haulage

The process of harvesting and marketing timber should be considered as a two-stage process.  Firstly, felling the trees and bringing the timber to forest roadside, and secondly mobilising the transport in order to get the timber to the customer.  It is not unusual for modern harvesters teams to produce in excess of 700 tonnes of timber every week.  This is achieved by two machines working simultaneously: a harvester felling the timber and a forwarder taking the timber to the forest roadside, ready for collection.

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Once the timber is at roadside in the forest Euroforest need to mobilise a considerable haulage resource to move the volume of timber.  A weekly harvester production of 700 tonnes equates to 28 lorry loads of timber which could be traveling long distances on fragile and increasingly congested roads.  Euroforests’ dedicated area managers supervise the whole process from the trees being harvested, the weekly loads being agreed with the sawmill, the haulage being arranged, and the individual load tickets being checked by the manager and entered into our IT harvesting system.

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Euroforest manage this using a broad spectrum of haulage contractors from single owner drivers to our larger haulage partners like AW Jenkinson Haulage.

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This enables Euroforest to provide our landowners and customers with a complete forestry logistical solution to any site, irrespective of size across the UK.

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To enable Euroforest to deliver this service we work with in excess of 500 specialist haulage contractors in addition to our Group hauliers, AW Jenkinson and Sheffield & Co.

Euroforest will always work in accordance with any local haulage restrictions and consult any ‘Timber Transport Agreed Route Maps’, Euroforest and our contractors have a range of vehicles fully equipped to operate on sensitive ‘consultation’ routes, allowing marketing opportunities for woodland owners in even the most remote areas with limited access.

Euroforest can chose from a fleet of modern and bespoke hauliers to deliver a solution for all forests, especially those will poor or weak infrastructure.  To do this we work with many hauliers who have invested heavily in Central Tyre Inflation systems (CTI).  CTI Technology enables tyre pressures to be adjusted from the wagon cab as and when required.  This increases traction and significantly reduces wear and tear on road surfaces, and can minimising road maintenance costs, prolonging the life of the forest road, and provide a potential cost saving to forest owners.

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Euroforest operate vehicle configurations to suit all situations and have access to a range of vehicles from lorries with self-loading capacity which are predominately used for moving timber over shorter distances, to lorries that use a flat trailer with no self-loading capacity.  These lorries are normally used when timber needs to be transported over a longer distance and are loaded by either another timber lorry or a specialist crane unit.  All of the vehicles are either fitted with loading technology in the crane or trailer unit to ensure we comply with regulation load weights.  Euroforest operate a strict overloading policy which ensures load weights are adhered to which minimises the impact on forest and public roads.  Our versatile logistic options allow Euroforest the flexibility to maximise our services in a changeable market, generating the best possible return for the customer and landowner.