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US guy has some questions


DeerMeadowFarm

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OK, I am new to the 1:32 scale collecting and as you may know it's not a popular scale in the US so all of my models represent what you guys use. I watched some silage videos that were posted in another thread (http://www.farmtoysforum.com/forum/index.php?topic=20216.0;topicseen) and it prompted some questions for me that I hope you will indulge me and answer for me.

First of all, I live in Massachusetts and most of the farms left around here are no longer big operations. Even so, one of the first things I notice is you guys do everything with tractors. Those big dump trailers you guys use are pretty much non-existant around here. Everything we do is hauled from the fields on trucks. About the only thing you will see a tractor towing down the road around here are implements (mostly for hay production: mowers, tedders, rakes, and balers) and occasionally a wagon with small rectangular bales.

So...for my questions:

1. How heavy are those dump trailers when loaded and do they have their own brakes?

2. Why do your tractors have the yellow beacons on the roof and what is the requirement for their use?

3. When the harvester is shooting the silage in the trailer, how does he load the wagon evenly? Does the guy in the tractor towing the wagon adjust his speed or does the guy in the harvester move the chute to spread the load out?

4. How fast do those tractors operate going down the road with a load (or empty wagon for that matter) on? In the videos I watched, and from my observations in Germany, they seem to drive a lot faster than we do. Of course, most of the tractors around here are older and have no where near the nice options you have.

That's about it for now... sorry to ask seemingly dumb questions but I find the differences in methods interesting and would like to learn more.

Thanks!

Rich

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Hello Rich......

I'll answer a couple of those questions for you......

In answer to the question on beacons it is a legal requirement for any slow moving vehicle on the public road to use an amber flashing beacon to warn other road users......Of course not everyone actually uses them - I've passed two JCB loadall's recently with them fitted but not in use...... :-\

In answer to the speed question most of the modern tractors over here are fitted with either 40 Kilometre/Hour or 50 Kilometre/Hour gearboxes...... The 40K box is around equivalent to 30MPH...... :) :)

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Hello Rich......

I'll answer a couple of those questions for you......

In answer to the question on beacons it is a legal requirement for any slow moving vehicle on the public road to use an amber flashing beacon to warn other road users......Of course not everyone actually uses them - I've passed two JCB loadall's recently with them fitted but not in use...... :-\

In answer to the speed question most of the modern tractors over here are fitted with either 40 Kilometre/Hour or 50 Kilometre/Hour gearboxes...... The 40K box is around equivalent to 30MPH...... :) :)

40 kph is 25 mph, 50 kph is 30mph Mart :);)

Beacons only have to be used on vehicles travelling under 25mph, and then it is only a suggestion and not law unless you are on a dual carriageway ;)

The trailer is loaded evenly by a mixture of the skill and speed matching of the driver and the forager driver altering the chute position

Over here the maximum train weight of a tractor and implement is a fraction over 24 tonnes, unfortunately with the size of the silage trailers these days and the tractors used on them it is impossible to stay beneath that. The Renault 836 and 16 ton capacity trailer I used weighed 15 tonnes empty and a shade over 30 tonnes fully laden so I would have been in it up to my neck if I'd been pulled by the authorities ::)

Any tractor/trailer combination that travels faster than 30kph is actually supposed to have air brakes on it now, although mostly its the ones above 40kph that have them fitted, not a very well known fact but one that I was informed of by a traffic cop whos a self confessed expert on agricultural vehicles, he's hated by farmers on his patch..... :D :D

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Not dumbass at all Rich, interesting questions. Comparisons by farming practices always carries a lot of interest on here and other forums.

One answer whihc hasn't been mentions which affects all the questions apart from the silage one is the running costs. In the UK diesel fuel is ?1.10/litre that equates to around $8/gal. Farm diesel is ?0.52/litre which equates to $4/gal so straight away you can see a saving in running tractors using farm diesel. There are laws to stop this however, a farm can run it's own gear on red (farm diesel) as long as it doesn't not exceed a set radius from it's base to carry out the farms own work. Hauling for someone else for example is classed as hire or reward so white (cars, trucks diesel etc) diesel must be used. Coupled to this are the running costs of a lorry, it's initial purchase cost, it's road going costs like tax, operating licence, insurance, MOT (road worthiness), servicing, tyres. .. even possible infringement fines; all exceed the running cost of a tractor. With fixed chassis tractors now pushing in excess of 350hp they can do the work lorries were doing 15yrs ago nearly as quick and for a lot less money. So over here in the UK you either run a haulage business or you runa farm. Even if you run the two together, seldom can they help eachother out.

I hope that put's a different side to the story  :)

As for loading the trailer by the forager I generally start off loading the trailer myself by starting ahead of the forager to fill the rear of the trailer, letting the forager driver slowly catch me up as the trailer fills to the front. When I have got as much in as I can see I then accelerate to put the back of the trailer under the chute, then let the forager catch me up as he tops the trailer up with a neat ridge down the middle, he does this via the moevement of the chute. After a few goes at this you can read what eacother want to do for loading. Things like starting rows where you can see an obstacle like a pylon in the feild etc, require you to think where the forager will want you to go pending his preferential side to load you before you set off down the field.

Bored? I could go on!!

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When we load we stay with the cab steps directly in line with the forager pick up, and the forager driver does the rest.

Thats the easy way, there's no challenge in that :D :D

I always used to put a small heap at the front level to the bottom of the mesh grill in the front of the trailer to keep some weight on the drawbar then pull forward and put a heap the similar size all the way down the trailer starting at the back, once it was level filled to this point I would start at the back once more filling the trailer right up and working all the way down to the front, the only time the chopper driver had to do anything was to fill a hole in the back if I hadn't managed to do it and to keep the end of the chute adjusted to the right place in the trailer

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Although the modern tractor is capable of 25mph [40kph] or 30mph [50kph] on the road the law still does not allow a tractor towing an impliment or a trailer to exceed 20 mph on a public road. Certain exemptions apply for fast tractors, eg JCB Frastrac or similar but probably 95% of agricutural tractor still come under the 20mph rule.

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in our operation the harvester driver never moves the chuts over and back the only piece he moves is the flap at the end to blow into the near or the far side of the trailer. how we load very much depends on the conditions on the day, such as slopes in the fields wet ground etc. i normally load the trailer starting from the front as gav said up as far as around the mesh for better  traction and so i can still see as im filling to the same level as i go back the trailer, once its pretty much all level the whole way back the trailer i move to the front again and fill to the top, drawback is you cant see whats happening once youve filled the top but after a while you get used to it and no when its full also you can see in the mirrors when the grass starts splashing so you know then to move back a bit more, by the  time youve all this done as far as the back whats in the front as compacted a bit with the motion of travelling so the harvester can blow another bit across the top to give a full load. like tris said after a while you get to know exactly what each other thinks, when starting out first there is a code that involves indicators and beeping the horn etc but theres soon no need for that anymore

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40 kph is 25 mph, 50 kph is 30mph Mart :);)

Beacons only have to be used on vehicles travelling under 25mph, and then it is only a suggestion and not law unless you are on a dual carriageway ;)

The trailer is loaded evenly by a mixture of the skill and speed matching of the driver and the forager driver altering the chute position

Over here the maximum train weight of a tractor and implement is a fraction over 24 tonnes, unfortunately with the size of the silage trailers these days and the tractors used on them it is impossible to stay beneath that. The Renault 836 and 16 ton capacity trailer I used weighed 15 tonnes empty and a shade over 30 tonnes fully laden so I would have been in it up to my neck if I'd been pulled by the authorities ::)

Any tractor/trailer combination that travels faster than 30kph is actually supposed to have air brakes on it now, although mostly its the ones above 40kph that have them fitted, not a very well known fact but one that I was informed of by a traffic cop whos a self confessed expert on agricultural vehicles, he's hated by farmers on his patch..... :D :D

I knew I'd get that bit mixed up......Thanks Gav...... ;)

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Bored? I could go on!!

Not at all; tell me more!

Around here, the farm trucks in use are fairly old...mostly gas engines. Gas right now is about $1+ less per gallon than diesel (this of course happened shortly after I bought my diesel truck... :'() I'm not sure how much cheaper off-road diesel is around here. The guy who cuts my hay uses #2 heating oil with some additives in his tractor. He hauls hay on a wagon behind his tractor but he's never more than 2 miles or so I'd say from his farm.

We don't need beacon lights to run down the road and there are still a lot of guys who have tractors with open platforms (no cabs). We don't have license plates for the most part either. We can get a "farm" plate and switch it between all the vehicles we use. In fact, if you operate withing 2 miles of your farm, you don't need to have a farm plate on your vehicle at the time as long as you do have one. For example; if I have a farm plate and it's on my pick-up truck back at the barn, I can still drive around within 2 miles on my tractor. Realistcally, the police never bother the farmers for tractors...some of the old trucks however...well, lets just say some of these are 50's vintage and have been worked hard all their lives... how safe are they?

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Not at all; tell me more!

Around here, the farm trucks in use are fairly old...mostly gas engines. Gas right now is about $1+ less per gallon than diesel (this of course happened shortly after I bought my diesel truck... :'() I'm not sure how much cheaper off-road diesel is around here. The guy who cuts my hay uses #2 heating oil with some additives in his tractor. He hauls hay on a wagon behind his tractor but he's never more than 2 miles or so I'd say from his farm.

We don't need beacon lights to run down the road and there are still a lot of guys who have tractors with open platforms (no cabs). We don't have license plates for the most part either. We can get a "farm" plate and switch it between all the vehicles we use. In fact, if you operate withing 2 miles of your farm, you don't need to have a farm plate on your vehicle at the time as long as you do have one. For example; if I have a farm plate and it's on my pick-up truck back at the barn, I can still drive around within 2 miles on my tractor. Realistcally, the police never bother the farmers for tractors...some of the old trucks however...well, lets just say some of these are 50's vintage and have been worked hard all their lives... how safe are they?

Quite interesting, I thought for a while that most farms in my part of MA used mostly newer machinery, I suppose I am mistakened. My uncle still uses machinery from the 50's on his farm on a regular basis, all the way from Farmall Cubs to 50's Ford Flatbed trucks. It's great that the equipment from that era has lasted as long as it has, it's good to know that other farms in MA still have older machinery earning their keep. If it's not broke, why fix it eh?  :)

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Hello Rich......

I'll answer a couple of those questions for you......

In answer to the question on beacons it is a legal requirement for any slow moving vehicle on the public road to use an amber flashing beacon to warn other road users......Of course not everyone actually uses them - I've passed two JCB loadall's recently with them fitted but not in use...... :-\

In answer to the speed question most of the modern tractors over here are fitted with either 40 Kilometre/Hour or 50 Kilometre/Hour gearboxes...... The 40K box is around equivalent to 30MPH...... :) :)

im almost sure i saw a fendt 936 for sale with 60K  :o :o :o

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Not so in fact.  A tractor will do about 3 to 3.5 miles per gallon of fuel used on haulage.  A truck will do around 8 or 9, which makes tractors very expensive to use for haulage. 

Not many farmers work out their mpg :D

What, even with the commercial fuel being double what the farmer is paying. Cost per mile would be cheaper surely even if the mpg is lower  ???

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What, even with the commercial fuel being double what the farmer is paying. Cost per mile would be cheaper surely even if the pmg is lower  ???

I guess the only downside here is that if the tractor goes over the distance from base restriction on red diesel or is dedicated to haulage then it too has to run on white diesel.......these laws may have just been changed though as thye red diesel usage regulations have just been modified and re written

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we start in the back until its about 3/4 of the back door then move up to the front ,then fill in the middle then the forager stays in the same place and the trailer moves back and four to fill it up to the brim  :) if you get what i mean  :) first half the forager driver moves the spout then the trailer driver moves back and foueth when about 1/2 full to fill it up  ;):)

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another big reason trucks arnt used in the UK is because of the weather & ground conditions , even if the fields are flat the likelyhood of going straight down to the axles is on the high side , unlike the US the UK is a fairly damp place to live .

but it's ok some of us have electrickery installed & we dry out quite quickly :D

the other reason is access to the fields , also unlike the US in the rural area of the UK we have a lot of hills ,trucks would be completely inoperable if they were to get into the field

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Twas a dark, dark morning. The sky was as black as coal. .. twas a wet morning with ground like a sponge. ..

Look out, Moley's coming!!!

The Volvo's headlights, dimly light up the yard in this hour before sunrise. The buildings looming up from moonlit shadows like sleeping dinosaurs. ..

Look out, Moley's coming!!!

Slowly into the yard comes Moley in his lorry loaded with feed. His first delivery of the day, a job too small for the artic... The 8 wheeler was mean't for this one. Creeping forward the lorry sinks, Moley puckers up. .. It's a dark lonely place to be stuck. .. Coming to a spinning halt the driver is forced to give up. Climbing down one less step from the cab, kicking the wheel and effing and jeffing to himself he wait's. ... . At sunrise a figure appears from the slowly opening dawn. Not a happy figure I might add.

With a tractor on the front and a loadall on the back - Moley is pulled from his hole!!

Hurraah!!

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