Mercedes-Benz Arocs operating in lumber haulage at Holz-Krause

Krause has been working in the wood business for almost 50 years. First in felling work, then in timber trading and finally working as a logger, transporting the trees felled in the woods. Initially he used a Unimog and later two MB-Trac vehicles. The wood specialist maintained his bond to vehicles with a star on the radiator grille when he began concentrating his business on the transport of long and short logs in the 1990s.

Considerably more driving comfort thanks to air suspension.

Today Dieter Krause uses two heavy 33 tonners from the first Actros generation for long log operations. And just recently a Mercedes-Benz Arocs was added to the Krause vehicle fleet which also includes two short log tractor combinations. The entrepreneur, who also drives the trucks himself, chose a 3-axle rigid truck with a permissible gross vehicle weight of 26 tonnes for his new long log tractor combination. The 2658 is turned into a 40 tonne long log tractor combination using a Doll self-steering trailer.

"Thanks to the air suspension, I can enjoy driving comfort that the earlier leaf suspension vehicles simply couldn't provide," says Krause enthusiastically about the air suspension in his Arocs 2658 L 6×4. Although the vehicle was designed more for normal precise-weight operations, the payload was also important to Krause.

Mercedes PowerShift proves itself both in the forest and on the road.

The 68 year old entrepreneur sees the ease with which the new long log vehicle is operated as another great advantage: "The Mercedes PowerShift 3 automated transmission is standard in the Arocs – and I very quickly got used to driving and manoeuvring off-road without the clutch pedal. Best of all I don't need all that shifting of gears on the road either." In recent years, shifting gears has been increasing in the long-log haulage industry. "Simply because, today, we increasingly have to cover greater distances from the forest to the saw mills."

As a result Krause calculates 300 kilometres for every day of operation and a total of up to 80,000 kilometres a year for his new vehicle. In addition to ever-increasing haulage distances, the off-road capabilities of the transportation vehicles are also important to Dieter Krause. "Using the 6×4 tandem drive and the inter-axle and inter-wheel differential locks, I can get around anywhere here in the southern part of Lower Saxony," says the haulage professional located in Lamspringe.