Mark‘s requirement for a 36-pallet, chilled B-train in an 8m/10m split certainly induced head scratching, especially at Carrier.

Having that size pallet footprint eliminated any tampering with the 550mm IVS, and so that took front-mounting chillers out of play.

“Carrier said one unit underslung at the rear wouldn‘t have enough guts to cool it down. I said ‘I don‘t want to cool it down, I just want to maintain it‘,” Mark explained.

“I still wanted them to do it and so I signed a waiver saying I understood this might not work…I knew it would.

“Roadmaster prepped the rear trailer perfectly and less than half an hour after Johnny delivered the units to Carrier the chiller unit was mounted in the cradle. On its first run-up on a 25° day it dropped the temp in the trailers to 3°. We‘re stoked with them.”

The whole unit is on Alcoa Dura-Bright wheels as Mark says family time is way more important than polishing time now. There‘s extensive use of high tensile materials throughout the trailers, which has hugely advantaged many areas, like reducing the working profiles of the mezzanine floors. 

That, combined with their 4.3m overall height, has had a real impact on ease of loading for the forwarders and significantly reduced the amount of pallet break-downs required.

“I did contemplate taking advantage of the new widths too, but I‘m just not sure if the Kaikoura tunnels will be the same, taken out or at least improved with the rebuild. I chose caution on that one. I know we can get under no probs,” said Mark.

The Carrier fridge motor nestled snuggly under the rear trailer. Roadmaster and Carrier have put together a unit that has exceeded everyone‘s expectations.

The additional height and use of premium materials has made the new trailer set infinitely more useable and less prone to damage
while loading, not forgetting the obvious productivity gains.