Tautliner

The tautliners, also curtainsider, is a form of semi-trailer or trailer structure with a lateral sliding tarpaulin and used in freight transport by truck.

The term

The term is composed of the words thawed: tense, taut - and liner: in the widest sense: transport equipment. The German name is Schiebeplanenauflieger, curtain canvas trailer or sliding tarpaulin body. Originally tautliners is a brand name by the British manufacturer of commercial vehicles Boalloy Industries Ltd.. The idea to use such a sliding curtain for lateral loading of the trailer, the Englishman Eddie Stobart had for its large shipping company. The side curtains that could be lashed as a sliding curtain at its lower edge with buckles, Derek Lawrence had designed. The company Boalloy Industries built this kind of semi-trailers and semi-trailers reported for this type in 1969 under the name tautliners a patent an.Heute the term tautliners but used as a generic name for Schiebeplanenauflieger other manufacturers.

The structure

The semi-trailer is equipped as tautliners (also known as side curtain ) with no side walls, but with a lateral so-called curtain tarp or tarpaulin ( tarp tension ) left and right. This can be easily and quickly defer or open through the upper small roles. Strapped or strained it is on the sides with small straps ( tightening buckles ) on the lower side trailers ground, pull it out with the help of hooks in a rail edge. The fortified in the roof of the trailer running track is also the upper roof frame. Frequently the semi-trailer is equipped with a folding roof that can be pushed with a rod such as a sunroof. The roof structure is forward connected to the fixed end wall, and the upper elongated aluminum frame has around three movable stanchions, which are connected to the roof rack and the roof structure give the required stability. The rear rigid door frame is also connected up with the trailer roof. In him the two fixed aluminum doors are kept. The back of a tautliners is to build most of a sturdy wood floor, either conventional design with wooden planks, or more recently, mostly from multi-layered, laminated plywood.

At the lower edges of the sliding sheets tensioning straps are integrated. It should be noted that these belts are provided for the closing and clamping of the tarpaulin, but straps are not in the sense of load securing tools. The sliding sheets can be grown as a curtain. This will simplify and speed up the process for loading and unloading.

Advantages over regular semi-trailers:

Lockable tautliners

Modern tautliners

New quick release clamp

Other constructions

In contrast to the Edscha construction both side flaps and the roof can be opened separately when tautliners. Other forms of construction are, for example, the box body and the covered wagon as Plane/Spriegel- construction with foldable side walls.

Also in railway carriages there is the shift plan concept, see Boxcar.