A novel method of hauling grass and other agricultural commodities has been developed by Northern Ireland agricultural contractors Hunniford Farms.
Instead of the traditional tractor-trailer combination, the Hunnifords, along with NC Engineering, have developed a tridem truck with custom built trailer body on board.
Although there are plenty of these type units working in other parts of the world, it is quite unique to have one developed in the UK and Ireland.
The reason for the big build was to save on depreciation costs that a tractor and trailer loses in a year, and the figures are quite surprising.
Hunniford Farms director, Richard Hunniford, said the project took around a year to accomplish, and there are more similar ideas in the pipeline.
Richard said: “We haul a lot of grass, maize, compost and beet in a year and decided to monitor our costs more closely.
“We were using a 2023 New Holland T7-600 that had cost us £102,000 bought at one-year-old with 800 hours on it. That tractor was hauling a new Kane 18t halfpipe trailer that cost us £27,500.
“All told that rig cost £129,500 to put on the road. After one year the tractor had accumulated 2,200 haulage hours and had depreciated in value by around £28,000,” he said.
After looking at the figures, Richard and the team decided to pursue the truck-trailer combination to reduce their own depreciation costs and potentially help other contractors do the same.
Truck trailer
Richard found the original donor truck online, which was a 2017 Volvo FM410 Tridem with 220,000km on the clock, plus a cement mixer on the back.
It was ideal for this project as it had the required axles and reliability.
“The Volvo had just come off the HS2 railway project at London and cost me £23,000,” Richard continued. “We sold the cement mixer for £4,000 which left the truck chassis costing £19,000.
“There was a lot of changes to be made to the chassis in order for the bulk trailer unit to be fitted. We had to modify the front axles, plus there was a lot of work getting the hydraulic system right.
“And we had to get custom rims and tyres sorted for it. We used BKT 710mm wide tyres on the drive axles and 500mm wide tyres on the front axle.
“And then there is the body, which has a maximum pay load of 19.5t and was built by NC Engineering. The team there took on the project to completely custom build the trailer to fit the truck chassis,” he explained.
The engineering company worked very closely with Volvo to get all the exact build measurements, capacities, etc.
“We wanted a sealed trailer unit so we can haul the likes of grain and think this is the first purpose built system of its kind in the country,” Richard added.
“Overall the truck trailer combo has cost us over £57,000 which is huge savings on the tractor-trailer unit we normally run. It weighs 11.8t empty and will be very suitable for our haulage needs for this season.”
However, Richard has bigger plans for this unit which is his first prototype, as he hopes to further develop the idea with more options and key features.
“The aim is for us to use this first prototype for this season at home and then sell it. We have had a lot of enquiries to buy it.
“My goal is then to produce two more similar truck-trailer combinations, but with some advanced design engineering features. NC Engineering is also on board with us to tackle that new project,” he added.
