Big DAF helps keep traffic flowing

Installing motorway crash barriers, both permanent and temporary, is being made easier by the arrival of a specially equipped DAF CF85 tractor at Derbyshire contractors HW Martin Safety Fencing Limited.

The vehicle is unusual in being an extra long wheelbase version of the DAF FTT 6x4 tractor. At 4.55 metres wheelbase, it’s a length normally used for the New Zealand market, the UK standard for this model being 3.9 metres.

The additional length is needed to accommodate a 26 tonne/metre PM crane sitting directly behind the cab and a safety walkway for the operatives to work from when attaching the lifting chains. This then leaves enough space for the fifth wheel in a position to legally couple to the tri-axle dropframe trailer on which the Varioguard temporary barriers, each weighing 1.3 tonnes, or lengths of crash barrier are carried.

This arrangement makes the operation of the vehicle both safe and efficient and up to 400 metres of temporary barrier can be laid per hour.

Although the big DAF is mostly to be found working at night along lengths of the M1 on the Yorkshire/Derbyshire border where widening is currently taking place, it will be used throughout the UK. It’s well specced-up for the job with the roomy Space cab providing both two comfortable bunks and a restroom in which the crew can take breaks and where they can store and don their personal protective equipment and wet weather gear.

The FTT is plated at 44 tonnes and powered by the 12.9 litre MX engine rated at 460 bhp and which is Euro 5 compliant. It features the AS-tronic automated 12-speed transmission. The double-drive bogie comprises a pair of hub reduction axles with a maximum load capacity of 26 tonnes, which is more than enough to take the weight of the crane and trailer.

John Stubbs, Group Services Manager at parent company HW Martin (Plant) Ltd, was responsible for developing the specification for the truck. “It’s ideal for the job we have it on,” he says. “There’s ample power and the automated gearbox will make the driver’s work easier as he travels between jobs. The availability of the FTT to the extra wheelbase length we needed was a bonus, as it avoided any major engineering work on the chassis to accommodate the crane and safety walkway. I’m very pleased with the way in which DAF, responded to our needs.”

Imperial Commercials of Sutton in Ashfield, Derbyshire, supplied the truck.