This is a Scania R143E owned by the company Van Elk from Haarlem. This is a 8x4 tractor with one front- and three rear axles. This configuration is, for heavy haulage, preferred over the 2 + 2 layout, because the 3 axles are mounted directly under the fifth wheel. This way you can make the most of your 4th axle. The trailer is a 4-axle Nooteboom equiped with a 2-axle Interdolly.

This Scania came to collect the Caterpillar 350L owned by ABEKO B.V. That company rents heavy building equipment for all kind of purposes. Abeko owns 3 of these Caterpillars.

Just like so many other vehicles, this Scania is also adjusted to transport machinery with long booms. For this purpose they have cut of the rear of the roof. Because this is a “R” cab, and not a small “P” cab, the cut hat to go very deep. This results in cutting through the roofline. This is not so good fore the stability of the cab. You can see that they have even cut of a little piece of the door.

The tractor is equiped with a torque-converter, what makes shunting possible without burning the clutch. With gross-weights of 100 tonnes and more, a torque-converter is a very useful feature. A dieseltank, a muffler and a strut are mounted behind the cab. From this side it can be seen that, for a excellent weight distribution, the fifth wheel is placed in the middle of the three rear axles.

The combination, on its way to the exit of the Geveke yard.

Pictures of the loading

The driver extends the floor of the lowloader for about 1,5 meters before the excavator is loaded. This is done to give the excavator more room to turn on the floor. The bucket has been placed on the Interdolly. The trailer has been sunken, so that it now lays on the ground. Wedges have been put beside the trailerfloor.

Unfortunately, these 2 pictures are not as good as the other because of the strong backlight.

The excavator now drives onto the floor over the wedges.

By turning the tracks separately, the machine can be manoeuvred into the correct position.

The machine is in the right position. Now the cylinder of the stick is being demounted. This is done so that the boom can hinge down further. This reduces the transportation height, which will be around 4,3 meter.

Here we have an overview over the loaded combination.