27: Ban Curtain Siders

0:03Hello and welcome to Mat's Trucking Rep podcast. So today's episode is going to be something slightly different, a new sort of style as such of podcast that we're just going to give it a try and see what you think and we'll wait for the feedback. Quite a few years ago, a friend of mine in discussion said to me, you should ban curtain ciders. And when he said this, I just thought, you're mad. What on earth are you talking about? And then he sort of started giving me his reasons and I just started thinking you know what it's actually kind of got a point but you still don't think you need to ban curtain siders but the more I thought about it the more I thought actually he's probably right you know and Jim always goes on about the Midland CB app and I just brought this up into a conversation the other week I can't remember what the context was it might have been load security and I just sort of said you know you should ban curtain siders make them illegal to which we end up with well over an hour's worth of discussion so I just thought well we'll Try this on the podcast and we'll just see how it goes.

1:01So what I thought I'd do, rather than have too many of us, obviously, when I put this out there, Alex said, I'm mad. But I just thought, well, he's the man to speak to on one side and the other would be Luke Powell-Hippersley because he is in sort of agreement with me. So let's bring them in. So even Alex, how are we? I'm good, thank you, Matt. How are you today? Yeah, I'm all right, mate. I'm all right. I'm a bit bummed up, but I think it's just a bit hay fever. So I'm hoping that's going to clear up very soon. Do you know, I think everybody is at the moment. You know, everybody's feeling tired and groggy.

1:30I don't know what it is. I think just the heat. I'm the same. My daughter's the same. Yeah, there's been so much heat, isn't there? It's finally cooling down a bit. Yeah, it's not been a lot of fun. It's coming back this week, isn't it? It's coming back. Well, I'm on holiday at the end of the week, so that's all right. So I'll be up. I'm on holiday every day. I do do a bit of work. I can't re-argue that too much, can I? Yeah. And Luke, returning Luke, how are we, mate? All right? Yeah, good, Matt. How are you doing? Yeah, I'm very good, mate. Very good. So, yeah, I'm looking forward to this. We've all had a bit of a back and forth on the WhatsApp chats about it all and whatnot.

2:07Now, Alex, why would you say that I'm mad for wanting to ban... I will point out to listeners, this is just a bit of light-hearted discussion about most of the pros and cons, well, more cons in my opinion, of a current insider, because I did actually message a friend of mine just to get a rough idea on some stats and whatnot, and he thought that I'd actually heard that Curtainsiders were going to get banned and he basically said his company would be stuffed if he didn't have them, which made me think even more on other little subjects and whatnot. So Alex, anyway, as I asked why am I mad? I don't want to go first.

2:42Fair enough. I will go first. No, I will go first. We've got to think of why were they brought in in the first place. They were brought in to get an open sheet in. or a tilt you know that's what i feel you know like the evolution of a tilt yeah or tilts as well yeah euro liners you know yeah so now you want to get away with your get rid of euro liners as well so we've got to go back to tilts for open sheeting and box trailers no you don't have to go just get you don't need a tilt just you can do everything in a box a fridge or a flatbed right okay so i i do groupage all my work is coming from scandinavia then i'd stop it to a denmark Danish company, you know, on Dockwork.

3:25So I'm with Euroliners all the time. Yeah. We do have box trailers, but I just think, so like you'll get like the other day, I had a lot of palettes of makeup on. I shouldn't really say that. A lot of palettes of cosmetics on, and then I had a lot of pipes on top of it. So now I'm a bit in between, does that go in a box trailer? Does it go in a flat trailer? What does it do? Well, as we know from speaking with Luke previously, you can get a box trailer that opens on the side. Yeah, the Akira's. Yeah, the Akira's. Now, that's another thing. Right, well, our company's got two Akira's, right? Flip-Batters-on-Fours to Finland.

4:04Yeah. And I picked it up. It always comes into Tilbury. So I went to Tilbury, picked it up, took it, had a full load of steel on it, right? So I got to the steelworks, and that way it was going to. Turned it away, straight away. Can't get it out. It's a crane through the roof. There was stuff then. went back to Normanton I don't know what they did with it then but yeah it's the first example you know it could have been on a flatbed though couldn't there that's it still yeah and then that wouldn't have been an issue because a curtain slider in my opinion anyway only benefits the customer and not the haulier or the driver that's yeah that's what I I tend to think well no no I do know how does it benefit how does it not benefit the driver well because when it's pissing down with rain yeah And it's lashing down with rain in the middle of winter, and you're saying, I've got to sheet this steel up.

4:54That isn't on my radar. I'm not keen on that idea. It's not much better when you've got to still pull the roof backwards and forwards on a Euroliner, or you've got to do the curtains, you're putting all the tilt boards in. You're still out there in the pissing down rain, getting absolutely soaked through. Yeah, what I think as well, because it's never needed to be developed, you've got like tippers and my eight-wheeler, you've got an automatic electric sheet. so you could have some sort of sheeting system that would just go front to back and drop it down fairly simply without too much of a weight penalty.

5:26You'd still have your coil carrier trailers, wouldn't you? That's it. Use on steel. Yeah. No, no, no, no, no. They've gone. They've gone. We're box trailers or flats, Luke. We're gone. No, they're not there anymore. You can't move the goalposts to suit your argument. The American model then, yeah. Yeah. Well, really, my argument is, I think there's no reason anything palletized, it can't be put in through the back doors and on loading bays. So what annoys me is the fact of, and I have this obviously when I'm having to try and book reloads and things like that, I've got fridges and I've got the carry.

6:05And there's absolutely, they just say, no, it has to be a curtain side trailer, has to be a curtain side. And a lot of these places, is they won't even ask the question to find out can it load in a box and the amount of times you've turned i've turned up somewhere and you go you go oh it was on a bay anyway so we could have loaded it in a box trailer or a fridge i get that yeah and sometimes you're staring down in the barrel at the end of the week and going uh right well i there's a load there but they're saying it must be a curtain side they won't even ask the question and check so am i running home empty the next 150 miles or do i take a chance on it nine times out of ten you take a chance on it and you will be alright but I just think even if they say well it's got to be fortlifted we haven't got looting bays you can always use a set of pallet trucks in the back to bring the loot up and down the trailer that is a really good point right I'm going to give you that one if I can get away with palleting the load out of the back doors without opening the sides off I'm going to do it all day long I don't mind that whatsoever there's a few jobs we do that we load for Denmark and that we load 33 pallets through the back doors on the Euro liners you know I've got no intention of opening the sides up and I'm happy to do it because it's a bit of exercise and stuff you know so I don't mind that but it's probably quicker as well yeah that's what I was about to say but I've had it with the argue well the forklift drivers arguing about saying no it's going to take longer so they still go with it and they do it through the back doors on a pallet chucks and at the end of it, I'd say to them, well, every time I was stood at that back door waiting for you to bring a pallet, that means it's quicker.

7:52If you're sat at the back of the trailer waiting for me to bring the pallet down the trailer, then maybe your argument holds a bit of water. But if I'm the one waiting on you, then it's obviously not quicker. It's actually quicker to load through the back doors of a box trailer. Then when you're done, back doors close, load bar in, back doors close, you're on your way. not another 20 minutes messing around strapping loops down strapping curtains down in the UK nine times out of ten into pouring down rain putting boards back in stuff like that and then and then thinking right well where am I going to park tonight well it doesn't matter where you park if you're in the services someone's got to come along with a Stanley knife open that up lovely he's got a trailer full of alcohol and people will go well you should park more securely but that's face reality we're in the UK that's not an option and it's not impossible to break into a fridge or a box trailer but it's a lot it is a bit more labor intensive there's a lot more chance of you making a racket and at the end of the day if they look around a truck park full of trucks and trailers and they see oh well there's like 30 curtain sides over there and 3 box trailers over there they'll think well let's go let's have a bit of this curtain it's the last thing they're going to go that's the last thing they're going to go for is the one that's going to be harder to get into I think I agree with that I think one of my sort of biggest bugbears with the Curtain Cider as well is it's just so overused because it's very sort of universal but I know our friend Toffee said there's no such thing as a you know a worthless note because all loads have a value but obviously some are higher value than others so like Luke just said with alcohol or cosmetics things TVs things like that They should not be going into a curtain cider where it's so easy to get.

9:41And load theft, as we know, is rife in the UK. And if that option is removed and people have to think about how they're going to load vehicles a bit more rather than going, well, it's just going to go in a curtain cider. And so because we're all paying for this ultimately with insurance premiums going up, you know, across the board and costs of everything. It's, you know, but again, it's cost. That's the biggest problem with the haulage industry, cost. well this is what i said to you the other day wasn't it so like your point when you said it benefits the customer more so than it does the haulier yeah i'm the one on the hook if anything happens to that load uh i'm also the one that's now got to pay 40 pounds to park in some truck stops and services now and i said if they were to make it a rule that all right if you insist that the haulier has to come up turn up with a curtain side trailer you say well the customer is liable to pay for the parking, if they want secure parking, they've got to pay for it.

10:37And if they said, well, we'll ensure that the haulier is responsible for insuring it if it goes on a box trailer. And if they put the liability on the customer for a curtain site, they go, well, you insist it's got to go in the curtain, and you know that it's a high-value load, but this is exactly, you insist on it, so you're liable to insure it. I think a lot of them would change their attitudes and policy and think, bloody ass, yeah, we don't really fancy that. but look right as as you're a company owner right and i don't know the answer to this but it's interesting if you got your load nicks and you was in a lay-by would your insurance company then come to you and say well you didn't do secure parking it's not anything that has ever happened to me so i'm not entirely sure the the main line of business for an insurance company is to get out of paying you a claim.

11:27So they would definitely use that against you. I think the first thing they're going to say to you, if you two and say I've had eight pallets in it, they're going to say, well, where was you parked? That's going to be their first question. Where was you parked? Oh, it's parked on an industrial estate. Oh, well, if you look at section four, paragraph three, line 2A, it says secure parking. So let's say that's it. That is probably what insurance companies would do. So if they were to then actually put the onus on the customer who insists insisted it had to be in a curtain trailer they'd probably start thinking well we'd rather lessen the risk then if there's a chance he might be in a lay-by or an industrial state maybe we'd rather it was in a fridge trailer or a box trailer something a little bit more secure if they think well we're on the hook for this now yeah because it and the thing is the insurance companies they'll all try and wriggle out of it look i'm at campbell road now and it's already full up what's it's five to seven there's no no space for any more trucks here if you've just arrived with eight hours 45 minutes on your card and what do you do now yeah yeah exactly yeah yeah you go well what do i do well now what and they can say or you should have planned a bit better just yeah transport does it yeah transport does it yeah yeah well I'm going to Burry and I was looking I thought so fortunately the customer I'm working for now they do pay for the parking when they say that they they want it secure parking so the only parking so I've come from Portsmouth up to here so this is the last secure so say parking it is secure enough in here but the only other options between here and Burry are Nutsford Lim and that's it motorway services yeah yeah which are far from secure I've seen plenty of pictures of curtain side trailers cut to ribbons in Lim truck stop oh oh flipping it yeah it's diabolical isn't it but if I had a box trailer on now I would have probably went to Lim because I'd have thought I've got a bit more chance maybe I could back up to another trailer so that my back doors are sealed yeah you think yeah I could take the punt on him there, but with the curtains, I just think, no, not with what I'm carrying.

13:47It's not worth the rest. Yeah. Because I remember quite a few years ago, and Alex might remember this as well, a friend of mine, Keith Williams, he worked for Edwards, which turned into Willie Betts, and he had loaded Bosch power tools, parked at Heston Services, and he got gassed, and Keith doesn't drink. And when he woke up, he felt like he had a hangover and blah, blah, blah, an insurance company said we must have got drunk how would he know how would he know if he doesn't drink well because he used to so he knew he knew what hangover was like and um yeah I think he had six pallets of Bosch power tools stolen out the side well again power tool that's a in my mind that's a high value load and it shouldn't be in a curtain you know well I I think it's a bit mad so I used to do house removals for a living yeah so you just imagine a removal company turn out of a curtain side and they were taking your you were moving down to Spain for example and then they showed it with a Curtis Light trailer, you'd do your nut.

14:41You'd think, no way, there's all of my goods going in that. So why would a manufacturer or a company think, yeah, what we'll do is we'll put about a quarter of a million pounds worth of power tools in a Curtis Light trailer? Yeah. Because even with, like if you argue, well, like with Luke, for argument's sake, if you're working for a freight forwarder, you're not necessarily going to know what the stuff is for argument's sake. If you ask the quote on a job from A to B and it's 20 pallets or whatever, you're not told what it is. So until you get there with your curtain side, and then the company are like, oh, well, it's high value.

15:18Oh, we'll just have to load it anyway. Well, that company know that their stuff's worth a lot of money and there's a potential. Well, what really frustrates me, and I have to do work for freight forwarders as well, is when they send you their email on the job confirmation, must be secure parking, can't stop air, can't do this, can't do that. and you think, oh, so I've got to do all of that. If you'd have told me this in advance and what the value of this load would be, then I'd probably said, well, we're going to need another couple of hours of quid on the job for the parking and stuff. Yeah. Whereas, like, if they say, oh, it's a load of timber, even though they have this written on their email every time you think it's timber at the end of the day, no one ain't picking that up and walking away with it.

16:00No. no but it's just what what do you think what what would you think can't go on a flat or a box trailer then I would what couldn't what couldn't go on a flat or a box trailer yeah because I've done glass bottles before I've had like glass in Leeds just do glass down a Belvedere and they used to have 52 pallets of it double stacks in a tall trailer so all that's strapped up you know with things so then now you've got to tell the customer right you're not getting 52 you're only getting 26 Well, why not have a high box? Load it on a bay. What, like a 15-foot box? Yeah. Well, you get 15-foot curtains.

16:39I'm looking at Eldest Transport one right in front of me right now. Yeah, well, that's toilet rolls, isn't it? That's what they do, is toilet rolls. See, it's a tall trailer, though. There's no reason that couldn't be a box trailer. You do get tall boxes, definitely. Yeah. So, you know, that's certainly possible. Or, again, if it's something like Mia Kerry and... When you then start looking around Europe, people don't generally... They do run them, but let's look at Sweden and Scandinavia, because is the Akeri Finnish? Or is it Swedish? It's Finnish. Do you know why they came up with the concept?

17:15No. It's because, obviously, people living so far north in Scandinavia, they need produce, so they need fridge trailers bringing the stuff up there, but they couldn't backload the fridge trailers. Right. Okay. So the carriers were designed, because the biggest thing coming back down the other direction, there's always a load of timber. I was going to say, got the timber. So these trailers were designed to take palletised loads north, and then bring what you could say is a curtain side load back to timber. Well, they've proven that it can be done. Yeah. And when you look at the other Swedish and other manufacturers, most of them are box bodies that are opening on one or both sides and they don't generally tend to manufacture they probably do manufacture curtain cider but it will be a special order because european curtains people like krone schmitz and whatnot no i i don't again there must be a swedish manufacturer that does offer one but all the home market trucks are big tall box that they're 10 a penny yeah oh yeah and obviously their weight their uh height limits are similar to ours yeah so they they're not restricted to four meters so anything that's four meters might be because it goes outside of scandinavia so you will have trailers with a three meter internal height uh but they are either just a box but side opening box or a side opening fridge so it shows you can you don't necessarily need to have curtain sites yeah if they they could swap it for these bodies and i know they're expensive but the way i sort of looked at as well yeah is you've got three you've got three trailers in one now you've got a box you've got a fridge and you've got a curtain so you might spend 70 grand buying the trailer but it's one lot of maintenance one parking space if you're paying per parking space and i did a job earlier this year where i took formula 2 cars down to barcelona for testing over to milan for air freight uh which was technically, let's say, a curtain site job because it all had to load the cars through the side in the big air-free crates.

19:22And then I reloaded with chilled goods to come back. I couldn't have done that job without a carry. Couldn't have done the whole job with a curtain site. Obviously, couldn't have took the cars down there with a fridge. It gave you more options. Yeah, yeah. I think it'd be nice to see more thought and development going towards side-opening boxes, really. Yeah. The thing I was going to say is the Europeans, if I was to say this a minute, Matt, the thing is with the Europeans, especially the Dutch, right, they don't think nothing is chucking a couple of hundred grand at a truck to make it specific for a specific task.

20:03Yeah. Do you know? You see them, they've got the double dolly trailers, the two containers on it, one extra skelly on the back, and then they've got all these fancy equipment you know they do not think at all about chucking money at a truck to get it all exactly what they want they're not afraid to innovate are they no that's it it just seems to just be trying to go for a one-size-fits-all solution like i know using some of these uk built trailers i think there are heaps of basically a lot of them and i know having had schmidt's trailers and crings and honestly you use a lot of them alex doing the unaccompanied stuff into the docks.

20:43They can be a bit more difficult to use and they're a bit easier to break, but they are more versatile in what they can do. But they do need a heartbreak. And that's the core thing of that. Everything in transport is it. You can buy probably, what, five curtain siders compared with one Akeri? Although the Akeri will outlive it by double the amount of it. Because yours is over 20 years old now, isn't it, Luke? 22 years old now. 22 years old. I was doing my GCSEs when that one was me. That's making me and Alex feel old. Yeah, yeah. But the life expectancy of a Curtain Cider is probably 10 years or so.

21:24And because they are not particularly strongly built, they are very susceptible to damage posts. I mean, again, curtains, because they're so easy to cut, I mean, you don't often see a curtain that's not got like a repair mark where either someone's gone over or someone's been at it with a Stanley knife. So, you know, again, if you had that big, huge slash, going back to Keith Williams, you know, his curtain, I really think that needs a new curtain. And we asked Mason, didn't we, before recording this, what was it, about two grand for a set of curtains? I think so. Yeah, well, three grand I was quoted.

21:58Three grand, yeah. So if you think that on top, you know, if you, obviously depending on how big your fleet is and how many incidents you have, I don't know how common it is to have to do that, but it soon adds up to the point of it's like, well, if I invest a bit more in this much better, in my opinion, better trailer and, you know, sturdier thing that will last longer, it will kind of pay, you know, you speculate to accumulate, it's going to pay for itself in a quicker amount of time. What I would say is I suppose the current side, especially the UK built ones like an SDC, they are quite idiot proof as well.

22:33They can take a bit more of a beat in than like a Schmitz or a Crone. Yeah. And that's what you were talking about earlier with, like Alex was saying, with the carry trailers and how the doors drop a little bit and you've got to know how to use it. And obviously the standard of some of the drivers that are out there now, I think probably, I'd say nine out of 10 wouldn't be capable of opening and closing the doors onto the carry. No, I mean, you've got to think about the people that are picking up the trailers on the other side of the water. I like it's all right on this side but some of the trailers that are coming in the way they're loaded the way they're strapped or not strapped the way they even the way they even just put the boards in is is shocking yeah never mind 150 grand trailer well that's the thing so when you see someone that couldn't even do that with a curtain so someone that couldn't close a Lawrence David curtain side up properly you think what chance have you got with those are carries and they are uh they're a really good tool you just need to know what you're doing a little bit more of it whereas i just think people aren't interested in training drivers properly no that's what i was going to say that if you had a firm and you had these akiri trailers which are brilliant and versatile you'd want it one man one truck one trailer wouldn't you do you know you you wouldn't want it mixing with all all people yeah yeah ideally you want that in any operation don't If you can get away with that type of operation, then it's happy day for that.

24:01That's it, yeah. That's just not the realities of the business. No, sadly. My friend Mark Farrow has a wonderful word for drivers like that. He calls them door slammers, and they just – Door swingers. Door slam. That's what they call in America. Yeah, door slammers. They're just not interested in the job, no care, anything like that. It's just a means to an end of making money. With the attitude of, well, I've damaged that. I don't really care. it's not my problem not my money yeah that's what you got insurance for yeah yeah I can't stand these they resent the job horrendously and I think why'd you do it he's got you an handcuffs then making you doing it yeah if it's something that makes you that miserable yeah leave that go do something else yeah yeah exactly but it's yeah again because it's all down to cost and every you know as we all know it's a race to the bottom and whatnot it's highly unlikely that they're going to catch on but again as well because they've just become such a staple part of general origin of the uk there's no uh incentive for trailer companies to invest in trying to improve the thing is there yeah well yeah so i mean so like if um what you were saying just say that it was banned people would be forced to innovate with that and i think a part of the reason why and a carry and i think there's a there's one called uh the vac there's another one i've seen up in scandinavia i think there's a there's a few of them up there but not i think it's pretty like small market it's the same with any industry is if more people are doing it it gets competitive and they can afford to keep the price as high as they do because no one else is doing that yeah so it's like well you don't like the price well sort off and get one elsewhere if not sign on a dotted line yeah whereas if all the big manufacturers were offering some yeah obviously some would be cheaper the build quality would be crap and it be it a lot like we're talking about now with like some of the european manufactured trailers last longer than the uk manufactured ones it would be the same sort of thing but it would probably mean the bigger ones like your carries and stuff would still probably be more expensive but they'd have to say well we do need to do something here that we do need to do something to just keep ourselves in the game because if someone's looking at like it's going to go well I could have one a carry or two let's say Montricon suddenly you start building them they go well we'll get the two Montricon won't we we'll get the two for the price of one now so then the bigger companies and the more established ones they still would have to think well we do need to rein this in a little bit and see if we can stay competitive yeah yeah it's just but there's no need to at the moment so that's why everyone looks at the price tag and thinks it's not bad yeah exactly that's it I can buy five curtain siders for that one trailer I'm going to do that.

26:48Well, there's a company, I think they're like Skelmers, they'll wait. Is it NG Griffiths? Yeah. Yes. Ah, yeah, Fidges, yeah. They do the markets. Well, yeah, I think most of theirs are Carries. They're probably the biggest offer. Yeah, thinking about it, yeah. They've got to be the biggest software in the UK for that. Yeah. Yeah, they've got a few, yeah. I don't know if there's anyone else who's got them other than yourself. Is there any? I know I don't I know he's not it's not a trailer but I know Paul Ponsby I've seen that some of their rigids have got a Nicarri body on them oh okay yeah that's essentially what the Scandinavian trucks mostly are aren't they they're a rigid yeah with then a 45 foot trailer behind them so Nicarri build the bodies Ian Rogers is doing some with the cars but it's they're side loaders yeah they're like cast board trailers don't they all these transport trailers yeah Yeah, a lot of them all got a lot of doors open down the side, but it's a transporter inside.

27:48Scott, you buy what? I see him on Facebook. I'm not friends with him. Hasn't he got one? He did have one, yeah. I don't know if he's still got it. But yeah, I do remember him having one as well. Yeah. Because one other thing I thought about as well, let's just say they did get banned. Obviously, most of the UK haulage is now built up on the pallet networks, isn't it? So all the night trunkers and stuff like that, all of a sudden, they can't have curtain siders. but when you look at Germany for argument's sake all them night trunkers are 20 foot containers or drop bodies aren't they everywhere through Germany the whole night market is made up of containers so yeah yeah drop bodies yeah they are didn't you send me a post the other day of double deck trailer that they pulled in and he's been fined for an insecure load yeah even though he had all of those roof straps and everything he still got done for an unsecured load and I thought, well...

28:43Well, I think he put them on... I don't think he had any straps on him. They then made him strap it and find them. Oh, right. I believe, I think. Yeah, so I thought the picture, I thought you could see the straps on it. I thought, well, if they're saying... Because I didn't make those straps anyway. Like I said, so you've got a pallet full of Coca-Cola and you've got that one roost strap, but say that's... Each pallet is like six boxes. I don't know how they fit onto a pallet. Well, that's only holding one of those boxes. I know it's shrink wraps and stuff, but they're shooting very loosely aren't they there might be one wrap round and that's it you've got to anchor the brakes on take evasive action that load shoots to the left or to the right and you're relying on then the curtains to hold everything in and they see these codex L curtains I still don't I can't quite believe that if you shot a 19 ton load to the side that curtain's gonna withhold it save that load going anywhere I've seen pictures of them when loads have gone over with timber and stuff like that.

29:42Water, especially water. But the curtains held the load in, but it hasn't held the load in place. And that's the thing. The trailer hasn't burst. The curtains haven't burst. They've held it, but it hasn't gone all over the floor. Whereas if you're in a box, it's going to, there's no room for it to bulge, is there? It's just... See, another thing we do, we do box trailers, and I've got quite a few of them. And they'll load IBCs, Was it 22 IBCs? I think you get in a box trailer. I think it is. I think they're the same size of the pallet, aren't they? I suppose it's the week before you get 22. No, they're a bit bigger, I think.

30:20I think they're a bit bigger. Is it 22, 24? Anyway, whatever it is. Right? But then they put the four load bars at the back. And I just think, you know, if that's going to shift somewhere, you know, you've got 20 or tonne of chemicals sloshing about, you know, them load bars just aren't going to hold it. Yeah. I mean, now they've made it, haven't they, in Europe, with ABCs you've got to have two straps on every ABC haven't they yeah and the UK yeah and the UK yeah I class it all the same you know like in the UK as well yeah but it's what are you going to do in your box trailer with just four load bars at the back that's just holding a load of lettuce well yeah but what sort of load bars is it because if you're using the E-Track load bars that we use and Matt has obviously had on like Trans Am yeah them load bars are brilliant yeah yeah well that's that's the sort of that's what i would call it a loop but i know the thing you're about the tension well yeah that's the pole i i yeah and i agree yeah pull the handle down don't you and it just yeah i'd agree yeah that that's not that's not good enough but if you know if that's the sort of work you do and you know you're going to need to use a box trailer on it then it's on you to go right well we need to make sure it's got the right loop type of loop bar in it yeah i do i do work for amazon at the end of the day and they dictate a rule to you do about you have to have this minimum level to do their work so yeah if someone's saying why it's abc but you if you show up and you haven't got that it's like a load bar you just got these poles will turn you away okay it's on you then to just get one you have to have the same like load bars you have on like the tour trucks and stuff then in them yeah you've got ones there's big thick ones that lock in yeah that's it so you've got to have those or well you have to have three of them or free ratchet straps.

32:05Oh, okay. All of their loads are only about five ton, but it's like, that's just, if you turn up and you haven't got that gear in the truck, they'll just turn you away. Because again, when I was thinking about recording this and, you know, what to say and whatnot, obviously my mind did go to Amazon so I thought, have they even got a Curtain Cider in their fleet? Or is it all box? Not their own. They will have the rental ones in there. Just because it's a rental? Yeah, and subcontractors like going you can go in you can use a curtain side but now you know you've seen the supermarket curtain sides when they've got the straps going on in the side of the curtains so they make sure all the rings are every down aren't they yeah they've got to have all of that gear in there or if you've got a Euro liner you're okay as long as you've got all the boards in the side of a Euro liner but if you just turned up with just a normal curtain side and you're hanging straps you'd be told nah on your way and I think yeah right because these big carts that they use even though the load's not that heavy you can't secure it properly without load bars or proper straps going from side to side but the thing is for everyone that's had to fit all those straps in the sides it's now that curtain side it's not really any good to them as a curtain side because they've actually they're using all the upright posts they've had to have uh rings welded onto it i looked in the back of one i thought that looks murder to deal with i wouldn't like if you showed up somewhere and he said right we're loading through the side you've been brilliant flipping it flipping it yeah beat that one out that but when i used to do a lot of work to france every week and with zieglers and zieglers had i can't remember them having any curtain sizes all box trailers they had and you could i could do a full week with 11 deliveries around france and seven collections and i'd just get everything off the back of the trailer on and off the back I've never opened the sides yeah this is what I've said the UK is the only place that's got an absolute stonk on for everything going through the sides whereas when you're in Europe majority of everything if it's palletized I'd say 9 times out of 10 you will be on a loading bay you'll never be loading you'll never load palletized loads through the side no it'll only be like when I've been in Spain loading long lengths of tube and stuff like that and it's gone through the side or through the roof or something yeah so that's why that's why I'm saying and those tubes and stuff could be on a flatbed and raked in a sheethead.

34:30Yeah. Or even just on a flatbed if they don't need weather, if they're plastic tubes, they're not going to need weather protection, are they? No. But like, obviously I've seen a post someone commented on saying, and they used to load on a flatbed from Kellogg's and have to rake in sheethead. Now obviously, we don't want to go back to those sorts of days. I couldn't even imagine what that would be like. trying to do that but you wouldn't need to because you've got a box you'd load it in your box yeah exactly or your side opening box you know one or the other and again America this is what they say it can either go on a flatbed or a box yeah these will be only two trailers needed really and I think you do get curtains there and that's a very specialist thing to have a curtains like trailer in America there's not many of them about is there there really isn't so whenever I've been I've not seen one I've seen photos of American ones but I didn't actually see one in person.

35:28Yeah. I've been over there. Which makes me wonder what they use them for in America. Like I said, it's probably something quite specialist in bespoke. Someone, it's just for a certain customer and a certain contractor or something. Because they probably, to them, it's probably less of a set, like a sellable asset or something. It's more like a one trick pony to them. Yeah. A lot like back in the day, having a set frame box trailer to do event transport. it was a one-trick pony, really, because you could only really do events. You couldn't do haulage with it. You couldn't get a full load of pallets in and stuff like that.

36:02So whether that's the way that they view the Curtain Sight trailers, and that's why they don't generally tend to bother with them over there, I don't know. Yeah, it's possible. I mean, hopefully, because I know we have got a few American listeners, so they can give us a bit of feedback and let us know, well, if they've seen them and what they're used for. Well, what's that lad say? He's Australian. He's got an Australian lad that he makes with on the app, haven't you? Paul O 'Callaghan. Now, I messaged him, and I also messaged Ed Noloff, and Curtainsiders are really, really common and popular in Australia and New Zealand.

36:33And again, because when I messaged Paul, the Curtainsiders, because of the outback, because they move about a lot more, the Curtainsiders are going to stand up to the punishments of the outback, I think, a lot better than what something like the Ikeri will. That would just get an absolute hammering and just probably fall a bit. So for there, it's actually a better tool. From what I can tell as well in America, I think it's kept having only flatbeds and boxes. So box drivers, they call them door swingers and they're sort of viewed as not proper truckers. Yeah. Whereas if you've got a flatbed, I think they call them a loader or whatever they call them.

37:12Yeah. You're likely to be more specialist because you know how to rope and sheet. You're doing maybe more out of gauge stuff, things that can't just go through the back doors on a forklift. So it's possibly meant drivers can earn a bit more money because what they do is a bit more specialist. Whereas then if you introduce curtain stiders into the market, then the door swingers are now starting to do all of the flatbed work as well. And they would start seeing that. Well, what was a well-paying job now is the same way as everything in your year. It's gone just to the race to the bottom now. And again, because the curtain is so overused, we've all seen pictures of people who've tried to load like a 30-ton digger in the back of a Schmitz Euroliner, which is never designed for that.

37:57We've all seen these pictures, but because the trailer's cheap and the option's there, they're going to try it. Good idea, yeah. We've seen plenty of pictures of the rear ends of the chassis snapped and stuff. Yeah, maybe this 20-ton machine isn't designed to go in a trailer like this. That's it, yeah. Yeah, but we're cheap. Yeah, but there's a reason Newby feel like they can get away with charging 60 grand for a low loader. I'm realising that now that I've snapped the chassis on a Schmidt's trailer.

38:28This episode of Match Trucking Great Podcast is kindly sponsored by QDUK. QDU offer one of the largest ranges of truck accessories in the UK and Europe, partnering with well-known brands such as Hadley, Nedking, truck chef strands tom tom light fix and many more shop online at www.qduk.limited.uk and use a discount code trucking great for 10 % off your next order thank you very much qd for your support we really appreciate it again the mind boggles and again the person sending the machine should look at that trailer and go we're not putting it in there what are you are you mad but yeah I think that's mostly export stuff though and well again like we said yeah when the Polish carrier said well we can take it there for a thousand euros and all the Brits wanted four thousand pounds they go well we'll take a punt on that one then yeah he's probably got a low loader and then they go well it's trailer brook that's a him problem not me that's it yeah you said you're going to load it yeah it benefited the customer more because they were paying less money for the transport for it yeah yeah that's it yeah yeah exactly back to what we said if they were being told well all right but you've got to start paying for these curtains to be parked and secure parkings that they go oh well maybe might as well just be paying for the box trailer to come and do it then i'm starting to come around to your way of thinking a little bit just a little bit yeah just a little bit i am starting to come around to your way of thinking a bit really because like you say like in europe and that you know like they don't have all these curtain ciders everywhere do you know I mean, it's, it's, and, and, you know, like, like Luke says, there's Eldest parked in there, which that's toilet rolls in it.