Heavy Haul.

A 2000 kilometre trip into Ontario.

Flying Eagle #38 with B-train loaded with two steer-able 4 axle bogies.

Sunday morning loading of a 128 foot long, 63 tonne concrete bridge beam.

Four Flying Eagles #38 #40 #41 #42, all with the same load.

Ten axles needed for a gross weight of 86 Tonnes.

Rear bogie is steered by manual controls in tight situations.

Converting to automatic steering on the outskirts of Winnipeg, after early morning police escort through the town when the rear bogie was manned.

Overnight parking at Nipigon, Ontario, where I was third of the four trucks to arrive.

Always read the permit. Overall length converts to 144 feet. Nineteen foot longer than a turnpike double.

One US gallon = 3.8 litres, so that's 1 mile to the litre.

Highway 11 through the scenic Palisades of the Canadian Shield.

Patrick in #42, heading back for another beam after being first to unload.

The twisting and turning road alongside Lake Helen.

Bryn, second to unload, topped-up with his rear bogie and about to head home after chaining it down as I wait to be called down.

The lift-off.

Christer, truck number four, parked on the old road bridge as the two cranes lift his beam over to make the new one.          The road was closed for about 15 minutes each time a beam was unloaded and each time a rear bogie was topped up on a trailer.

Back as far as Dryden for the second night-out

Patrick heading back with the 5th beam which will complete one-half of the bridge. Five more are due to go in three weeks time.

The Freightliner Coronado and the Peterbilt 389 back in the yard on Wednesday afternoon with their B-trains.

Lightning Strikes Louisville, Kentucky.

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.