Besides many impressive heavy-haulage combinations, the Schoones transport company has a fleet of end dumps, both in the form of straight trucks and semis. At the open house in September, their Volvo FMX 10×4 trucks were all neatly parked next to each other, and their semis were posing across the lot with a partly raised dump body.
We’re starting with one of the steel-nosed Volvo FMX trucks. It’s powered by the 12.8 liter D13 engine, maximum power output 469 DIN-hp. With a GVWR of 49 tonnes (108,000 lbs) and a payload capacity of 29.4 tonnes (64,815 lbs), this 2019 FMX is a very serious set of wheels.
What we have here is a traditional 10×4 configuration, that is with three steering axles and then two drive axles. The Volvo left the factory as an 8×4 chassis-cab, Terberg Techniek placed the center axle afterwards.
Other drivetrain options in this specific class are a 10×4*6 chassis (two steering axles, two drive axles, and a counter-steering tag axle) and the Dutch-only, 10×4 wide spread set-up (three steering axles, a drive axle, and last-but-not-least, a counter-steering drive axle). It’s not hard to figure out which of those three chassis choices has the shortest turning radius.
The truck is equipped with an insulated, JHS/Hyva steel dump body with solid covers and a load volume of 23 m³ (812 ft³). When transporting hot asphalt, the asphalt machine pushes the truck at the job, which explains those short, rearmost fenders.
Now let’s have a look at a duo of end dump semis. Unsurprisingly, with a Volvo tractor unit.
That’s quite a difference, the day cab of an FM(X), or this Globetrotter cab of the FH-series. Yet the engines are exactly the same, power-wise and all. The 2022 tractor comes with a 6×2/4 drivetrain.
The FH Globetrotter teamed up with a 2023 Schwarzmüller tri-axle semi-trailer. Comparable end dump trailers, almost always rolling on six super singles, can be found all over Europe.
The Schwarzmüller manufacturing company from Austria goes back to 1871, they offer a wide range of truck bodies, trailers, and semi-trailers these days. As an aside, anno 1955, full fenders and side underride guards were not quite in vogue yet.
Another FH 6×2/4 tractor, this one is from 2017 and has the standard, low sleeper cab. The shape of the headlamp units indicates that it’s an older Volvo FH, the truck maker’s full-size cabover model.
The white boxy unit, at the rear side of the cab, is a BMAir filter pressurization system. Usually, these are mounted on top of the cab. They keep contamination outside the driver’s compartment.
The 2023 semi-trailer, with a steel dump body and solid covers, is identical to the other Schwarzmüller. All things considered, legislation included, the payload capacity of this big-yet-short rig is 34.6 tonnes (76,280 lbs). Now you can calculate how many cubic feet of, let’s say, dry sand can be dumped into the dump body.
Man those rigs are spotless. Dump trucks in the USA are never pristine, even newer equipment. The larger outfits run newer, well maintained rigs but,
A lot of smaller operators run OLD, worn out trucks here in my neck of the woods. I guess they pray they wont get stopped, cause their trucks look like theyd have a 3 page list of DOT violations and would have to be towed back to the shop.
Do they run old janky equipment in the Netherlands? Everything you photograph is pristine. Id imagine the equipment lasts longer, small country, local trucks wouldnt rack up a ton of kms.
First of all, thanks for your comment Aaron.
Take good care of your machinery and your machinery will take good care of you. About ‘racking up the kms’. Just an example, fresh milk collectors (the rigs) drive 250,000 to 300,000 km (155,000 to 185,000 miles) a year here without ever crossing a border. Not constantly with one and the same driver behind the wheel, of course….The bottom line: the fact that the Netherlands is a small country, doesn’t say much. Driving is driving, both in a small and in a big country.
No old janky equipment around here. Sometimes old, but certainly not janky. That would be utterly ‘un-Dutch’.
I was thinking the same thing as I read this. Just this morning, I passed a battered, aged International dump truck on the highway while driving to work… the kind of truck I just want to get away from as quickly as possible. And dump trucks like that outnumber cleaner-looking trucks around here about 10-to-1.
These trucks Johannes featured here are fascinating, both for their configuration, and for their condition.
Speaking of clean, the hauling company, situated in the middle of nowhere (as in surrounded by farmland only), has their own truck wash.
On a funny note: at its entrance, there was a sort of street sign that said ‘Saubermach Straße’. It’s an alternative, kind of literal translation of the Dutch word ‘wasstraat’ (car/truck wash) into German. The word ‘Waschstraße’ does exist in German though. Anyway, I digress, to speak in justy-terms.
Being someone who retired from trucking in the US for almost 40 years( 1978-2018), it’s always fun to see how other countries do essentially the same thing with a different shovel. Different terrain dictated what kind of trucks prevailed. Never been to Europe, but I don’t think they have places like Texas in a hurricane. We, in the US, burned out cabovers in the late 70s when overall length laws were abolished, and cabovers fell out of favor, for long nose, better riding, more aerodynamic conventionals. I don’t think any US truck maker offers one today.
As an ex-American trucker, I will stand by my fellow drivers, and there still is a lot of pride. Singling out dump trucks in poor condition, is like fishing in a barrel. Dump trucks generally don’t go very far and do get away with a lot, but statistically, don’t do a lot of damage. I’ll admit, in my time, I drove a lot of junk, but today, inspections and electronics almost have eliminated that. Don’t kid yourself, while the images clearly show a good company, I’m sure there are just as many companies running sub-par equipment in Europe we don’t see. The axle configurations are so unusual and again, dictated by terrain, but one thing is clear around the world, trucks and their drivers makes ‘er go ’round. Amen.
Axle configurations are dictated by terrain and axle weight (and thus GVWR) regulations. See Volvo FMX, a road legal, 108,000 lbs straight truck (not a crane- or concrete pump carrier) rolling on five axles is truly exceptional, anywhere in the world.