SA company gets first big side loader

Betta Trans Managing Director Chris Cunningham (pictured, right) is
understandably proud of his UD 17 420 which hauls a neat side loader built by Brisbane
company Azmeb.

"This is the perfect rig for what we do," said Cunningham when
we met him at South Central Trucks in Adelaide. Among other things, Chris’s
company hauls recycling from a transfer station to a Visy depot on the
outskirts of Adelaide.

"The side loader is so much more effective than the
walking-floor rigs that the other operators are using," he said. "When I went
to Azmeb in Queensland and saw this trailer, I knew I just to have one."

And while there are a few of these side loaders running
around in Queensland, Chris said that this is the first in South Australia.

The 85 cubic metre trailer holds between 10 and 12 tonnes of
recycling material and driver Kevin WIlkie (pictured, left) says it’s so efficient, they can fit
in one or two extra runs per night. "When we go in there to unload, they just
love us," he said. "We come in and tip and we’re out of there in about a
minute," he added.

And Chris Cunningham says the UD GK 17 is just the right
truck for the job. "We got our first UDs about three years ago," he told
trucksales.com.au. "The old stuff kept breaking down and we needed reliability
and the UDs have certainly given us that.

"This GK 17 is perfect for this job, we opted for the 4x2
because we’ve got no need for multi drive as it’s pretty flat work and the GK
17 is more than sufficient."

The GK 17 420 has a GVM of 16.5 tonnes, a GCM of 45 tonnes
and has outputs of 308kW (413hp) at 1800rpm and 1990Nm (1468 lb ft) at 950rpm.