My bigger tractors have air brakes, because they came from Europe (even though they are American brands) but trying to get a large square baler over here with air brakes is difficult. They are finally becoming available, but VERY expensive when new.
My mate has ordered a brand new selfloading silage wagon for season 2024. He ordered it with combi boosters so he can pull it with both tractors as only one has air brakes.
Remcilinder dual T24 EPL25/60 stang Ø 25mm L=185mm
www.indi.nl
Often, new farm trailers with air brakes have ABS, EBS stability aid, and off course load dependent brake force, which means big rig like stopping power without smoking your tires when driving unloaded. Thats why we converted those electric brake horse trailer 5th wheels to European S-cam drum brakes with automatic slack adjusters (like a ratchet wrench, but with limited free return stroke) and air brakes with all the comfort of ALB, ABS, EBS which perform in every condition, loaded or unloaded, on tarmac or on ice, regardless of brake wear. As long as there is some brake lining left, it will brake reliably.
(To be honest, i cant understand why somebody who has driven both and is in their right mind, can even compare electric brakes with air brakes with ALB, ABS, EBS air brakes like we have standard here...? Back in 2007 we adopted Knorr EBS as standard on our light 5th wheel trailers behind Mercedes Sprinter and the such, as Knorr was the only supplier with a 12V ABS/ESP computer intended for the North American market because European big rigs are standard 24V. So you guys must know what i'm talking about, right ?)
The Netherlands is like 1/16th the size of the USA, but ranks 2nd in the world to the US for Ag production. Thats really amazing. They know their stuff and need to be acknowledged for their farming skills. It’s a damn shame what their government is doing to their farmers.
We rank no 2 in exports, not in produce. Thats because we are in one climatic zone only, unlike the US, Germany or France which can have vineries in the south and grain plains up north. We export a lot of flowers and dairy like cheese, and import anything that needs more sun, from countries like spain. We are kind of a one trick pony, if you take California as a country, you will see it exporting a lot of grapes and wine, yet importing a lot of grain and dairy, i guess...?
Furthermore, a lot of grain and coffee and cocoa from North and South America shipped into Rotterdam sea port (the 2nd largest port in the world) gets pre processed in Holland and put through towards the rest of Europe through the Meuse (Belgium, France) and Rhine (Germany, Austria) rivers. Once preprocessed it is counted as export instead of throughput...
