131). While it is reported that only 20 of the atomic cannons* were produced, noted military vehicle historian Fred Crismon states that sixty-six of the 85 ton T10 gun carriages were produced in 1952-1953, and many were stationed in West Germany from 1954 to 1961.

Each unit was powered by an 895 cu.in. 375 horsepower Continental A0-895-4 horizontal opposed-piston engine coupled to a 3-speed manual transmission with an Allison torque converter.

As with the Mack T8 Series, the forward driver controlled both power and brakes.

* The cannon could fire both conventional and W9 atomic shells. It had a range of 35 miles with an accuracy of 20 yards. The 280mm cannon was based on the German Krupp K5 railway gun captured by the Allies at the end of WW2. Twenty eight were produced and two nicknamed "Anzio Annie" and "Anzio Express" by Allied troops made quite an impression in January 1944 when they began shelling the Anzio beachhead during Allied invasion of Italy from 20 miles away. The Allies again felt the lethal end of the German 280mm K5 cannon in June 1944 during the invasion of France.

A little known fact is the successful firing of a W9 nuclear shell in Nevada in 1953 is credited with bringing an end to the Korean war.

Now that the Euro and EPA emissions standards have arrived (merged) at nearly the same point with the arrival of Euro-6 and EPA2010, Daimler's Wolfgang Bernhard is wisely calling for one global emissions standard.

The entire world, less the U.S., uses Euro emissions standards. If the US agrees to join the rest of the world and use Euro-6, this will greatly reduce the development costs of all global diesel engine manufacturers. It costs Cummins billions extra to develop and produce two sets of engines to meet both EPA2010 and Euro emissions requirements, money that could be far better spent on developing next generation engine technologies.

Trailer/Body Builders / October 22, 2013

Bloomberg / October 22, 2013

The largest U.S. trucking association is vowing to reconsider its support for Republicans after last week’s debt-limit standoff in Washington, escalating a feud between industry groups and the small-government Tea Party movement.

“If I was your political broker, my advice would be that you sell your Republican shares and buy the Democrats,” Bill Graves, the chief executive officer of the American Trucking Associations, said at the group’s annual convention in Orlando, Florida.

Business, he said, must weigh its relationship with Republicans who threaten to “burn the house down” and who take positions that are “foolish, ill-advised, reckless and detrimental” to the U.S. economy.

His remarks underscore growing frustration over the difficulty in passing what once were bipartisan bills on such government basics as maintaining the interstate highway system. They echo similar impatience expressed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Retail Federation, and other business leaders after House Republicans on Oct. 16 yielded in a showdown with President Barack Obama over funding the new health-care law that produced a 16-day partial government shutdown.

The rift between the business community and the Republican Party could carry political consequences as some industry leaders consider challenging candidates in primaries and others look to shift donations.

Political Donations

The Arlington, Virginia-based American Trucking Associations’ political action committee contributed $724,500 to federal candidates in the 2012 elections, with 78 percent of that going to Republicans, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

“All of this is about consuming resources in a family fight as opposed to taking the fight to the other guy,” said Dirk Van Dongen, president of the Washington-based National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors, in a reference to the intraparty battle. Van Dongen also is a Republican donor.

While many of the business leaders share the Tea Party’s dislike for the Affordable Care Act, the tactics employed by lawmakers, including bringing the nation to the brink of a default on its debts, exposed a divide in priorities that’s playing out on other issues important to commerce.

A revision of immigration laws to allow for more skilled-worker visas is languishing, while a reauthorization of the Export-Import bank, which provides loans and loan guarantees to foreign firms to buy U.S.-made products, last year was passed at the last minute. Both were caught in the ideological tugs-of-war in Congress over the size and reach of the federal government.

Highway Bill

For Graves, the fight is over increasing a federal gas tax to finance projects in a highway bill.

“Our No. 1 issue is getting a package of infrastructure investment,” he said in an interview. “We know we can’t rely on the general fund to keep saving the Highway Trust Fund. We know how expensive tolls are. We know the answer is a fuels tax. That’s a fairly straightforward conversation to have with a member.”

Yet in 2012, the highway bill became so mired in the Republican-controlled House because of its price tag and the tax issue that the chamber couldn’t pass it through the normally united Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. A two-year compromise was hammered out, without a tax increase and four years shorter than the typical highway measure.

Ray LaHood, who served as U.S. Transportation secretary from January 2009 until June of this year, said the two-year law offers “no certainty at all for anybody to do long-term planning.”

‘Chintzy Bill’

“It was a chintzy bill that does not provide the revenue to do what needs to be done to get America back to being No. 1, and to provide long-term certainty to people who build roads and bridges and other infrastructure,” said LaHood, a former Illinois Republican representative.

When the debate is rejoined next year, he said, there probably will be 30 or 40 Republicans in the House who will block a longer-term measure, forcing a one-year extension.

“The business community is fed up with the inaction of Congress when it comes to infrastructure,” he said. “The business community knows that America has fallen way, way behind. There’s a long, long list of bridges that need to be replaced or repaired. There’s a long, long list of roads that need to be fixed up.”

Traffic Upswing

Road transportation accounts for 16 percent of gross domestic product and 60 percent of all U.S. spending on transportation, according to a 2012 analysis by the American Road & Transportation Builders Association. In 2007, trucks handled more than 39 percent of all U.S. freight-ton miles, up from 35.7 percent in 1993.

“A very significant portion of the cost of U.S. goods is directly related to the cost of highway transport,” the report concluded. “To improve U.S. competitiveness, a high-quality national highway and bridge network is essential.”

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, highways in poor condition cost users as much as 25 percent to 30 percent more per mile. Every 1 percent increase in highway-user costs adds about $15 billion to the nation’s total highway bill, including increased vehicle depreciation and maintenance, fuel, oil, and tire consumption, the ARTBA study noted.

Bruce Josten, the Chamber of Commerce’s executive vice president, said yesterday that his group, the largest business lobby in the nation, has worked unsuccessfully for years with the AFL-CIO, the country’s biggest labor union association, to reach consensus on a higher gas tax. The problem is “far, far bigger” than the Tea Party, he said.

Belly Up

“Everybody in town -- the administration, the Republican Party and the Democratic Party -- refuses to belly up to the reality that you need to fund infrastructure. We and the unions and others have been calling for more than a decade to raise the user fee,” said Josten, at a breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor.

The last time Congress successfully moved a highway measure was in June 2012. The two-year law was dubbed the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act, or MAP-21.

After failing to get a version of the legislation out of committee and onto the House floor, Speaker John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, appointed conferees to negotiate a final measure with the Senate.

Roadblocks also had to be overcome in the Senate. The bill’s advocates fought off amendments that would have ended the federal highway program and sent all gas-tax receipts to the states.

Gas Tax

The 18.4-cent-per-gallon gas tax that finances the Highway Trust Fund was last raised as part of a budget deal signed by President Bill Clinton in 1993. It would take another 10 cents per gallon to bring the trust fund back to solvency, according to the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.

Because of shortfalls and the failure of Congress to boost the gas tax, the government last year transferred $18.8 billion of general taxpayer money to meet the identified highway, bridge and transit construction needs.

Business groups in general are “really frustrated and disappointed” by their allies in the Republican Party, Patrick Griffin, an adjunct professor of government at American University, said in a phone interview. Griffin was also an assistant to the president for legislative affairs during the Clinton administration. “They have a lot of irons in the fire” and they have to engage Republicans and Democrats, he said.

David French, senior vice president for government relations at the National Retail Federation, said “all parties go through shaking-out periods” where different points of view compete.

“If at the end of this process we could have in the Republican Party the grassroots energy of the Tea Party with the long-range focus of the business community working together instead of at odds, I think it’d be a stronger party,” French said.

Of course, Mack was no more a stranger to tracked vehicles than it was to rolling stock.

Note the Mack AC cab, hood and radiator on the 4-ton Mack "Roadless" truck.

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