Whatever happened to landing gear with rollers?

We have some old tank pup trailers that we use for fuel storage in the woods. They're from the mid 60s and belonged to PIE.
When the air bleeds off they have no brakes. In our case that's an advantage because they can be moved with a Cat or a skidder if a truck isn't available. We've moved them empty with a pickup.
Each trailer has a set of four wheel chocks and the rule is that they never, ever, get unhooked without the chocks in place.

 

And rarely when a trailer sat for any time,did it hold air. As the air leaked off,so did the brakes holding the trailer. Hence,chasing it around,trying to hook up.
I ordered and bought a new Trail King RGN in 1993,forgot to check off the box for maxi brakes,it came through without them.
I call them maxi's,maxibrakes,others refer to them as spring brakes,same thing. When I drove my first semi in the 60's,there were still tractors that didn't have maxi's,usually a mechanical hand operated band brake on the transmission for parking. Worked ok till they got oily.

 

Correct,there were trailers that were exempt.

 

I could see where this could be a nightmare in some cases. Now I'm understanding the chasing comment.

 

I think for the most part the whole reason for using service air for "park" brakes (for a lack of better term) was in the event of a breakaway scenario. I seem to remember that the brakes had to hold a loaded trailer a minimum of 15 minutes in the event of a breakaway situation. They never intended them to be a long term means of securing the trailer from moving, only to get it stopped if it came loose from the truck.

 

Nobody remember the shut off valves at the back of the cab?

 

My 68 R model had the manual e'brake on the drive line behind the trans and a single flip style 'trailer protection valve to set the spring brakes on the Rodgers low bed.

The back up 1947 White gas job had no trailer protection valve. I would park it [empty] in gear and jump out and pop the emergency line off the goose-neck to trailer connections and the spring brakes would set....

By 1972 there were two buttons on the rear of the R600 cab, pull on the tractor valve and the trailer would pop out a few sec later...that was Chem Leaman;s first year of Imron paint and a guy who had to switch silo's found the ASF 5th wheels didn't lock right with the thick layer of the new paint as the trailer slid off the 5th wheel when the tractor stopped rolling back...the delay was enough to put the part loaded cement trailer on it's nose

 

Dogging trailers around the chemical factory I used to work at, a lot of the drum and keg trailers didn't have spring brakes. It wasn't too bad hooking to them in summer but winter and ice were an absolute joy.

 

Moving the trailer around the lot without a tractor available: the dolly wheels now make sense. For short-distance moving like the rollers on a refrigerator at home. Did those dolly wheels on the bottoms of landing legs (where the flat plates are nowadays) swivel like office chair casters or could the trailer just be rolled in a straight line? Many small trailers with tongues hooked up to tow balls have a bottom roller that swivels on the folding landing gear leg: the light (Class 4) trailer industry sometimes call this a "trailer jack". That swivel caster is very handy for lining up the tongue with the tow ball on the trailer-pulling vehicle.

 

No, they just rolled straight, and lots of old ones would barely roll. Very neglected maintenance part of those old trailers. If you dropped one of these old trailers, you usually put wood under the wheels,to keep them from sinking.