Lease roads. Why? Why? Why???!!!

Around Barnhart you have the worst ones that are County Roads. they redo them every 2 months or so, but when there are some frack going and just with regular traffic, bring up 1 rain, , they will flood and turn into giant pothole within a day, from a 2/3 lanes it will become a 1 lane snake with hole over a foot deep at some point. (CR209 , or the CR131 that goes along the tracks from Mertzon Gas plant to Barnhart).

Usually the lease that took care of building their stuff right in the first place, the roads will stay good (never saw a problem on the Apache Lease out of 2469). They enforce speed too... which helps keeping them caliche highways in somewhat good shape.
If they build the roads half ###### it, like on wolfcamp, well every rain will bring severe flooding and just a little layer of rock on top of blackdirt.. create some nice traps for who that doesn't know. Your truck will sink in all the way to the axles.

 

Lease roads are the responsibility of the oil company that contracts to drill on the owner's land.

 

there's no feeling quite like slowly rounding a corner at 4 in the morning only to find the road is made of slick mud and helplessly gliding into a ditch, completely submerging your ds steer tire in mud

called my supervisor.. "just rock it back and forth, you'll get out!" no, idiot.

oh well. i really needed that 5 hr nap anyway. got a lil nervous of the thing tipping over though

 

Half the problem is just because you can operate a dozer or a road grader don't mean you can build a road or maintain a road. If blade operator don't know jack hole will be back in no time at all. Met only a handful of guys in New Town ND area that knew what they where doing. I kept trying to get them to cut road right after a rain while still wet cuts a lot better and gets rid of the pot holes but no they would wait till it was dry and push the loose stuff around said it looked good and bam it was all tore up by evening. Most of the lease roads weren't to bad put enough scoria down level it out use some fines on steeper grades for some bite on the tires. Biggest thing there is the tribal roads and lever holders not knowing there head from a hole in the ground. And yes there is steering wheel holders in heavy equipment operators too! Besides hey it's like being in a junk yard never now what you might find along the way a fender or a chunk of bumper, battery box, fuel tank, hoses, chains,tools,tires and rims found a lot of stuff that got broke off or bounced off someone's truck.

 

My husband wants to know what a smooth lease road is, as he has yet to find one here in PA.

 

I know Pioneer had to put a 7 load cap on the ticket drivers per shift and add speed bumps on most of their lease roads where rigs are drilling to keep the roads in shape.

 

ugh that pioneer lease just north of midland with all the speed bumps is awful. give me potholes over those ridiculous speed bumps any day of the week. some of them are more like jumps than speed bumos the way the slope up one side and drop off the other. if you're not basically idling over some of them everything in your cab will wind up on the floor. the first time i drove in that area it was dark and i couldn't see one of the bumps and my whole tractor must have caught air. boy did that piss me off!! me and another driver were passing by each other on one of these bumps just shaking our heads at each other in solidarity

 

lol

There are some real zingers out there wearing the hats of "field supervisor" and "safety manager." I should write a book from the stories I have heard; I especially liked the one female FSR who claimed auto transmissions should be easier to rock out of a ditch, and that SCBA gear makes climbing stairs no more difficult than without. Never drove a truck in her life except for her little safety pickup. 100% bonehead.

Although it is hard for commission drivers to calm down when they're sitting and making no money, the guy with self-control and the ability to force himself to mellow out (without consumables) will survive best in the Bakken. Glad you got some rest.

Springtime is just a few months away. This is the coldest Winter in recent memory for ND. Walked in a -47 windchill today. Frickin' colder than a witch's nipples. I wonder what the mud will be like after the thaw. Slipping and sliding in a bad way...