Short, low, yet with plenty of power on tap. The English call them skip loaders, dedicated straight trucks for transporting open top containers, especially used for the disposal of construction waste.
Given their GVWR of roughly 20 tonnes (44,000 lbs), these would be labeled as Class 8 trucks in the US of A.
They can turn into pretty much every tight spot, provided that the path is wide enough. I caught three of them at a show, last September.
The most recent (and striking) skip loader was Van Brenen’s 2022 Iveco X-Way. Plenty of power on tap, as mentioned, in this case 420 hp from the Cursor 11 -as in 11.1 liter displacement- turbodiesel.
Once upon a time, the day cab of a short distance truck was an utterly spartan and fatiguing workplace. Here’s a fine example of what we call progress.
Just like the Iveco, this 2020 Volvo FM is equipped with a Hyva skip loader system. The truck’s overall length is only 6.55 m (21’6”), nevertheless, side underride guards are legally required. A 10.8 liter, 439 hp engine is sitting underneath the cab.
A 2010 MAN TGS 18.400 HydroDrive. The MAN’s front wheel hubs already indicate that this is not just another 4×2 chassis. Furthermore, it’s registered as a tractor. That whole Palfinger skip loader system (in red) is detachable.
HydroDrive explained (in English). Useful for sure, as long as the off-road conditions aren’t too harsh.
You might wonder why such compact, 20 tonnes straight trucks need a big engine with 400 hp or more.
Well, that’s because they frequently have to tow a full trailer with some more (loaded) skips, thus forming a combination vehicle, with a gross weight up to 50 tonnes.
Open skips come in different sizes and heights and can be stacked when empty (photo courtesy of PW Container).
From private driveways to large construction sites, a skip loader knows its way around. And so does its driver.
From above:
“Once upon a time, the day cab of a short distance truck was an utterly spartan and fatiguing workplace. Here’s a fine example of what we call progress.”
Wow, is that ever correct. I’ve only been driving Commercially for 21+ years.
The latest models of even the inexpensive trucks are nicer and more user-friendly than most cars were 2 or 3 decades ago.
I >MAY< be getting a bit spoiled. 😁
Appreciate these Heavy Duty articles.
I find it interesting to see the way other countries around the globe handle materials and tasks.
Ya wanna know what blows my mind d this morning?
A simple daily routine to those who see it every day….
Refuse containers that are ….. STACKABLE.
Never seen such.
Thanks!!
I was hoping the video would capture the full skip dance, played out in the streets around our London home every day.
1. Truck arrives with fresh empty skip.
2. Truck lifts full skip from driveway, and drops it inside the empty skip on the trailer.
3. Truck lifts both empty and full skip on to the driveway.
4. Truck lifts full skip for a second time, out of the empty skip, and deposits it on the trailer and drives away, leaving an empty skip behind. An automatic cover for the full skip scrolls out from behind the driver’s cab to secure the contents of the full skip.
The Iveco also has an automatic cover system, clearly visible in the first picture.
Search for skiploader, skip loader or skip lorry on YouTube and you get a whole construction waste container full of mainly UK videos. In NL, the loader system of these trucks is called a ‘portaalarm’ (portal arm, good name!).
+11
I haven’t seen such things in the U.S. I did see some for sale in the U.S. after a short search, so maybe it’s making it’s way slowly into mainstream usage. In the U.S. you normally have something like a Autorcar XPeditor or Petebilt 320 configured as a roll-on/roll-off, and it will come by and haul a 20′ container away, then another truck comes by and deposits a new one, if needed.
Maybe the shortest heavy-duty trucks I see every day are mobile/manufactured home “toter trucks”. I’ve seen these with very short wheelbases, they have these adjustable “6 way” hitches for trailer hitches like you would tow a boat, see photo.
So basically those are some sort of ‘ballast tractors’, as used in heavy haulage?
Skip/container loaders have been around for a very long time. Some 50 years ago, I drove this Magirus-Deutz (by Siku).
Not really a ballast tractor.
The manufactured homes are pretty light, but are still trailers that have to be supported st the hitch.
This company makes these trucks.
https://www.precisiontrucks.com/
Example of one of them at work attached.
Thanks!
Dumpsters here in the US are much bigger, even in places like Manhattan they still use 30 or 40 yard bins with the massive roll off trucks.
As for those mobile home movers, the ones around here are those short stubby things with a bumper mount hitch. But they are all acient heaps of a truck, like 25, 30, 40 year old rigs that were shortened in wheelbase and had the back axle/frame chopped off. The rigs look like they were kludged together by a bunch of meth heads that live in the trailers that they tow, would never pass a DOT inspection
You’re referring to a completely different type of bin/dumpster/container haulers.
Something like this DAF 8×4 truck, owned by a demolition company.
This would be a pretty common vehicle for tending to the big 20′ containers, still the most common used for construction debris. The same chassis as used for garbage trucks.
These same truck chassis are also configured as Front End Loaders, with a fork that is used to pick up a container, about the size of the smaller containers in the photo, and then dumped into the hopper of the truck, which is configured with a trash compactor. Businesses and apartments will have their own containers which are serviced this way, and for residential garbage pickup the truck will drive around with it’s own container which is repeatedly filled and dumped along the route.
More here:
https://www.customtruck.com/blog/all-about-front-end-loaders-fels/
https://www.heil.com/type/front-end-loaders/
That’s more like it. Front loaders (‘over-the-cab’) are non-existent here. Some truck makers offer those specific, extra low cabs, but I have never seen one on the road.
Waste disposal trucks, of any kind, are usually based on a truck maker’s mid-size model with a day cab, just like the three trucks in the article and the DAF CF 8×4 above.
Thanks for the info and links, much appreciated!
Just to further the cross-the-ocean sharing of differing cultural heritage in waste disposal, I thought I’d add a little bit more about impetus behind LCF (“Low-Cab-Forward”) cab designs. Note I am by no means an expert. There are (or used to be) an almost infinite variety of garbage truck designs and associated waste disposal systems on this side of the pond. An interesting article would be something along the lines of “Garbage Trucks of North America”.
One of the reasons for the LCF cabs is that for some garbage collections systems (of which there are also rear-loader, side loader, and various automated versions of all three) as well as for other uses with a similar nature, the operator, or his helper if he/she has one, must get in and out of the cab often to deal with the bins/containers, so minimizing or eliminating steps into the cab minimizes driver/helper fatigue and potential for injury. There are even garbage trucks with dual and//or stand-up controls, so the operator can jump in and out quickly, possibly from the curb-side, with features such as an automatic brake if the operator leaves the cab. Here’s an example of a rear-loader I found on the web with stand-up controls curbside:
Mercedes-Benz Econic 6×2*4 (that’s with a counter-steering tag axle) low-cab-forward, working in the UK.
So they do exist, but as mentioned, I never saw one.
It turns out there is a website that is basically “Garbage Trucks of North America”, with a lot of fascinating info and history:
https://www.classicrefusetrucks.com/
And there is even a museum:
https://www.classicrefusetrucks.com/b3.html