Verspeeten Cartage deploys new lightweight Titan trash trailers

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INGERSOLL, Ont. — Observant drivers along Ontario’s Hwy. 401 may have noticed a sleek new aluminum trash trailer being pulled by Verspeeten Cartage tractors in recent months.

Titan Trailer has announced the new design was constructed with Verspeeten’s specific needs in mind, as is hauls trash from the city of Toronto to the Green Lane landfill site near London, Ont.

The lightweight design has improved trash-carrying payload by three to four tonnes, the company announced. The new aluminum transfer trailers with moving floor were designed to maximize payload while also providing a 10-year service life in a rigorous application.

Scott Verspeeten, general manager of the fleet, said “We wanted a 10-year trailer.”

In January, Titan delivered the first of the new models to Verspeeten for a trial run. In the past, Verspeeten said his company would use a tipper stand to unload at the landfill site in Michigan where Toronto’s trash was previously delivered. The new site in London, however, requires the trucks to drive over the trash en route to their unloading area, where the garbage is unloaded using the moving floor.

Titan says its patented ‘Thinwall’ design, featuring extruded panels assembled horizontally, allowing the trailer to resist twisting stresses as it flexes over uneven ground was key in designing a durable, yet lightweight trailer. So far, Verspeeten said he is impressed by the durability and convinced the trailer will last 10 years. He has since ordered 36 additional trailers.

“The bulkheads were bowing under the pressure,” Verspeeten said, “but they returned to form as soon as the load came off. There was no stress cracking we could see at all.”

The lightweight trash trailer also features Titan’s new Paramax steering axle suspension. In the past, the steering axle would rub along the ground while in the lift position as the trailer rolled through a hole, Titan officials said. To address this, they modified the axles with longer shocks and switched to low profile super-single tires, providing the Paramax suspension with 10 inches of up-travel. This has eliminated concerns about air bag damage and reduced tire wear, the company claims.

The final version of the trailer is 51-ft. long with five axles, with IMT SmartSteer axles on the Paramax suspension and a V9 model V-Floor self-unloader system from Keith Walking Floor. Verspeeten’s manager says drivers enjoy pulling the new trailers because of the improved ride.

“They’re on the 401 about 90% of their time,” Verspeeten said. “They say sometimes they don’t even think the trailer is back there. There are some hills along the route where they know they usually have to downshift. But with these trailers, they don’t even have to drop a gear, and they’re hauling maybe three or four tonnes more than the old trailers.”

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