Below is an article published in Milling and Grain Magazine April 2020...

 In the quest for greater bulk transportation efficiency and reduced emissions, road trains and freight trains are increasing in length. This applies in particular to Australia, one of the world leaders in road train bulk transportation, as well as USA, and Canada. South East Asia and South America are likely to follow suit. However, this increased efficiency is creating a problem at grain storage sites… bulk sampling bottlenecks!

In Australia, where a number of states are now allowing quad trailer configurations, some sites have had to increase the size of their weighbridges to accommodate more trailers in one go. But this has moved the bottleneck onto their bulk sampling activities, as the increased road train length means it needs to be moved along part way through sampling so that all the trailers can be tested. What is the solution? To achieve the greater efficiency necessary in Australia, multiple grain storage sites have been working with Tekpro, British manufacturers of the class leading Samplex CS6000 bulk grain sampler, to develop a new version that can sample up to 4 road train trailers without the need to re-position the vehicle during the process. The CS6000 sampler runs on rails and already offers coverage of 14m, 21m and 28m to sample, single, double or triple trailer configurations. To sample quad trailers the maximum coverage has now been extended from 28m to over 35m and the semi-automatic software programme which controls the sampler has also been updated. The quad trailer Samplex CS6000 was officially launched in January 2020. With this addition to the Samplex range, once the quad road train is in position there is now no need for it to be moved again during sampling. This provides significant advantages for both the transport operator and the grain storage site as less truck movement saves time. So a typical site can now sample more road trains every day, as well as reduce emissions and increase safety for personnel. These same advantages also apply to freight train sampling too as the number of times the train may need to be re-positioned will be reduced. So what makes Samplex bulk samplers such an attractive proposition? Samplex first developed their bulk grain sampling machines back in 1987 and the ever popular CS90 has been in continuous production ever-since. The entire range has been carefully refined and developed over the years, to ensure safety, reliability, efficiency and most importantly that samples are truly representative of the entire load. Their key design principles are: 

1) Safety • All sampling can be controlled from the safety of the office by using the Samplex high definition observation system with camera mounted on the machine head or their spear cam, ensuring the sample process can be fully monitored. This means that employees are not exposed to slips and falls or hazardous dust during sampling, thereby meeting the current health and safety requirements. • All Samplex machines are electro-mechanical, they do not use hydraulics, which is important for 2 reasons • No risk of contaminating load with...