Spec'ing a DOubledrOP trailer
 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]669[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]670[/ATTACH]

Anyone with experience pulling a RGN or DD, please advise..

I talked to a few agents at Landstar and their recommendation was:

- 3 axles
- minimum 29 ft well
- usable decks in the front and rear instead of just open metal frame.

My truck is a regular highway truck with 2 drive axles and a 12,000 lb front axle. Is there even a point to get a tridem? The agents said the advantage is you can 'permit' extra weight with a tridem, but you cannot do that with a tandem double-drop. Is that true? If a tridem DD is allowed to carry extra weight, does the truck have to be of the heavy duty variety too? Or can you get away with a truck like mine?

I just want to haul machinery and equipment and I'd stick with a tandem because I don't want to deal with 100 ton excavators. Something like a CAT or CASE front end loader or grader (35,000 lb) is what I have in mind but the Agents said, "a tandem is no good." What the heck?

What other considerations might be important when spec'ing a trailer like this? Deck height? Manual/hydraulic disconnect? I know there's one plant near where I live in Ontario and they make RGN and DD trailers with AIR detach. The pictures above are from their website. My understanding is a trailer like that is what LS Agents like (3 axles, long well, decks in the front and rear)..

What about gross weight? I see ads and the same tridem can be a 50 ton or 55 ton or 60 ton model... What's the average required?

What are the useful options to have on a DD that might make the loading/unloading easier and make it safer for the driver?

Finally, what's the difference between an RGN, DD and lowboy? On the LS website, we have 2 trailer groups: "DUBL" and "LOWB" but most agents seem to use the double-drop abbreviation.

Thanks in advance for all the comments and suggestions!

I have no idea, when I did heavy haul, I ran a 50T LOW for US Steel, and that was just to move equipment from plant to plant.

I know you were thinking about upgrading your step tho, found this at the place I bought my last truck.... thought it might intrest you

2010 DOONAN 2010 Doonan 53' Drop Deck W/ Dove Tail & Ramps Drop Deck For Sale At TruckPaper.com

That's a good trailer... I like the ramps. But if I were to go with a step, I'd get the one with 3 axles, 255/70R22.5 tires, and probably a combo composition (the steel ones are too heavy).

But with the 22.5 tires, you are going to limit yourself on the height of freight you haul then. And the 3rd axle is pointless, just like on the DD you are talking about, you won't need it unless you are going to run stuff over 45k and at that rate, you might as well just go to a DD or a LOW then.

Like I've been talking to you about in the emails, I am really thinking about doing the same thing as you, but I will prob lease a trailer from LS seeing it's cheap and all the maint is included. their 53' steps also have bulkheads and container pins so it opens up a lot of areas for me as well. I'm going to stick to my dedicated run till March then come back over and start doing SD i think.

The 3rd axle is great if you want to run canadian loads, since in canada we can go up to 140 000 lbs gross weight, so the more axles, the more weight you can haul.
Just about all flatbeds running western canada are tridems and same for flats running the the east coast of canada.

17.5" tires
- can only handle up to 65 MPH
- are narrow and easy to damage in potholes
- the height of 36" is more of a hassle than a benefit because 99.99999$% of all stepdeck docks at tractor/equipment dealers are designed for STANDARD stepdeck height of 39"-40"
- require 120 PSI which is impossible to find at truck stops
- together with my closed tandems (61" spread) create too much open frame in the middle and it tends to drag itself on the ground; railroad crossings are particularly dangerous
- low deck creates a huge drop between the upper deck and the lower deck, which makes loading front axles of vehicles onto the upper deck a huge PITA

I can go on and on ... but my next trailer will have 255/70R22.5 tires ;)

As for the 3rd axle ... a 72" spread between the axles in a tridem makes it legal to have ... 26,000 kg on the spread in Ontario and many other provinces in Canada. Like I wrote before I do NOT want to haul extra heavy stuff, but Agents at LS say that's how you can make extra dough.

2 agents so far told me they have a LIMITED amount of RGN trailers in Canada. "In US, there's quite a few of them, but in Canada - especially if we're talking about a tridem RGN - we can use more RGNs.," one guy told me over the phone.

if tridem you talk about is tri drive they have been tried in N.Z but been hard to steer on hills and offroad we use twin steer tandem drive better steering and weight distribution

No, we're talking about TRAILER axles. Having 3 axles on the trailer in US and Canada gives you a higher weight rating.

I'd look into that air operated RGN, I'm sure you don't want the added weight or cost of a wetline or the aggravation of pull starting a gas engine on a cold day.

another upside may be that you could hitch up to it with any truck and operate it.