TRT’s ESS trailer struts its stuff
TRT hosted the country’s biggest names in house removals at a special event at Hampton Downs Motorsport Park during October, where the engineering firm showed off its latest and greatest house removal trailer.
The TRT ESS 4-axle house trailer with single-axle steering module – to give it its full title – was hooked up to its usual prime mover, the Peterbilt
389 6x4 of Prestige Building Removals, with driver Malcolm Whitehead-Clarke behind the wheel to show off the unit’s talents. The Pete and ESS trailer combo starred in our October 2020 cover feature, where we delved deeply into the technical aspects of both units, especially the ESS trailer.
ESS, by the way, stands for electronic steering system, which Whitehead-Clarke demonstrated by expertly manoeuvring the unit around the tightly packed cones in the demonstration area – even in reverse. As he moved along the trailer was set at its lowest point of 0.88m, then its highest of 2.75m, and anywhere in between – sometimes even differing from side to side as the split axles can be controlled independently.
Packed full of technical innovation, the ESS 4-axle trailer was equipped with an extra axle module on the day to demonstrate the effectiveness of TRT’s Quick Connect modular system.
(It can have a single-axle, two-axle or both singleand two-axle clip-ons for a 7-axle trailer.) In 15 minutes Whitehead-Clarke and three of TRT’s engineers had the module propped up and secured, the hydraulic lines disconnected, and locator pins retracted, before truck and trailer glided off less one axle.
With the fifth modular axle disconnected, the
ESS trailer’s torsional box trombone was extended to show off how nimble the unit is at a fully extended deck length of 22.2m.
“TRT has been building steering axles for many years but up to now the steering axles have all been castor steer,” said TRT trailer sales engineer Glen Harnett. “However, a lot of house movers have told us we’re not supplying an axle that steers enough. Now the ESS trailer has steering 35 degrees either side of centre; it provides the ultimate steering angles no matter what length the trailer is set to. Pre-programmed software trailer configuration is an easy one-step setup for the operator.”