I understand what you are saying but what does Linde have to say about the practice. People use forklfits in ways that aren't recommended but when something happens that's when the Philadelphia laywyers have a field day. Maybe you have Warsaw lawyers that aren't so agressive as we have in the States. Most overseas companies that have operations in the US are afraid of & have a hard time understand our legal system especially in P/L matters (most of us in the US do to).

I recall an incidient that happened in Mexico City where a lift truck that our company sold to a dealer in Mexico who resold it to a well known company that was head quaretered in the US. The lift was driven with into an elevator the cables broke & gravity took over - the operator did not survive. Our distributor reported this accident, as we required, our P/L & legal council folks got really up tight and wanted all the info about this now so they could start preparing for an expected law suit. Our dealer in Mexico said don't worry nothing will happen & it never did.

One more cent to the topic.

Just two days ago, while visiting the customer (just courtesy) I witnessed the H35D Linde forklift towing the two empty freight carriages. When I suggested it's not a best application for the forklift, the cutomer answered, that he needs to tow the carriages once a week or two and there's no need to buy a special tractor for this. The truck manages very good.

Somehow - I understand him. Specially, when there's no drivetrain risk for the trucks with hydrostatic transmission.
When overcharged, they simply "switch off" the traction (the relief valve opens).

One thing that leads people to believe that a forklift can be used as a towing vehicle is most manufacturers continue to publish "draw bar pull" (empty & loaded) ratings on their specifications sheets. Guess the spec is used to indicate the "power" at the drive wheels of the lift. Once upon a time we used to demo the power of our forklift that was made in Japan by chaining our lift to the competitors lift via the counterweight pins and would drag the competitors unit any where we wanted. The specs sheets seemed to indicate the comptitors should have won the tug of war battle. And we would give any prospective customer a $100 bill if they could find a a drop of oil underneath our new stock inventory. Never paid out once and that $100 bill started to turn brown.

I believe using the term tow truck or tow tractor to describe forklift is outdated.
Drawbar pull is used to compare similar vehicles in terms of the basic power.
The pin at the back is for getting a broken truck back to the workshop.

Depends on the intended use. In a pinch a lift can pull, but it's not designed to do this all day long. Drivetrain issues, as well as safety issues come into play.

@swoop223

Probably small misunderstanding, sorry for not being clear.
Probably, as usual, I was writing the post and, and speaking to the mobile paralelly ;-)

"Industrial trucks" is a term used in all standards (ISO, BS, DIN, EN) for the entire range of machines we are dealing with.
This term describes everything - from non powered pallet movers, to the huge, 50 tons container handlers.

Sometimes the forklifts are commonly understood as a synonyme for the entire range. That's why I reacted.
Anyway, swoop's post was obviously true and reasonable.

Comparing counterbalanced trucks (this is standardized term for forklifts as we commonly understand it) with tow tractors is definitely not correct, because of what swoop's has written.

From the other hand, I remember, that in 90's the ISO standards included the term "drawbar pull" for forklifts. It meant, that the legislation assumed the towing application for the trucks.
Technically it is possible, all the trucks have towing bolts on the counterwieights.
Economically - well, for me it makes no sense, unless the normal utilisation of the forklift is very low and there is a time reserve. But it's better to optimize the forklift utilization (reduce the forklift fleet for example, and buy some tow tractor instead)

Thanks for your inputs. I think my question was a unclear. What I meant was the integration of these two in a work place as to the kanban ideology because many still uses the forklifts for horizontal movement for their operations.

actually my rather broad statement was specifically made to make a simple distinction between the two

a forklift is designed to do a specific job as the tug also is designed to do a specific job. Certain specifications between the two are so far apart on the scale they can hardly be compared as anything other than what they are.

I'm still wondering where kariat's comment about 'industrial' came into play. We all know either machine would most likely be industrial by design. ;o)

kariat,
Waht I beleive swoop is saying is tahat interial forklift trucks (non tow trators or tugges or what every they be called) are not designed to perform a trailer or rail car (don't laugh that has happened" towing function. - for example, Komatsu, Mitsubishi, Cat & Clark cleary state in their operators manual for their counter balance forklift lift trucks that this is a no, no.

Once upon a time, everyone (lift truck manufacturers) in the US offerd a pintle type or similar tow hook option on their lift (Ford Motor cCompany used to buy them for their assembly plants) but no one does any more. Strongly suspect, lawyers,
P/L lawsuits w/ big pay outs & a revision of our OSHA standards had a lot to do with this. Those little pins recesseed in teh back of a counterweight adn only to be used to secure teh lift on to a delivery truck or wench a lift on to a tilt bed when lift is "dead in the water".

Maybe things are different in other parts of world but our standards are including more for teh EU & I suspect teh EU standards in cldue more of teh North American standards (Canada tends to adopt many of the same stds as the US but I am certain they have some of their own, especially in the province wherever Montreal is located. See at one time - when I had acne, my voice was changing and the Detroit River was only clean on one side, Canada Chrysler used to build a car that was a hybrid - 1/2 Plymouth & 1/2 Dodge. I grew up on the very polluted side of the Detroit River.)

If you don't mind, swoop, it's not exactly as you say.

According to terminology standards, tow tractors are treated as industrial trucks.
Still, Linde, Crown, BT, Jungheinrich etc - all manufacture them
and sell as a trucks, sometimes naming them tugger trains, sometimes - tow tractors.
Their destination is specialistic, but it doesn't change the fact - they are the industrial trucks.

From the other hand, the question from our Malaysian colleague is a bit absurd. It's hard to comment the differences between the two identical machines.

anything specific you are looking for between the two?

a tugger pulls loads
a forklift lifts loads

its fairly evident they have two totally different purposes by design :o)