WAYNE, Neb. — Great Dane’s Wayne, Nebraska, manufacturing facility revealed the production of its 125,000th refrigerated trailer during a commemorative celebration held at the plant.

Attendees of the celebration included Wayne’s Mayor Cale Geise, Schuster Company President Steve Schuster and Jim Hawk Truck Trailers President Jim Hawk III.

Great Dane’s President Dean Engelage, along with representatives from the Wayne facility and the company’s corporate offices in Chicago, Illinois, and Savannah, Georgia, were also in attendance.

The 125,000th trailer to come off the line at the Wayne plant was a new Everest Single-Temp reefer designed exclusively for Schuster Company of Le Mars, Iowa, a customer of Great Dane’s since 1988.

“We’re extremely proud to reach this historic milestone here in Wayne,” said Lee Byers, plant manager. “It’s a clear testament to the high quality of the product we produce and to the spirit of the hundreds of hard-working craftsmen who build these best-in-class trailers for our valued customers.”

The Wayne manufacturing facility produces Great Dane’s premier Everest Single-Temp refrigerated trailers, which are primarily used for long-haul truckload operations.

This 257,000-square-foot, 83-acre facility began operations in 1986 with two production lines and has since undergone five building additions.

Today, the Wayne plant employs nearly 700 people and builds 5,000 trailers per year for some of the nation’s largest fleets, including Schuster, Walmart, IWX, JFI, Marten Transport, Decker, Freymiller, Van Wyk, Interide, California Overland, Associated Wholesale Grocers, Sargento and more.

For more information. Visit Great Dane online at www.greatdane.com.

WASHINGTON — The Americans for Modern Transportation Coalition is continuing its effort to allow twin 33-foot trailers on the nation’s highways.

The standard for tandems currently is twin 28-foot trailers.

In a letter to House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., and Ranking Member Sam Graves, D-Mo., the coalition identified longer trailers as a way policy makers can leverage technologies and efficiencies developed by the private sector to create “the infrastructure system of the future.”

In the letter, coalition Executive Director Randy Mullett said years of underinvestment and a lack of attention to the nation’s infrastructure has left American families in harm’s way, spurred economic inefficiencies, and put undue stress on the environment.

“At no cost to taxpayers, Congress can act to modernize trucking equipment and increase the national twin trailer standard from 28 feet to 33 feet,” Mullett said.

He listed what he called “immediate and meaningful improvements” such as:

• Reduced congestion because gains from twin 33-foot trailers would mean fewer trucks on the road and 53.2 million hours saved due to less congestion
• Improved safety because twin 33s “perform better than many other truck configurations on four critical safety measures, including stability and rollover.” Research shows that the adoption of twin 33-foot trailers would result in 4,500 fewer truck accidents annually, Mullett maintains.
• Economic benefits because 33-foot trailers can move the same amount of freight with 18 percent fewer truck trips, allowing consumers and businesses to realize $2.6 billion annually in lower shipping costs and quicker delivery times
• Longer life cycles for roads and bridges because use of the longer trailers would result in 3.1 billion fewer truck miles traveled each year, and
• Environmental gains because these trailers would equate to 255 million fewer gallons of fuel and 2.9 million fewer tons of CO2 emissions.

“The private sector continues to make investments in our workforce, new technologies, and existing equipment to ensure that our fleets are as efficient, sustainable, and safe as possible,” Mullett wrote.

“We need the same forward-looking effort from our partners in federal, state and local governments so that all Americans have access to the full promise enabled by a modern transportation system. We look forward to working with the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to seize this opportunity to usher the country into a new era of safety

and infrastructure investment.”

Among the members of the coalition are FedEx and UPS, two companies that have vigorously fought to get Congressional approval of the longer trailers.

COLUMBUS, Ind. — ACT’s preliminary estimate for January 2019 net trailer orders is 25,800 units.

Final volume will be available later this month.

ACT said its methodology allows it to generate a preliminary estimate of the market that should be within +/- 3 percent of the final order tally.

“While the industry had the weakest January order volume since 2016, it was still sufficient enough to generate very minor orderboard growth,” said Frank Maly, ACT’s Director of CV transportation analysis and research. “January net orders were off 7 percent versus December and 35 percent down year-over-year. Slower dry van and reefer trailer volume contributed to the declines. Indications are lower orders were not the result of weak fleet demand, as some OEMs report unwillingness to accept additional orders that would extend orderboards that, according to some reports, already fill available 2019 build slots.”

Maly also noted that the slight gain in the orderboard means that January was the third consecutive month that the industry posted an all-time record backlog, although the pace of improvement is beginning to wane.

“With backlogs extending through the year for dry vans and reefers, OEMs would likely need to quickly open 2020 orderbooks to allow for further backlog growth in the near-term,” he said. “Also, although the industry reported the highest monthly cancellations since August 2016, the rate of cancellations versus the orderboard remains well within acceptable limits.”

ACT Research is a leading publisher of commercial vehicle truck, trailer, and bus industry data, market analysis and forecasting services for the North American and China markets. ACT’s analytical services are used by all major North American truck and trailer manufacturers and their suppliers, as well as banking and investment companies.

More information can be found at www.actresearch.net.