There are more than 40,000 km of highways in Canada, designed to transport very large haulage vehicles on a regular basis through Canadian territories. These heavy transport units transport materials such as raw agricultural and industrial supplies, heavy machinery, finished consumer goods and dangerous goods across Canada in large quantities. The Canadian trucking industry is heavily regulated in terms of safety but not in terms of other factors, making it a competitive market with constant downward pressure on rates and an upward trend in terms of the quality of the service provided.
The following are some of the light-heavy, heavy-duty, and extra-heavy hauling equipment used in Canada and the 42 states.
Medium heavy, heavy and very heavy trucks in use for freight transportation in Canada
refrigerated truck
This type is a medium-heavy transport unit used to transport refrigerated items (such as consumer products such as meat, fish, or ice cream) in bulk. This type also contains a built-in cooling apparatus (which tends to add to its weight and cooling power requirements, necessitating the need to transport very large quantities at once).
log carrier
A log carrier is a specially designed flatbed trailer used to transport large and very long sections of lumber with very heavy constraints.
heavy duty flatbed trucks
Flatbed trucks consist of a driver’s cab with a center-mounted engine and a detachable flat-wheel bed with hydraulically controlled wheels at the rear, called a flatbed trailer (or semi-trailer, which is smaller) that can carry loads heavy or very heavy items of a wide variety such as shipping containers, machinery and irregularly shaped objects that require space
Light-heavy varieties are used with a full trailer (not a semi-trailer) and are used to haul machinery such as industrial devices (huge segments of factory machines like giant boilers or generators) and other machines like construction excavators, cranes, and backhoes. It is also the preferred method of loading construction material onto flatbed trucks using cranes (which cannot load closed containers or semi-trailers) in bulk. Heavy palletized loads of bricks, cinder blocks, cinder blocks, bags of cement or plaster, and other very heavy loads of this type (such as gravel).
Other types of construction and irregular materials carried by heavy platforms are construction steel (reinforcing bars, which are very long and very heavy, especially for the construction of tall buildings, which requires the use of cranes to load them onto platforms), huge drainage pipes that are long in length and cannot be transported or loaded on semi-trailers and lastly, long and heavy steel beams used in the construction of skyscrapers. The military uses this type of transport to transport artillery pieces, tanks and parts of planes and ships.
semi-trailer truck
These are the large types of haul trucks and are used for specific types of goods such as containers and the type of items mentioned above. Standard (department of transportation) requirements for transportation on the national highway system limit them to 102 inches wide, 13.5 feet tall, and with a maximum weight limit of 80,000 gross pounds, however individual states may issue special permits for overweight and oversized transportation. Standard trailers up to 28.5 feet in length are allowed and many states also allow LCVs (Longer Combination Vehicles) (LCV regulations vary in Canada and from state to state in the US).
CVL Types:
- Triples: three 28.5-foot (8.7 m) trailers; maximum weight up to 129,000 lbs.
- Turnpike Doubles – two 48-foot (14.6 m) trailers; maximum weight up to 147,000 lbs.
- Rocky-Mountain Doubles: Include a combination containing one 40-53 foot trailer (48 foot maximum allowed) and one 28.5 foot trailer; maximum weight up to 129,000 lbs.
- In Canada, a Turnpike Double is a combination of two 53-foot trailers, and a Rocky-Mountain Double is a 50-foot trailer with a 24-foot trailer.
References:
Extensive Wikipedia research[dot]com
http://www.fastfreightquotes.com/freight-services/freightequipmenttypes.php
hubpages[dot]com/hub/flatload