Once we considered the Longest car in the world, and this did not concern trailers, but the length of the car. True, it was not a truck.
But Australia is known not only for the desert plains, but also for the huge road trains crossing these plains. The first ten longest road trains in history are Australian (world record - 112 trailers with a total weight of 1300 tons, length - 1474.3 meters)
Let's take a closer look at them and find out where such monsters are made.
The world record was set on the Mack Titan, but it was just a performance: the giant road train only traveled 140 meters specifically for the Guinness Book of Records. But road trains of 12-20 trailers for Australia are quite commonplace. Overtaking such a road train is, frankly, a dubious pleasure. First of all, such machines are needed to transport ore and minerals in the absence of railways.
Naturally, there are companies that produce truck tractors specifically for such needs, they are sometimes called mover ("mover", from English to move, "move"). One of the leaders in the movers market is the Australian (no wonder!) Company Powertrans, specializing in the production of machines of monstrous power. A mover is a kind of tractor; unlike a conventional long-range truck tractor, it cannot reach high speeds, but it can pull incredible masses.
Promotional video:
The basis of the company's line is the Powertrans T1250 tractor. It is a mighty machine equipped with a 760 hp Cummins QSK-19 engine with an Allison M6620 six-speed automatic transmission. You can say: something is not enough power, I thought that more than 1000 will be! In fact, there is a trick. Usually, the first trailer in a road train is a motorized one - as sometimes several locomotives are coupled to transport a large volume of cargo. For example, in the Pit Hauler combination after the Powertrans T1250, the PT75-2420 Powertrailer with the same 760-horsepower Cummins clings.
Movers have some more differences from conventional tractors. The cab in them, in particular, is single, with a large glazing area, so that the driver has the greatest possible view (there is a small attached seat behind the driver, if an accompanying person is needed for some purpose in the cab). A mover usually has escort vehicles that can bring a second driver (if the journey takes several days, then work in shifts).
To hitch one trailer to another, a kind of "adapter" is used, a small Dolly D75-2000 intermediate chassis that attaches to one semi-trailer and serves as a saddle for another.
In general, Australia is a country of road trains (Road Trains). In the Australian outback, where for hundreds of kilometers around you will find only a couple of cattle farms, or "stations", as they are called, road trains are a vital necessity. Indeed, in order to deliver his goods to their destination by train, the owner, for example, of a sheep-breeding station would have to travel hundreds of kilometers with his live cargo to the nearest railway.
Road trains are powerful tractors, followed by two, three (and sometimes more) huge trailers, capable of crossing the Green Continent in a matter of days, connecting the states and territories of the country.
Modern road trains, which have long become the masters of the roads here, are quite comfortable. Most drivers have air conditioning in their cabs (which is not so bad in a 40-degree heat), a small refrigerator and a berth. Life at the wheel is primitively reduced to three things: eat, sleep and turn the steering wheel. On the way, there is only one main rule: sleep as little as possible, arrive at your destination as soon as possible. “The only thing that worries you is how not to fall asleep while driving,” says Ian Conway, who has had to travel around Australia in a truck cab.
The Northern Territory County has earned its reputation as the abode of road giants in Australia. Life here is almost entirely dependent on huge road trains, which are capable of carrying 115 tons of cargo. If you're lucky, in this part of the country you can find "diplodocus" of the automotive world - road trains, consisting of seven trailers, in which you can carry up to 190 tons of cargo.
Even after rail links between Alice Springs and Darwin were opened, road trains remain the primary means of communication between major cities in the south of the country, also connecting Darwin and the rest of the Northern Territory. Therefore, road safety is one of the main problems for the local administration.
One of the latest innovations is the Coffee Brake - Stay Awake! ("Take a coffee break and stay awake!"). Now every driver always has a map at hand, which shows all gas stations and roadside eateries along the route of the road train, where the driver will have a free cup of coffee. Another sign of local roads is that from time to time you can see a special loading ramp on the side of the road with empty trailers stacked on it. Such ramps are a common occurrence on major roads, but in the outback, they are often replaced by a simple embankment of earth or gravel. Lonely empty trailers can also often be seen on the side of the highway. Such a trailer is waiting to be hooked up to the truck again on the way back, but for now, don't worry about it, no one will steal or steal it.
Most often on the roads you can see American Kenworth trucks, which are undoubtedly the leader of the Australian market. These trucks have only one serious competitor - Mack, also an American firm that has served the Australian market for over forty years. At the same time, many other brands can be seen on the roads here, such as Ford, Canadian Western Star, European Volvo, Scania, Renault and some others. However, their share of the Australian truck market is small. Constant serious competition is observed only between Kenworth and Mack.
In general, Australian tractors differ from all others in the world, even if they have the same brand. Local Kenworth and Mack are of local design and assembly. The "Americans" are simply not adapted to work in the Australian regime, they are designed for other loads and would not last long here. In addition to the fact that the Australian Mack and Kenworth tractors differ from the American progenitors by the right-hand drive, they are equipped with the most powerful engines (usually from 450 hp) and have a reinforced frame. Since tractors usually drive several trailers at once, they also have double the number of compressed air tanks required for the braking system of the tractor and trailers. And Australian tractors are more expensive than all the others in the world.
The road that runs between the states of South Australia and Western Australia is especially deserted and dull. For hundreds of kilometers around there is not a single roadside cafe, not a single gas station. But they are not needed - after all, the fuel tanks of the same Mack hold up to 2000 liters of fuel.
White reflectors mounted in a row at the top of the windshield are highly visible in the dark. The driver of the oncoming car realizes from afar what kind of monster is approaching him. He knows: it is better at such a meeting to slow down and pull to the side of the road, otherwise he can simply be blown off the road by the air stream. The sensations are even sharper if you decide to overtake such a road train. This is a rather risky maneuver, since the car, in accordance with the laws of aerodynamics, begins to be pressed against the side of the road train. Perhaps the most dangerous event is overtaking the famous triple trailer, the symbol of Northern Territory roads. The road train, the length of which is not less than 52 m, moves at a speed of 100-110 km / h. Add to this 75 m - in order to have time to "emerge" from the rushing road train,and another 75 m - with such a margin, it is necessary to return to the road in front of the vehicle. The Government of the Northern Territory in its recommendations for tourists notes: before starting to overtake a road train moving at a speed of 100 km / h, the driver must be absolutely sure that the road ahead is at least one kilometer free.
Sometimes it happens to catch up with an oversized, super-huge freight transport. He always moves accompanied by an escort, whose cars are also equipped with a radio. The driver of the escort car, which you caught up with, having talked with the participants of the caravan going far ahead and making sure that the maneuver was safe, will give you a signal to start overtaking. Otherwise, it is impossible to overtake this huge clumsy caravan without risking life. What do you value most in your work? Most drivers will answer this question without hesitation: "Of course, freedom!" Kingsley Foreman of Adelaide, who devoted a quarter of a century to this work, put it most clearly: “I am used to relying only on myself and I value my freedom above all else. And I'm proud to be Australian. " Can this be considered a challenge to the American president? I don't thinkthat this worries the heroes of today's story. Because the concept of freedom for a person sitting in the cab of a powerful road train, with a uterine roar dissecting the vastness of the Green Continent at a speed of more than 100 km / h, is unimaginably far from the feeling of loneliness experienced by a person sitting in the most comfortable office in the world.
Experienced trucker Gordon Johnson, who was staying overnight in Perth, told us about the specifics of his profession.
Personal transport. I came here driving a 1998 Kenworth T950 tractor with a 525 hp engine. This is one of my four trucks. Their total cost is about 1 million Australian dollars (800,000 US dollars). Most of Australian truckers are "contractors" working on their trucks.
Special cargo. Tomorrow I will be escorting tires for giant dump trucks to Kalgoorlie (Australia's largest gold mine). The diameter of each such tire is 4.5 meters, which is much more than the permitted width of the truck, so an escort is a must.
Change. In the old days, everything was easier. There are no rules or restrictions. Anything happened, it also happened that for two days we drove without brakes, and did not know about air conditioning at all. Things are different today. Rules and regulations, restrictions and instructions. For example, in most cases it is required to bypass large settlements, but there are also roads that pass through small towns, and road trains are allowed to pass along them. But this is if there is no other road. In my hometown of Perth, for example, a tractor with three trailers cannot be driven into. But about 40-50 km from the city there are Holding Yards (kind of "waiting rooms"), where we deliver "extra" trailers that are waiting until we pick them up at the exit from the city.
Road troubles. Many drivers will say that the worst thing that can happen to you on the road is to hit a large animal. Kangaroos, for example, can be as tall as a person and cause significant damage to the tractor. (From this danger the radiator and the cab of Australian tractors are protected by metal Roo-bar crossbeams (colloquially "kenguryatnik" or Bull-bar, as truck drivers prefer to call it). But there are other problems. For example, not all motorists understand that such a road train and what is the mechanics of its movement. Sometimes such “cowboys” try to overtake or other maneuver, not understanding what they are risking.
The hardest part. Still, the hardest part of work is monotony and boredom. When you drive a road train alone, you lose the sense of reality. And if you hit the road with a partner, spending hours and days together in almost complete isolation is also very, very difficult.
Deciding to overtake a road train is like taking the risk of overtaking a dozen cars at once. To the credit of Australian truck drivers, it should be said that most of them are professionals, attentive and polite towards other road users. Their politeness is sometimes simply amazing. If, for example, in a city you are standing at a crossroads and waiting to turn left (let me remind you that there is left-hand traffic in Australia), and to your left rises the colossus of a truck with a trailer that needs to turn right, then, noticing you, the driver will smile, wave a greeting with a hand and … with a screech it will back up so as not to obstruct your view. On the highway, having noticed a car overtaking him, the driver of the road train usually presses himself against the edge of the road and starts blinking with a turn signal, showing when he can be overtaken.
But look, and from MAZ they tried to make the road train longer than usual.