Your 55 ton specs

Yes, trailers have and will break when loaded under the weight rating. Big trailers are giant springs, they are constantly flexing. Anything that flexes only has a certain amount of "cycles" before it stresses and breaks. Take any piece of steel and flex it repeatedly, it will eventually break, it's not if, it's when.
It's a very bad day when you break a trailer with a load on. That's why I shut down my trailer last year and did a rebuild on it. I had the coffin, booster, and neck structures rebuilt. They were full of stress cracks, and this trailer does not get abused.

 

Make sure you know what you're buying. Doesn't matter new or used.
No offense, but most American trailer manufacturers do not use a very good quality of steel.
I'd rather have a used trailer built with T100 and/or T130 steel any day of the week over a new railed built of inferior quality materials.
Canadian trailer manufacturers have to factor cold temperature into the structural integrity, which is why most use these higher tensile grades of steel that don't get as brittle in the extreme cold in winter.

 

If your gonna look at a Canadian Rgn manufacturer get a temisko trailer. Heavy but ridiculously well built. Makes a talbert or trailking look cheap

 

They're just flimsy, I pulled a 45 ton modular bogie for a few years we really didn't overload them abd never side loaded or really did anything abusive. They tweaked easy, if you put a decent load on it it was very squirrelly compared to the 45 ton Talbent I came out of. it seemed like their quality control was leaving a little to be desired. That company bought a new 55 ton 3 years ago and its already been in the shop getting the rear section where the 4th axle pins on welded as well as some other stress cracks, my 10 year old Talbert is still going strong and it has had many more heavy loads on it. They might be fine for over the road, they are light and cheap, that company is running tandem T800's with 45 ton Etnyres with a tare weight of 40,000 and a max gross in Ohio of 127,600 so they can be cost effective but in my world I would destroy them.

 

We certainly don't use our 50 ton, 1996 Aspen every day, and I bought it used so have no knowledge of the kind of use it had in the past other than looking at the condition, but we have hauled 85 to 90k a number of times off highway and it has held up well. Hence I would agree with Heavy Hammer that Canadian trailers are well made. Had to reseal hydraulic rams, but other than maintenance have done nothing else. The wiring was very well done too as we have had zero issues with it.

 

What does the neck on your Aspen look like? When I worked for All they had some Aspens in Pittsburgh and those guys swore by them this is what those looked like, doesn't seem like the make that style anymore I wouldn't mind trying one.

 

It looks just like that one JD.

 

I never pulled one but they swore by them, they seemed like nice trailers. Do you like yours? Aspens website doesn't list them as an option but that doesn't mean they don't make them. If we ever get serous about buying one I'll dig a little deeper.

 

I like the looks of some of the newer necks that various manufacturers make that are arched to allow more clearance to the frame, but we have not had any problems and can raise it quite high if necessary.