English - Nooteboom Giants on the Road Magazine English - Nr. 4 - 2017 | Page 45
HISTORY
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Since 1995 Nooteboom has delivered 43 Ballast Trailers to Ainscough
products for road transport, initially tippers for carrying sand, followed
by heavy semi-trailers. This experience with the hydraulic systems of
cranes fitted in seamlessly with the development of tippers and steered
semi-trailers. Around 1960 the demand for heavy low-loaders increased
rapidly and Nooteboom decided to fully concentrate on abnormal
road transport. The crane production was sold in 1963, but the good
relationship with the crane hire companies continued to exist.
THE FIRST BALLAST TRAILER
In 1984 the largest telescopic crane in the fleet of Van Seumeren was a
Liebherr LT1200, an imposing 200-tonne crane. In those days the lifting
capacity increased year by year and when the LT1300 – a 300-tonne
crane – came on the market, Jan van Seumeren Sr. traded in his LT 1200.
With the higher lifting capacity the ballast weight also rose from 40 to
60 tonnes. After extensive consultations between Jan van Seumeren Sr.,
Dick Nooteboom and the RDW (Dutch Road Adm inistration) the first
ballast trailer was developed: the OBL-78 with a load capacity of 68 tonnes.
The 6-axle ballast trailer, pulled by a DAF 8x4 tractor, had important
advantages: an impressive load capacity and a permanent exemption so
the DAF-Nooteboom combination was permitted to drive on the national
roads. However, the biggest advance was that the exemption was granted
for a divisible load. This in contrast to regular abnormal transport, where
exemptions for heavy weights are usually only granted for indivisible loads.
In 1953-1963 Nooteboom already built hydraulic telescopic cranes up
to 33 metres and, in doing so, were way ahead of their time
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THE OBL-78
The first ballast trailer that was specially developed in 1985 for the
transport of counterweights and boom sections of mobile cranes was
given the designation OBL-78. ‘OBL’ is an acronym for Oplegger (semi-
trailer) – Bestuurbaar (steered) – Luchtgeveerd (air suspension). In the
Netherlands the legal maximum loads were 24 tonnes on the fifth wheel
and 9 tonnes per axle. With permanent exemption the legal maximum
axle load increased to 10 tonnes. Due to the application of clever
constructions the dead weight was just 16 tonnes. The result was a load
capacity of 68 tonnes, which in 1985 was a major innovation.
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The OVB-102-06 is the Ballast Trailer that has been sold the most
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