WINNER of the first place award for safety and innovation at Trailer 2001 was the improved Krone Safe Liner with dry freight box. The Safe Liner has a low-drawn barrier frame that is divided into compartments for pallet storage and at the same time works as a much stronger side guard.
The latest improvement to the Safe Liner is a dry freight box. There is a new trend in Europe to van bodies instead of curtainsides or tarp-frame sides in trailers. The new Krone Dry Liner is available as a steel box body, a painted plywood body, or fiberglass-reinforced plastic van body. The steel box body on display in Kortrijk was also equipped with steel keyhole-punched interior lining for use in hauling garments on coat hangers.
The Safe Liner steel body has the same protection against corrosion as the low barrier-frame chassis: E-coat plus powder coat. Starting with galvanized sheets, the completely assembled body goes through a series of dip-tanks for cleaning and then E-coat primer, followed by a powder coat final finish. The Krone anti-corrosion warranty runs for six years or a million kilometers (620,000 miles).
The van body has no exterior rivets. Individual side sheets are first formed with a stiffener on each vertical edge. Small channels in these stiffeners are then pressed together to join sheets into a side wall. The liner panels are then attached to the inside flanges of the stiffeners, thus strengthening the wall.
The fact that the entire van body and chassis frame are of steel is an advantage for recyclability. In Europe, truck bodies and trailers of differing materials must by disassembled and separated before going back into the melting pot. The all-steel Krone Safe Liner Dry with steel body therefore enjoys an environmental advantage.
Weight of the Safe Liner dry is 7,790 kg (17,200 lb), or 800 kg (1,765 lb) more than a curtainside Safe Liner. This weight is for the standard European semitrailer on three axles and 13.62 m (45 ft) long. The weight includes three full-width pallet boxes made possible by openings in the low barrier frame.
As of the first of the year, there were 1,000 Krone Safe Liners on the road and 10 of the new Safe Liner Dry van trailers.
Fahrzeugwerk Bernard Krone GmbH, Mecklenburger Strasse 7, D-49753 Werlte, Germany.