A semi-low loader with wheel wells is ideal for transporting heavy, tall, and wheeled machinery. The picture says it all, the Caterpillar 980 is sitting low and utterly secure, while the whole Volvo and Broshuis combination isn’t much longer than a standard Euro semi.
The managing director’s office is a 27 tonnes (59,525 lbs), 2022 Volvo FH Globetrotter with a 510 DIN-hp, 12.8 liter D13 engine and a 6×2/4 drivetrain (one drive axle and a steering pusher axle).
The whole Continent, the UK, and Ireland are littered with comparable tractors, these are offered by all brands. Great all-rounders they are.
The extendable, 2023 Broshuis trailer has a registered payload capacity of 43 tonnes (94,800 lbs), the third and fourth axle countersteer, that is in the opposite direction of the tractor’s steering axle(s). Its overall length ranges from 13.66 m (44’10”) to 15.66 m (51’4”).
The four wheel wells can be bridged, which results in a semi-low loader with a completely flat bed; in this context, ‘semi’ means that the bed sits above the axles and wheels, rather than between them.
Caterpillar designates their Cat 980 as a ‘medium wheel loader’. Its operating weight is 30.3 tonnes (66,800 lbs), so this is a low-stress job for the Broshuis.
The heavy-haulage specialist owns multiple, identical quad-axle Broshuis trailers with wheel wells, this 2021 YouTube video shows three of them, ready to roll. The Schoones company, the Volvo tractors, and the Broshuis trailers: great all-rounders they are.
Let me get this right, the tractor alone weighs 27 tonnes?
Don, 27 tonnes is the tractor’s registered gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR), which is equal to the sum of its axle weights. From front to back, in tonnes: 8.0, 7.5, and 11.5.
The Volvo itself weighs 9.1 tonnes. Everything added up (Volvo + Broshuis + Cat) is 50.4 tonnes.
Thanks Johannes, was trying to figure out where all that weight was hehehe
BTW, I saw my first low cab full size truck today. Apparently built for garbage trucks to enter carparks but this one was used by a brewery with a full height rear. Driver said the shallower windscreen was a real problem for looking up and down relative to a normal cab
Right, Volvo also offers one, the FM Low Entry (pictured below). I have yet to see such a low rider around here. Garbage trucks and the like are usually based on the day cab version of a truck maker’s ‘mid-size’ model, like the DAF XD, MAN TGM, and the regular Volvo FM.