261 Don-Bur trailers deliver for Royal Mail fleet
Royal Mail is adding 261 UK-built Don-Bur trailers to its fleet this year, including 160 Lifting Decks – marking 20 years since the trailer manufacturer built its first prototype for the postal operator.
The programme comprises 160 Lifting Deck trailers, 50 box vans equipped with retractable tail-lifts and 51 box vans configured for dock loading.
The latest deliveries continue a relationship between the two companies spanning more than 20 years, since June 2006 when Don-Bur built a one-off Lifting Deck prototype for Royal Mail. Two decades later, Royal Mail is one of the UK’s largest operators of Lifting Deck trailers.
The latest trailers accommodate up to 95 roll cages across two decks, with 46 positions on the hydraulically operated upper deck and 49 below. By making greater use of the available internal volume, the design increases carrying capacity for loads that reach their space limit before their maximum permitted weight.
Successive generations of Royal Mail Lifting Deck trailers have evolved to improve carrying capacity, payload and durability while meeting the demands of a high-intensity operation.
The latest generation features Don-Bur’s thin Blade composite body construction and a full-length hydraulically operated upper deck with a 12,250kg safe working load. Roof-mounted solar panels support the trailers’ independent electrical system and battery charging.
Don-Bur’s Jon Davis (left) with Steve Warren, Royal Mail fleet engineer (right)
Steve Warren, Royal Mail fleet engineer, said: “Lifting Deck trailers have become an important part of the Royal Mail fleet, allowing us to make effective use of the available load volume and increase the number of roll cages carried on each journey. The design has evolved considerably over the last twenty years and the latest trailers continue that development.”
Alongside the Lifting Deck fleet, Don-Bur is manufacturing 101 13.6m tri-axle box vans, comprising 50 with 1,500kg-capacity retractable tail-lifts and 51 configured primarily for dock loading.
The box vans feature heavy-duty flooring suitable for forklift and powered pallet-truck operation, together with extensive load-restraint equipment. The dock-loading variants also incorporate reinforced rear-frame protection designed around Royal Mail’s loading infrastructure.
All 261 trailers are equipped with Royal Mail’s Container Tracking system, which identifies the location of items within each trailer.
Richard Low, Royal Mail fleet operations engineer, said: “The scale and variety of our operation means the trailer fleet has to meet a wide range of requirements. This programme gives us high-capacity Lifting Decks alongside conventional box vans with different loading configurations, providing equipment suited to the practical demands of the network.”
Jon Davis of Don-Bur added: “We’re proud to continue our long-standing relationship with Royal Mail through another significant UK-built trailer programme. Seeing 160 new Lifting Decks enter the fleet twenty years after the original prototype is a particularly satisfying milestone.”
