Having had so much success with the plastic curtain strip thingies ([tup] Thanks [^]) I’m now looking at, first, the big (usually black) half sausages at top and sides of doors that trucks back up against.
Mainly:-
when did these first appear please?
Am I right in recalling that they were preceded by screens of some kind?
Were some of the screens the same sort of plastic as the door curatin strips?
Didn’t some doors start with a big/thick and fairly hard rubber D shaped bumper strip across the bottom?
Absolutely anything would be useful. [^]
One thing that I’m thinking is that if I model a truck pushed back against a door with its back end hidden inside some sort of protection… I could then cut off the back end of the truck with the doors and take them apart to use for a truck with it’s doors open… that truck just having had the doors taken out and the last bit of the sides at the back not damaged. (I think that makes some sense [%-)]).
Before a trailer is backed into a loading dock the trucker opens the doors and fastens them back along the sides of the trailer. The doors thusly, are visible while the trailer is being loaded/unloaded.
Good point… but when the doors are opened right round and flat against the truck sides all that can be seen of them is the inside of the door - which is usually flat and smooth. Maybe some edge detail shows and the door would want to be a little clear of the sides due to the locking bars which would be out of sight, I think that this can be modelled.
The other set of doors could be carefully taken out of the surrounding material and used to represent doors that are open but not swung right round… I think…
Dave, from what I remember the door insulators started probably late 70’s, not exactly sure. Also remember some trailers have the overhead- track style doors, so there’s nothing but sides showing while it’s in doorway. Considering those insulators are roughly 15 to 18 inches wide, the swing doors will be locked on the sides. Most swing doors have plywood on the inside, so you’ll see more wood the steel on open doors. Most loading docks have an adjustable ramp to fit various trailer heights, with heavy rubber bumpers on each side to cushion over-zealous truck drivers.Plastic strip curtains are usually hung behind the tracks of where the overhead door opens. Both the curtains and insulators are to keep extreme weather outside. I hope this helps, mh.
While adding details to your dock area don’t forget the safety light and trailer lock.If you have a open bay door then add a safety chain across the door.
I seem to remember the door insulators being used on the first building I worked in out of High School, that was in 1970. The building was fairly new, so figure mid to late 60’s for construction. The positioning of the bottom bumper (hard D-shaped rubber you mention) would depend on if the loading dock had an adjustable dock board or leveler. This is an insert in the concrete floor of the loading dock, usually made of diamond tred steel, and is designed to adjust to compensate for variation in truck bed height, so you can run fork lifts or pallet jacks directly from the dock to the truck bed and back.
The one we have where I work is permanently mounted in the floor of the loading dock, is the full width of the truck bed, and extends about 6 or 8 feet into the dock area. It’s adjustable above or below the dock height (48 inches is standard) by almost a foot each way. It has a short flap that will come out to bridge the slot between the dock edge and the truck bed.
PS: The dock bumpers are mounted on either side of the dock board in an inverted “L” configuration, the vertical leg of the “L” being closest to the dock leveler opening.
A couple of you have also pre-empted my next question… which is about the adjustable tail ramps. About when would they have first appeared? Were they preceded by push along ramps with a couple of wheels under them?
Thanks [[:P]
Brakie… Would you elaborate on your post please? … I think I know what you mean but…
Adjustable loading dock platforms have been around since the sixties. Many shops just used a flat steel or diamond plate bridge to get into trucks. Our old shop had one with handles on each side, it was a real pain in the back to move.I think Brakie may be talking about wheel chocks to hold trailers when loading/unloading. Also some bigger place have a traffic style light, red/green, to let truckers know lift is off truck. mh
The dock safety light has 2 colors…Red tells the trucker that his trailer is locked in the dock lock and the trailer is being loaded/unloaded…This(supposedly) ensures the trucker won’t pull away from the dock.
The green light tells the trucker his trailer has been unlocked and he is free to pull away from the dock.
As far as wheel chocks they are to be place AFTER the trailer is locked to the dock…The chocks are used for trailers that has been spotted at the dock by the yard tractor…I don’t recall seeing the wheels chocked on a trailer that was connected to the tractor…At least I didn’t do when I was a forklift operator since it wasn’t a safety requirement.
Dave, prior to the expandable curtains being used to span the gap between an interior loading dock and a truck, most such receiving areas had a simple pitched canopy typically made of corragated steel, or even corragated plastic, above the dock doors and generally around 4 to 6 feet deep.
While industries built over the past quarter century or somewhat more generally are equipped with the modern curtains, canopies were what I typically saw up through at least 1970 on older industrial buildings and they likely existed long after that on such previously existing construction. Prior to the 1950’s and particularly on wooden structures, many canopies would be fashioned totally of wood, often with a rolled roof paper tops.
This makes me wonder whether old style docks were ever converted by extending a modern tin box structure out onto the dock (using something like one of the Riko blue buildings added on)… or - maybe because of trucks getting longer - the old dock got cut back to the original building face and new doors were put on?
Brakie - thanks [:P] - I take it that an ICC bar is a run-under protection bar? Truck drivers never pull away before they should do they? [:-,].
Doing gate security it’s always fun to spot when a driver has pulled the wrong semi. [(-D]
I would guess that the semis are chocked when they’ve been shunted by a yard tractor because there is no air in the brake system. If they have a road tractor on the front it can/should make air and have its own handbrake on.
On the ordinary street by a signalbox I worked a driver “popped in” to a shop for cigs etc… his truck “popped off” on its own… through several cars, a number of lamposts, a used car sales lot, a telegraph pole (hit more cars) a pub car park and the toilet block