Schmitz Cargobull, the UK subsidiary of the Schmitz Cargobull Group, the biggest and leading manufacturer and supplier of semi-trailers in Europe, has recently carried out an order for Kent-based haulier MJD Services (UK) Ltd who ordered a fleet of 20 new S.CS Freepost curtainsider trailers. The new trailers will be used to make deliveries on behalf of a long-term client, a soft drinks manufacturer, to retailers in England, Belgium and Holland.
Because the trailers will travel extensively in and around the M25 area and will use the Blackwall Tunnel; with this in mind they were built specifically with an external height of 4 metres.
The Freepost trailer does not have any sideposts, which means its entire length is unobstructed making it hugely flexible in it’s uses and loading and unloading faster and safer.
“The open sided design of the Freepost trailers brings impressive productivity and health and safety advantages,” says Michael Dole, managing director of MJD. “Our drivers report that the curtain’s buckles are quick and simple to fasten and release which means that the trailers are proving much quicker and safer to load than the models they have been bought to replace – which were provided by another trailer manufacturer. The new Freepost’s controls are also easy to follow and arranged in an ergonomically comfortable position – which the drivers like.”
MJD has up to 100 trailers dedicated to the soft drinks contract and is currently in the process of replacing the entire fleet with Schmitz Cargobull Freeposts as part of a planned fleet upgrade which will run over the next three years. Finance for MJD’s new fleet is being provided by Cargobull Finance – a joint venture between Schmitz Cargobull and De Lage Landen.
The trailers were built on the recently completed multi-product trailer assembly line which is now fully operational at Schmitz Cargobull’s County Durham factory. The new integrated line allows both curtainsider and refrigerated trailers to be built simultaneously and is considered to be the most advanced multi product trailer production line in the world.