Pictures from July 2013.

____The trips have been all pretty much the same this month and writing about them has taken a back seat with so much else going on. But here are the best of the photographs I have taken.

Lowered 386 Peterbilt Bullrack.

Can't tell what it is, but I want one!

Mustang Convertible.

A scene from the Whiteshell Provincial Park.

A rare 372 Peterbilt needing some running repairs.

Fridge-pulling Marmon.

A Mercury as good as new.

1996 Ford Bronco.

Cool number plate, eh?

2014 Shelby Cobra Super Snake.

White Thunderbirds x 3.

Worlds Longest Bobtail?

Bobtail 2064 kilometres from Niverville to Randolph in Ohio. Pick-up tipping trailer from the East Manufacturing Company and head home without loading it. Total Distance: 4128 kilometres in four days. Nights-Out at Portage, Randolph and Portage again.

My longest European bobtail; 850 kilometres from Waidhaus, Germany to Nadlac in Romania.
1986 when I went finish a job that had been abandoned on the way to Izmit in Turkey.

Custom chrome grill on International cabover with Farmall badges.

 

Good looking custom Peterbilt with all the usual add-ons and ghost flames.

Underwear change time for this driver stuck on the runaway truck ramp.

Tri-axle rear-end dump trailer without wind-up legs could mean that this Alberta-bound tipper is going to be five-axle trailer behind a tri-drive dump truck.

 

Last Trip Of #31 : First Trip Of # 26.

 

 

 

____Last trip of Flying Eagle #31: Peat-moss down to San Antonio, Texas, with nights-out at Fargo, Newton and just south of Austin. A hot reload of salsa for the Costco RDC at Airdrie, Alberta, with overnight halts at Sweetwater, Loveland and on the doorstep at Airdrie. Then a short hop up to Crossfield for a trailer full of insulation, destined for Brandon, Manitoba. a night at Moose Jaw's Flying'J before leaving the trailer on site and bobtailing back to Niverville.

 

____ Overall Distance: 7430 km.

 

 

 

____First trip of Flying Eagle #26: After having the strenuous two-hour work-out; carrying all my stuff out of one truck and into another, I set off for Morrow in Georgia. First night at Albert Lea, second at Mount Vernon and third; parked on the unloading bay with the used truck parts. Unloaded early morning and only 140 kilometres to the reload at Heflin, just across the state-line in Alabama. Back to Mount Vernon with the coils of aluminium wire before another night-out at Hasty sees me back in the yard at 2 o'clock on Saturday afternoon.

 

____Overall distance: 5353 km.

 

Coal train across Oklahoma.

 

 

Cooper's BBQ and Grill. Texas [of course]

 

 

80 mph speed limit for trucks on Interstate 10, west of San Antonio, Texas.
What brand of trailer tyre will not blow-out at 80mph when fully loaded?

 

 

Oil Train: Ethanol on the move.

 

 

For sale to the public at Lamar, Colorado.: Oshkosh Ex-Army tank-haulers.

 

 

Out-dragged at the lights by a smoking Kenworth cabover.

 

Train building with wind turbine blades.

 

 

Peterbilt cabover: truck and pup.

 

____The change-over: So after 25 months and 540,000 kilometres; Flying Eagle #31 and the rest of the 2011 Peterbilt 386 trucks with the DEF systems have been sent back to the dealer. Fleet numbers 28 to 32 inclusive were deemed to be too unreliable; with their endless problems concerning the new fangled emission controls. #31 never gave me any trouble; only a faulty injector ever stopped the truck from doing its work on time. But it was part of the same order as the others and all have gone. My new truck is #26, about eight months older, 40,000 more kilometres on the clock but with no requirement for the DEF injection system. Other differences: an 18 speed transmission instead of 13, 485 bhp instead of 450 and just the single bunk in the sleeper instead of #31's double. Externally identical, except for the chrome front bumper and chrome visor.



Conover, North Carolina.

____ A six day trip down to the company town of Alcoa in Tennessee; bales of crushed aluminium beverage cans on the way down with furniture from North Carolina as the reload. First night at Sauk Centre after a late afternoon start. Saturday night at Bloomington before parking at the factory; ready for an early Monday morning tip. Three hundred empty kilometres to Conover, all afternoon on the loading bay before getting up into Kentucky for a night at the Corbin Pilot Truckstop. Then it was two full days of driving back to the yard; just a ten hour break at the Petro, Portage.

____Overall Distance 5420 km.

Hard working cabover at Black River Falls, Wisconsin.

Matt charcoal grey and chrome Kenworth.

Pole truck; too long to get in the picture.

Flying Eagle trailer on the back of the unit that will tip it up so the load slides out the rear doors.

Spanners in the Works.

____Day 1: Spanner number one goes into the peat-moss packing machinery and the plant grinds to a halt with no dirt ready for Thursday's delivery to Madisonville. At four o'clock in the afternoon the office comes up with plan "B." Bobtail down to Illinois and pick-up a new trailer, load it and bring it back to the yard. To make a change from Pembina and the Interstate 29; I go into Minnesota at Warroad and reach Virginia, dodging the endless road-crossing of Whitetail deer.

White Freightliner Cabover at Superior, Wi.

____Day 2: Spanner number two is at Cameron, Wisconsin, on US Highway 53. Banging and clattering from under the hood, together with plumes of white smoke have me anchoring-up on the shoulder. A tow truck takes me and #31 to the local Cummins engine service shop; where late in the evening, the problem is diagnosed as a faulty injector. I head down to the Black Bear Motel for the night, a dingy place with 20 watt light bulbs and brown décor.

Peterbilt towed in by a Freightliner; so degrading.

____Day 3: Exactly two years since #31 came on the road and this is the first  disabling breakdown in over 530,000 kilometres. With the towing fee, parts and labour; $1600 has to be paid before I am released into the afternoon sunshine. Enough time to get  to Arcola, Illinois, ready for the early morning collection of the Great Dane trailer.

Wisconsin workshop.

____Day 4: Spanner number three is the trailer; no ordinary dry-freight box-van but a very heavy tri-axle fridge with a big tail-lift and numerous extra equipment boxes. The whole tractor-trailer rig weighs in at over 44,000 lbs and makes the collection of 45,000lbs of cargo impossible. In Canada it would be legal to load six-axles up to a maximum of 100,000 lbs; but in the US, the total gross weight must be under 80,000 lbs. The office tries in vain to find an alternative load; it's the Friday before the Memorial Day long week-end and most places are finishing early. I sit around at the Pilot Truckstop at Tuscola until 4 o'clock in the afternoon before I get orders to return, empty to Niverville.

McDonalds new heavyweight addition.

____Day 5: From Portage, Wisconsin, it is a full days drive back home. Easy enough with an empty trailer; but the truck is still not running right. Un-burnt diesel fuel flooded into the exhaust system when the high-pressure injector broke. The electronic sensors on the emission regeneration equipment don't know what has hit them. Orange and red dash-board warning lights come on in increasing frequency; only to disappear when I pull over to investigate. Eventually the engine decides to let me start a manual regeneration of the particulate filter. Something which creates such a high temperature that all the carbon deposits in the ceramic filter are turned to vapour. Thankfully this one and a half hour procedure also rids the exhaust system of the unburned diesel. From then on it is plain sailing back to Canada.

____Overall Distance: 3155km.

Ellivnosidam, Saxet.

____Another trip to Madisonville completed; peat-moss safely delivered with nights-out at York and Richland on the way down. Reloaded out of Houston with powder for Edmonton; to be trans-shipped at Weyburn in Saskatchewan. A night at the Winstar Casino, Thackerville, then two full days driving to get back into Canada for a Sunday morning delivery. US Highway 281 makes a nice change from Interstate 29; all the fields being seeded in North and South Dakota. Saturday night at the Main Track Lounge in Weyburn. Back in yard by 2 o'clock after running Highway 2 in the rain back through Manitoba.

B-Seris Mack hard at work.

 

 

Fully-fendered Bull-rack.

 

 

Flooded ditches of Saskatchewan.

 

 

Six Door Chevy ideal for the school run.

 

 

Cab-over Pete with a reefer on.

 

 

Cab-over K-whooper with shed.

 

 

Marmon : 4 axles and a stand-up sleeper.

 

 

We play in the dirt and it drops out our bottom.

 

 

A locomotive from the Soo Line.

 

 

 

 

 

Again: Madisonville, Texas.

_____Another trip to Madisonville with peat-moss makes it difficult to write an original and inspiring blog-post. The reload was out of Houston; so it was an extra 300 kilometres but no real exitement or photo opportunity. Next week is also planned as a trip to Madisonville; so don't expect to much.

____Overall Distance: 4994 km.

Madisonville.

Five Days - 4628 km - Deliver Madisonville, Tx - Reload Mesquite, Tx.
Nights-out at York, Ne.- Richland, Tx.- Salina, Ks.- Grand Forks, ND.

Side-dump double running two-lane highway in South Dakota.

Red River flooding is so far not as bad as previous years.

Cormorant colony in dead trees at a lakeside.

362 Peterbilt Cabover

Back on the land for Dakotan farmers