Hauling Chips

At wheelabrator down here in Anderson ca you just have to chain the truck and you’re good.

 

I hauled chips for 4 years, we always operated the tippers ourselves.
Some mills had the big dumps that do the truck and trailer together while others had smaller ones you drop the trailer on or some of each at the same mill.
I've seen those B-trains unhook from the truck and dump on the big dumps,they were set up so the front trailer dumps through the back trailer so you can dump both at the same time, pretty slick set up.
I do a lot of landfill work now and we are no allowed to operate the tippers.

 

^ That aligns with my experiences and observations of the last 2 days.

I'll be pulling 53' possum bottoms at first, 3 axles plus tags. I did some driving today, finally. I was straight with them about my limited experience with non-synchro manuals, and they're ok with that.

I really only missed one shift, but that's one too many, as far as I'm concerned.

The driver training me was really good about it and gave me some really good tips on how to avoid that mistake in the future.

Apparently they have a hard time finding drivers that can go into Canada and back without issue. That really surprised me, but, ok. I had no problems at the border either way, and to be totally honest, there's is one little thing way back in my past that I was nervous about, but no problem.

Yeehaw.

PS: from what I saw today, Canada had much better highways than we have here in the states.

 

I found out the hard way Canada can be a PITA to get into,I was surprised some years back when I was out on my Harley with the wife on board and we were in Northern Idaho and figured it would be shorter going home to cross the border and go West then drop back down into Washington. They played 60 questions with me at the crossing 'till they found an answer they didn't like. I was honest with them, the worst thing in my past was a DUII I got when I was a kid not even old enough to buy beer yet. It was 30 years old but enough to get me detained for hours and locked in a room while my poor wife sat outside with the bike wondering WTF was going on. They told me to come inside but not why and then locked me up. Eventually they said I could enter but I'd have to watch an alcohol info movie first and pay a one time entry $300 fee. I said no thanks I'll go back the way I came, haven't even considered going back since then, I'm still PO'd about it and that was more than 15 years ago.

 

Well I pulled a pretty heavy load from Eureka to Columbia Falls today. It went pretty well. I don't have the shifting perfected yet, not by a long shot, but I made a lot of progress today (Eaton 18 speed.) I like this transmission, it's perfect for the mountainous terrain and heavy loads (3 axle 53' possum bottom with tag axle and tags on tractor. )

My trainer also had me scale and back into the tip dump, no problem there.

I got this.

 

It was weird reading this because another driver where I just started working told me he had a very similar story that happened to him... he and 2 buddies were on bikes, wanted to go into Canada at Sweetgrass and come back down through to PoE by Bonners Ferry. Crazy similarities. The border guards detained them and did a high intensity search, apparently because they were bikers, the way he told the story. There could be more to it, of course.

Best of luck and be safe.

 

Well good job,I drive an '07 KW T-800 with a CAT C15 Acert and 18 speed,great combo!
I mostly pull end dumps but been pulling possum bellies to the landfill for a couple weeks lately.

 

No doubt because they were bikers. They were bound and determined to find something on me, Indian border guard at Bonners Ferry was a real you know what.

 

I've been driving, loading, tarping and untarping, and dumping quite a bit last week and today. Chips, shavings, bark, and ply trim.

This has all been in a training scenario, with an experienced driver each day (3 different trainers so far.)

I've been driving 18 speeds last week and a 15 speed today. (I prefer the 18 speed, as these are pretty heavy loads.)

It's going well. My shifting is improving daily, and while I have a lot of room to improve, I'm very happy with my progress.

The safety director spoke with me today, and I got the distinct impression that they're sort of waiting for me to tell them I'm ready for them to cut me loose, to start doing runs to Canada solo.

 

Well you come to Canada don’t you been running over any of Her Majesty’s moose as they lock up foreigner and throw away the key