Big Loads - Post Photos

Couple of 631Ds and a 345B

 

What size well on that?

 

24'. this trailer is an 84 model. 75 ton. the standard out here now is 28 I think

 

Here's my current load, crossover pipe from a power plant steam turbine. After deliberating since Monday, customer finally decided they would have room/crane capacity to unload it tomorrow afternoon.

 

Hopefully you are getting a good dentention rate for all that time

 

lots of things did not go according to plan.
HH isn't glory, what you see going down the highway is the easy part.
A little insight for the inexperienced guys...
-the load was scheduled to be loaded on January 9th, 2015
-I started planning what I would need for well in the trailer and how I was gonna load the load and what the dimensions and weights would be when loaded when I received the engineered drawing on the 11th of December, 2014. That took half the day.
-the other loads operator is from QC, so using his experience we started route planning on the 12th.
-we submitted the application for the permits on the 19th.
-I left home empty stacked up on Jan 3rd.
-late afternoon of Jan 4th, 85 miles east of Winnipeg, MB. I was informed the load date had been pushed back to the 12th. Too far from home to turn around
-I arrived in Montreal and met up with the other driver at noon on the 8th.
-we talked to the shipper on the morning of the 9th to see if we could leave trailers at their facility, "not enough room", so we were stuck with wagons.
-they also said, "don't come Monday, loads not ready. We'll update you later"
-noon the 13th, we were informed that the 19th was the day.
-an hour later, they called me to tell me the load was now 20,000# heavier. To which I said "no, can't be. We have to order all new permits, and that's at minimum another two weeks wait"
-they removed 10,000# from the load (I had about 11,000# of cushion on the original permit order---this is detail planning rookies. And the devil is ALWAYS in the details)
-began loading on the 19th. No cranes, jack & roll...those that know will understand the pain that's about to come
-Loaded according to the engineered drawings center of gravity...when you get this long, this becomes very critical!
-trailer healed over to the left hard when the jacks released. There's a four letter word for that
-we reviewed the drawings, it was loaded "right" in theory.
-we found a small COG (center of gravity) mark on the load, 9" offset of the drawing!
-re jacked the load and slid the trailer sideways under it, re released it. Trailer healed hard to the right. There's a string of four letter words for that.
-consulted the engineers (they weren't onsite), looked inside the building, and confused everybody. Nobody knew what was parts were removed for the 10,000#, so the drawing is garbage, the mark on the load is junk! the engineers can't help! guess who's up?
-for those that don't know, jacking a load and shifting the trailer is a two hour procedure. This is where experience & knowing your equipment become critical, cause everyone is looking at me saying "what do we do next boss?"
-some lean isn't a bad thing, what, where, how much, and how much it may affect things down the road are. A little lean fir 1000miles, ok. This was a 5875km journey to Yellowknife, get it wrong, that's a very long time to get annoyed and plenty of opportunity for disaster.
-we moved it again based on an educated guess of math & physics. Leaning to the right does two things, one it makes the trailer want to pull or dog track to the right, particularly on high crowned roads. With this load, it also made the high point of the load higher.
-I missed...it had been a long 10hr day, I called it a night, and sent the boys home
-we jacked it and moved it a little more the morning of the 20th. An 1 1/2" lean to the left, perfection!
-if you math is rusty, yup, that's about 14hrs, just to load...see the glory!
-I get 6 chains on to move it out of the way, so we can start loading load two...oh, it's not over yet...
-same thing with load two, loaded according to the drawing, leaning! Yay us!
-we use the lessons learned from mine. It's way colder today, and this load is 15,000# lighter than mine so we shifted this one way easier.
-by the end of the 20th, both are loaded, the permits are just now issued, and mostly ready to roll, the 21st we put the skip straps on, added more chains, double, triple, quadruple check things, go for a nice early dinner and a few adult beverages.
-have a meeting with 8 pilots morning of the 22nd, have the plan established...yeah right, and the first load pulls out. He's from QC so we decide that he'll lead, and inform me of potential issues on the way due to possible language issues. He's also 20' shorter. I have to be 45 mins behind him.
-he goes 2kms, guess who's waiting for him? Yup DOT. We lose 2.5hrs for that ordeal...
-I can't make the corner out the driveway, so I pull the jeep and run it down the road 1km and drop it
-I pull out, and put everything back together...now the best laid plan goes to (four letter word again) as the DOT has me go around him???
-first town...lift many wires, oh and that's where all the funky corner pics came from. They decided to replace a power pole on the route and had traffic stopped, then I get there. No room for me to go ahead, and not enough room for anyone to go around the load. Along comes the DOT. They have me pull past my corner, clear traffic, get the pole crew out of the way, then close the roads for me, to first back up, then make that tight right turn...oh happy day!
-then at the next tough corner, the DOT is already there when we get there. They close the road again, I do all kinds of funky maneuvering to make that corner, clearing a fire hydrant by 1"! My pilot was to busy guiding me to get pics of that for me...but some of the locals were out taking pics so they're out there somewhere
-finally out into the country, now it gets easier. It took 3.75 hrs to go 48kms (29miles)! And that doesn't include the 2.5 for the DOT.
-so you wanna do Heavy Haul huh? Still sure about that?
-late in the day Friday, my pilot car misses a left turn! Language barrier, it takes me a couple minutes to get him stopped so we can verify, he's convinced he's right! Oh goody, close the road boys, we gotta back this thing up about a mile! Remember, backing something this big up is all drive by wire, you can't see (four)! You have to follow and trust your spotters directions, not easy.
-get up near the QC/ON line Friday evening...pilot car buys a few rounds for that one!
-Monday, head into ON, meet the OPP (police) at the border. (1140km down) Cut the QC pilot cars loose, pick up my guy from out west, now backing up is much less stressful. Have a plan meeting, and head out with two police escort.
-ON went pretty easy having OPP escort, blasted out another 1400ish kms pretty easily.
-welcome to Manitoba...that's Canadian for Wyoming winds...boom! All that pretty plastic shrinkwrap explodes and starts tearing apart. Spend over an hour cutting and removing that.
-into SK, stop in at home for Fri night on the way through...family issues, ends up being the weekend. Had to be.
-head out Monday, pilot car says whoa! Stop now! The load is coming apart! All the twisting and flexing after this distance, and a major shortage of screws being used in the first place, we've got panels starting to peel off.
-lose a day and a half for someone to make a decision, find a crew and get them to come and put over 300 screws additional and missing screws into it!
-get to Edmonton on Wednesday, it supposed to storm north on Thur, Fri, into Sat. Go home for the weekend Mr. Pilot, see you Monday. I get on big bird, and fly home for a family emergency, back Sunday.
-Monday, meet another load to convoy, head north...homestretch...not so fast!
-it's windy Monday, remember last week, the load started coming apart? Yeah go slow, don't get as far as we wanted.
-Tuesday, 10 miles in...rear pilot car "my truck just died"...next place to park, High Level, yup less than 120 miles Tuesday.
-now we can't make Yellowknife in one day because of size and weight no night travel.
-Wednesday, into Ft. Providence...done at 2:30
-getting sick of this yet?
-Thursday, finally I have arrived! Doing the math? That's Thursday February 12th 5875km/3650mi ! That's 93 days from the first day of planning, 40 days from first departure to begin the journey, 24 days with the load on the trailer...(and counting...the ice road portion is a separate order from the highway portion), and approx another 3 days of ice road time until execution!
-Oh, and I'm not done yet! I'm taking a triaxle step deck over the ice road now to verify that we can even get my trailer into the mine. Some of the guys already up & back with straight trailers don't think I can.
-so in all reality, I've still got 3 more days 400km of ice road, when I get back to finally get this load to destination.


So, the question is...do you still wanna be a Heavy Hauler? This is really what it's really about, there's no glory, it's tough. Physically, mentally, and most of all, on your patience! And haven't even begun to scratch the surface. And this wasn't the hardest or biggest load I've done, mentally and patiently, it's been one of the hardest.

 

Carl, they are indeed paying well to sit here.

 

wow Heavy Hammer....what a story. when i first saw it, i was like, nah i am NOT reading all of that, then i thought, you know what ? the guy spent a lot of time typing it out, i can at least read it....WHAT A PAIN IN THE REAR that load has been. hope your next one is better and ya made some money in the end...

i was watching Highway Thru Hell the other night and this crew was moving a three hundred and some thousand pound tank, pull truck, push trks etc...and they JUST started and a push truck dropped his drive shaft. so by the time the unhooked him etc and got out of the way, they had to wait til night fall again to start moving cuz rush hour was about to start.

i know y'all go thru it...BUT you also get paid the big bucks....my BIL used to be leased to Bennett and he made some really good money with them. (til his crazy ex messed every thing up )

 

what a purty Cabover....sharp

yeah i agree

I DO !!!!! dang it....lol

keep em coming....love em

cool pic

well i not YET...



thanks guys for all the pics..THEY ARE AWESOME.....i went back thru the thread and thanked pics i had missed.....love em...

 

nothing fancy but my first load with this company. Haven't done much trucking the states but I made it in and out without getting pulled over so I'm pretty happy lol