B-Train backing?

Nope it's a west coast thing, around here we do things a little smarter!

 

I drive a truck and trailer. Can back it up pretty well. These B trains back like a T&T? Move the wheel the same way?

 

In my mind you would have the wheel over just a little bit, enough to get the trailer to input which way you want the rear trailer to do. Once it begins that behavior you need to rapidly get back under the first trailer with all of the opposite wheel. And then loosen up to follow the rear trailer around.

This is for the trains in Detriot with 5th wheels on them. I never touched doubles thankfully but have witnessed people put doubles where they are needing to be in rodeo. It's something to see.

 

I started my trucking career with a b61 and a set of A trains backing into the steel mills. they had an air pin dolly lock. You can put doubles in places a 45 wouldn't fit because doubles bend in the middle. The other thing is doubles don't off track like a 45ft and up do so easier to pull going forward.

Who designed the first B train?

 

A old man in the detrioter told me it was a Dan Keeney of a trucking out fit in California during '47.

I know nothing more you might want to look at Michigan and Ontario. Maybe Australia will have something.

 

@Dye Guardian, can you help the fellow out?

 

Push the pup with the lead.

 

If you can find a bunch of room to practice, the easiest way to learn to back trains is find some time and space to yourself and just practice going backwards. Small movements on the steering, counteract movement before it happens, think of the truck and lead as a single unit and as @Dye Guardian said, push the pup.

The absolute, most important thing to remember is BE PATIENT. Without it, you are going to get frustrated and make it worse.

It's one of those skills that can't be explained, it has to be experienced. I've trained over a dozen drivers to do it, including those who were completely intimidated by it. And usually I spend about 3 minutes explaining it, then 15-20 minutes letting them do it. Usually with me standing outside the truck.

 

Pulled a body mount truck with a pup trailer (pintle hook, long drawbar, turntable mounted to pup and not a dolly if that matters) for a few years and could back it fairly well. Now pulling doubles with a full length main and the same style pup attached to the main with a pintle hook.

About a month ago I miss my turn and I'm headed into dead-end residential. I need to backup for a bit. I think, heck, I've backed pups before so if I can steer my main like it was the body truck I should be able to back up this road for at least a little bit.

Nope. In practice I could make the pup start to turn in the direction I wanted but had no real control over how fast it wanted to turn and I couldn't see the drawbar/turntable the way I could with the body truck because my main would block sight of it. Couldn't even keep it in a straight back. I'm sure it can be done, but I couldn't do it.

 

That set up is entirely different because it adds one more articulation point.