Curtainsider & Tautliner Hire in Brisbane

A tautliner, also called a curtainsider, is a trailer with tensioned curtain sides instead of solid walls. The curtains slide open for quick forklift loading from either side and pull closed to keep weather off the freight. Road Linx Transport hires tautliners across Brisbane and South East Queensland, supplied with a driver, for palletised freight that needs both fast access and protection.

For most business stock it's the best of both worlds. You load it like a flatbed and it protects the freight like a ute.

Why the curtain side is such a good design

A solid-sided ute only opens at the back, so a forklift has to reach in pallet by pallet. That's slow, and it's awkward for anything in the middle of the deck. A tautliner opens the entire side.

Faster loading and unloading

With the curtain drawn back, a forklift can place or pull any pallet directly from the side. That cuts loading time sharply, which matters when a trailer is sitting on your dock or you're paying for the driver's time. Quicker turnarounds are one of the main reasons businesses choose tautliners.

Weather protection as standard

Once the curtains are closed and tensioned, the freight is shielded from rain, wind and road grime for the trip. For cartons, packaging and anything that shouldn't get wet, that protection is essential.

What travels well on a tautliner

• Palletised stock of almost any kind
• Cartons, packaged goods and shrink-wrapped loads
• Building products and trade supplies that need to stay dry
• General freight where speed of loading matters
• Mixed loads that a forklift needs to reach across the deck

If your freight is oversize, needs craning from above, or is too tall for the curtains, a flatbed or drop-deck is the better tool, and we run those too.

Load-rated curtains and restraint

Modern tautliner curtains do more than keep the weather out. On load-rated trailers the curtains and internal restraint form part of the load-restraint system, rated to hold the freight in place. Our drivers restrain to that rating, so your load is secure and the job stays inside Chain of Responsibility obligations.

This is worth knowing, because a load-rated curtainsider can often be turned around faster than a flat-top that needs strapping and gates on every load.

Hire with a driver

Our tautliner hire comes with one of our licensed drivers, so you get the trailer and the operator together. There's no arranging a separate driver, no compliance to manage on your side, and no maintenance to worry about. Use it for a single run, through a seasonal peak, or as an ongoing part of your operation.

Booking a tautliner

• Tell us the pallet count, the weight and where the freight is going.
• We confirm the tautliner size, 22 or 24-pallet, and the hire terms.
• The trailer arrives with a driver, loads from the side and closes up.
• We run the freight weather-protected and hand over a POD on request.

How a load stays put behind the curtains

A common question is whether curtain sides really hold a load in. On a load-rated tautliner, they're part of a system. The curtains are rated, and behind them the trailer uses internal straps, gates and load bars to lock the freight against movement.

Our drivers restrain to that rating rather than assuming the curtains alone will do it. So a tautliner gives you the fast side access of an open trailer with genuine, certified restraint once it's closed up. That combination of speed and security is exactly why palletised freight tends to travel this way.

We hire tautliners right across Brisbane, the Port of Brisbane and out through South East Queensland, so whether the freight is a metro run or heading down the corridor, the trailer and driver arrive ready to load and go.