Semi Trailers for Sale (743)

HGV Licences for Semi Trailers

To drive a tractor and trailer combination, the driver needs to have a class 1 HGV licence.  Despite improvements in truck technology, driving a 40ft trailer behind a tractor unit is no easy task.  The difficulty increases massively when you have to reverse the trailer.

Specialist Trailers

There are hundreds of thousands of flat, curtainside or refrigerated trailers running around the UK’s roads every day.  Read the short guid below for the more specialist types of trailers.

Double Deck Trailers

Across Europe, the maximum height for a trailer is typically four metres.  This is because the bridges over the motorways are only just over this height in many places.  In the UK our bridges are higher, which means that we can have overheight trailers.

This has led to the development of double deck trailers that increase the volume that can be loaded and therefore make each trip more effective and better for the environment.

These double deckers often have internal lifts to enable loading of the upper levels – bear in mind that these types of trailers cannot carry dense loads – think polystyrene rather than bricks!

Tipper Trailers

For certain applications using a tipping semi trailer is better than an eight wheel tipper.  The main advantage is that the payload is greater – a tri-axle trailer with a three axle tractor unit can have a combined gross train weight of 44 tonnes compared to just 32 tonnes for an 8×4 tipper.

The disadvantage is that tipping trailers are inherently less stable than a rigid tipper.  Forget using tipping trailers in places where the ground is not level and solid.  For bulk applications in the waste and recycling industry they are perfect where large amounts of waste need to be transferred from recycling centres to the landfill sites or processing centres and incinerators.

Ejector & Walking Floor Trailers

These trailers perform a similar role to a tipping trailer – the load gets emptied by the trailer without the use of a crane or forklift – but it can operate on a wider range of terrains.

An ejector trailer uses a hydraulic ram to push out the load from front to rear, whilst the walking floor or moving floor system has a floor that has been designed to move in such a way as it shuffles the load out of the rear of the trailer.

Typically these trailers can be loaded from above and have applications in the agriculture and waste industries.  Manufacturers of these types of trailers are Knapen, Legras, Stas and BMI.

Semi Trailer Manufacturers

Top  semi- trailer manufacturers for the UK market are Schmitz, Fruehauf, SDC, Montracon, Dennison and Don Bur.