Published by Farmers Guardian, November 2004.

CAMBRIDGESHIRE farmer John Lloyd is a firm believer that you get what you pay for. To some, it might appear that equipment he has bought for his 67-acre Causeway Farm, near Ely, is a bit over-specified, but John is comfortable with the fact that a long and trouble-free working life will ensure that every bit of kit is good value for money.

A case in point is the new haulage combination he bought this year to take care of the 400 tonnes of sugar beet and 200 tonnes of wheat he grows each year. After 16 years operating Mercedes Benz Unimogs and German-built Muller trailers, he has changed to a JCB Fastrac 2135 and a German-built Krampe hook-lift trailer with a pair of 22 cubic metre, 16-tonne capacity bodies.

The old trailers gave excellent service over their relatively long working life: "They never needed repair or I only ever picked up two punctures out on the road," John says. And he has already sold one of the pair he had to recoup part of his original investment.

No less is expected of the new Krampe outfit: "It will last me until I no longer want to drive a tractor," he says. "It was expensive to buy, but I know I'll get that back in use." The 135hp tractor features a 50kph gearbox, ABS braking and an air supply for the trailer's air brakes and suspension. It isn't light, weighing in at 6.5 tonnes, and with 8 tonnes of trailer behind it, the gross train weight of a little over 14 tonnes leaves a legal payload of 10 tonnes on UK roads.

"It doesn't seem right that I could tow the trailer behind a little grey Fergie with a heavier payload when the current combination has the added safety of ABS disc brakes on the tractor," John says. "But the current regulations restrict vehicles running on red diesel to a gross weight of 24 tonnes."

John believes, however, that the legislation may soon be changed to allow a heavier gross weight and the days of running at two-thirds of capacity could soon be over. Mr Lloyd first saw Krampe's agricultural trailers at last year's LAMMA show and felt they were ideally suited to his requirements. "I run the farm on my own and that coupled to the fact there is no covered storage here made the drop bodies an ideal solution," he says.

"The bodies can be dropped in the field during the wheat harvest for the contractor to fill and I can haul them back to the farm to tip the grain onto a concrete apron for temporary storage." The air suspension also made the trailers an attractive proposition: "Some of the roads around here are awful and you see them littered with lorry springs at this time of year," John says.

"The air suspension does a much better job of absorbing all the shocks." The trailer was ordered and arrived in time to be shown at this year's Cereals Event before being delivered to Ely. "It's a tough, well-made bit of kit," John says.

"The chassis has been built to lift a body loaded with 16 tonnes onto itself, so it needs to be strong. I also specified a reinforced body floor to further extend the trailer's life." And to deter anyone who might take a liking to the drop bodies from taking them, John adds that he has bought the German standard which is not compatible with English standard chassis.

The trailer's main task is hauling the wheat to Fengrain, at March, a 38-mile round trip, and for taking the sugar beet to British Sugar's Wissington factory, which is 32 miles there and back.

That guarantees about 60 working trips for the tractor and trailer each year which isn't a particularly high workload for the investment involved. But John is undeterred: "People say I've got some of the queerest equipment they've seen, but as far as I'm concerned I only have what I need to do the job myself," he says.

"I enjoy farming, although by rights I probably shouldn't be doing it at all. And I'm lucky that I own my land and that I'm holding my own as far as profitability is concerned. "Wheat at £56/tonne certainly isn't making the job any easier, though, and I certainly wouldn't want to be renting land or employing farm workers."

JOHN Lloyd's Krampe trailer has two modes of action and can be tipped like a conventional trailer as well dropping the body off completely. John estimates he can swap the trailer bodies in about eight minutes.

The body operations are all hydraulically controlled via three double acting spool valves: one controls a lock which keeps the body in place; the second controls the fore and aft movement of the body; while the third controls the rams that either tip or drop the trailer body.

An automatic sensor drops the air suspension to its lowest level whenever the trailer is tipped or a body is dropped for maximum stability during the operation. And John has also found another benefit of the air suspension system in that he can use the system's pressure gauge to accurately judge the trailer payload to keep within the law.

The drop bodies have large rollers at the back to make the demounting process easier on solid ground, while skids can also be specified for field use.