Gray & Adams to showcase new lifting-deck trailer at TCS&D

Fridge body and trailer manufacturer Gray & Adams will unveil a pioneering lifting-deck trailer at the Temperature-Controlled Storage and Distribution Show in Peterborough on September 16-17.

The 11-metre trailer has been built to serve a Morrisons supermarket in Norfolk that has restricted access. Its extra capacity allows the retailer to reduce the number of deliveries it makes to the store by one a day, saving a 250-mile round trip

Underlining the increasing popularity of shorter semi-trailers for urban distribution, visitors to the Gray & Adams stand (no D28) will also be able to see a 10.5m single-deck variant with command-steer axle, ThermoKing Spectrum multi-temperature refrigeration and Dhollandia power closure tail-lift, in Iceland livery.

Two more Gray & Adams exhibits will be positioned at the entrance to the event venue in the Peterborough Arena: a 13.6-metre single-deck reefer in the colours of Peterborough-based Chiltern Cold Storage, and a multi-temperature insulated box bodied 18-tonner, with full-width transverse bulkhead with personnel door, and retractable Dhollandia platform tail-lift, as supplied to Enterprise Flex-E-Rent.

Gray & Adams general sales manager Andrew Brown said: “We’ve seen strong demand over the last 12 months from operators commissioning urban trailers for high street deliveries and given the flexibility and efficiencies that short trailers offer, there’s every reason to expect the growth to continue. Gray & Adams leads the market in this segment, not least because our production capabilities mean we are best-placed to manufacture equipment which is invariably highly bespoke.”

Morrisons operates more than 100 Gray & Adams lifting deck trailers at standard 13.6-metre length, but the unit being shown in Peterborough is its first short version.

It is equipped with a Carrier Vector 1950 single-temperature refrigeration system, new light weight but robust glass-fibre reinforced plastic ECO Air tanks by BPW, and Gray & Adams’ latest-generation panel cappings. These are more aerodynamically-profiled than its previous, standard one-piece cappings, so help to reduce fuel consumption as well as giving a more modern, streamlined appearance.

The new trailer will enter service immediately after the show, and make daily runs from the retailer’s regional distribution centre at Latimer Park, Kettering, to its store in Gorleston, Great Yarmouth, 125 miles away.

Morrisons head of engineering, John Ward, said: “Access to this location is severely restricted. It’s on a busy road so we can’t reverse out and there isn’t enough room in the yard to turn round a tractor and 13.6-metre trailer.

“We’ve therefore been serving this store with four deliveries per day by single-deck urban trailers. The introduction of the new twin-deck version will allow us to take one of those vehicles off the road completely.

“We project that through fuel savings we’ll recoup the extra cost of the lifting deck in just nine months, while this radical new trailer will also help to improve our environmental profile.”

Gray & Adams pioneered the development of lifting-deck technology and it sent an engineer to visit the Gorleston store with John Ward and measure up, before designing and building the trailer to meet the exact requirements of the operation.

The Morrisions fleet also includes more than 100 single- and dual-temperature semi-trailers at maximum, 15.65m length. Each is capable of carrying 30 pallets, four more than a standard 13.6m version.