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Special builders of the South Easi
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Graham Montgomerie s-udies the trailer and body budders in the South East describes the evolution of heir businesses and assesses eir products.
LI °MOTORS Ltd of Andover ha e been in the specialist body bu lding industry for over fifty ye rs. Originally part of Hovis Lt, the company started off by bu lding bread barrows, which w e followed by mobile cante s during the last war.
n 1946 Locomotors was for ed as a subsidiary of Hovis, br nching out by building for pe•ple other than bakers. In the mil-1950s Hovis Ltd merged wi h McDougalls Ltd and then in th early 1960s a further m rger with Joseph Rank Ltd fo ed the Rank Hovis McDougal group. In 1972 the Motor Tr de section of RHM was acquir d by a newly formed cornpa y Abadoros Ltd, who rged in 1973 with UEI Ltd, a p ic company with en
gi interests. Today the Lo omotors factory employs ap roximately 200 people.
s far as product range is co cerned, this is practically un imited as the company is pr pared to build vehicles for ne applications to suit the custo ers' specification. This can m an anything from sleeper-cab co versions to building sophistic ted outside broadcast televisi n vehicles. The food industry is n important customer and Lo °motors supplies ref rigerat d and insulated vehicles to many leading companies in this field.
s airlines require a wide va iety of special vehicles, Lo omotors are active in this fi d producing, • for example, catering bodies mounted on tel scopic struts.
Although the company is obfriously not too anxious to go ino too much detail, Locomotors provide vehicles for every ty e of security transport, ranging up to armoured bullion veicles with payloads of 10 tons or more. As one would expect, Doughty Trailer Sales Ltd build trailers but special ones to suit individual customer requirements. The compang admits that it cannot compete with companies the size of Crane Fruehauf and York but claims to be highly competitive with units like variable-width step frames, off-road tankers and other such non-standard items.
Another Doughty operation is to provide trailer chassis for body-builders particularly in the livestock, mobile workshop, dry freight and refrigerated van body fields.
The sales and design office is in Bournemouth while the Doughty factory is in Southampton. Any overflow of production is partially subcontracted to local specialists under strict quality control. Doughty claims that this enables the company to meet large orders on occasions which could not be produced by the Southampton works.
In the last few months a parts division has been set up operating from the Bournemouth office. This is run as a separate entity and is involved in supplying commercial vehicle operators with maintenance reducing and safety promoting accessories. These include the Lube Liner, a fifth-wheel disc which eliminates the need for lubrication and electrically heated rear view mirrors.
Tamplin Engineering Ltd at Birdham, Chichester started in 1948 with the company in those days being called Agricultural Repairs. This was a general engineering business slanted towards the agricultural industry because of its location. The first manufactured prt duct in its own right was Graintaker which was a sma portable unit that fitted on to farm trailer and was th forerunner of the early Tampli grain bulkers. Then came th Tamplin lorry mounted augE discharge bulker which, i 1956, was the first of its kind.
It was followed by a dE mountable lightweight bulk tir ping container for fitting to a road vehicle as opposed to a farm trailer.
Today Tamplin Engineering has a factory area of 1780 sq m (19,200sqft) on the original site. It employs 35 people and currently manufactures a wide range of specialist transport equipment with export markets that include South Africa and Czechoslovakia.
Included in the product range are aluminium bulk feed tipping bodies in all-welded monocoque or rivetted form for either rigid or articulated vehicles.
A comprehensive range of pneumatic discharge systems for bulk haulage is produced by Tamplin, including the System 3 which is a method of discharging material from bulk ISO containers. A Tamplin dieseldriven blower pack is mounted on the trailer which has a special rear rotary valve arrangement to accept material including plastics, sugar etc from ISO containers fitted with a plastic liner.
The Tamplin Tip-Kit is a system for converting standard skeletal or flat platform container-carrying semi-trailers into tipping trailers.
Multi-purpose demountable bulk tipping bodies known as Tamplin Pick-A-Backs, donkeyengine power packs for independent tipping and the operation of auxiliary equipment as well as portable gantries are also manufactured by the company.
Conversion kit
A recent development from Tamplin is a blower conversion kit for farm trailers. Based on the company's Short Tailboard Blower System, the kit can be fitted to most types of agriculture tipping trailers.
Merriworth (Engineering) Ltd has been manufacturing semi-trailers in the Erith area of Kent for some 25 years.
The standard model range comprises flat platforms, straight and step frame TIR tilts, platform skeletals, curtainsiders and grp-bodied vans. Approximately 800 to 900 units are produced each year for the home market plus an increasing number of ckd kits for export to the Carribean, Middle East and African markets.
The Jumbo from Merriworth is fitted with fully retracting hydraulic landing gear operated by a self-contained chassismounted power pack enabling the trailer to "kneel down" at the front for the loading of plant, vehicles etc. In 1978 the company received a Design Council Award for this model.
Andover is the home of one of the Craven Tasker group of companies with the official designation being Craven Tasker (Andover) Ltd. From its 17acre site, the company produces a wide variety of trailers ranging from the small agricultural type to psks, skeletals and flats.
At the heavy end of the market Craven Tasker specialises in low loader design covering the 15to 600-ton weight range.
Around 20 per cent of the company's production is exported to such areas as Africa, the Middle East, the Far East, Jamaica and Indonesia. The Middle East has been a good market for Craven Tasker, who have sold several trailers for use in the oil fields. Basically these are standard flat trailers fitted with heavy duty suspension. Based at Southampton, HCB-Angus is one of the Dunop group of companies. Although the company is probably best known for its fireFighting equipment, water enders account for a substantial art of HCB-Angus' output and hese are built on to a wide . ariety of chassis/engine corninations.
HCB-Angus has been making ire appliances for more than 30 ears as part of the group's fireighting equipment manufacurer Angus Fire Armour. Earlier this year a new (.1.5 million factory was opened at Testwood for the assembly of specialised emergency vehicles and this now employs 180 people.
The new factory is for allMetal appliances — ranging
1'
om all-purpose Land-Rovers to irfield crash tenders. Producon of composite vehicles — ood and metal — remains at e company's Totton factory. Approximately half of the ppliances manufactured by HCB-Angus are supplied to over 100 countries throughout the world.
As a specific example to illustrate the performance of an HCB-Angus appliance, the Medium Airfield Crash Tender carries 3180 litres (700 gal) of water and 454 litres (100 gal) of foam compound. The foam monitor will throw 16,000 litres ( 520 gal) of aerated foam each minute over a distance of 45m ( • 50-11).
Based at Ford Airfield, Arundal is another trailer manufacturer, Fromant and Son (Trailers) Ltd. This company , el-ploys some 50 people in the biilding of all types of semi and d awbar trailer for customers 1 t1. roughout the world.