hauling a bus??

so my wife has a co-worker that has asked me a few times about hauling a bus for her from grandforks nd, to bismarck, nd. first time i basically said id love to help but i don't have a trailer i am able to haul a bus on. suggested that driving the bus would be the most economically feasible way to get it to Bismarck. however i guess this buss was her fathers who has passed away apparently it was running when parked but its been sitting for a number of years the battery's have been stolen out of it and everything is in essentially unknown condition.

she had the wife ask me about it again here saying that she thinks she might have found a trailer i could use to haul the bus and asked if i would be willing to do it and said they need to try to get it moved soon. i essentially said i am willing to help if possible. i have no idea what kind of trailer she thinks she found, obviously that's a big factor, i would assume a step deck with ramps and possibly a beaver tail, that would probably be the most common thing to find that might be able to haul it.

i am assuming a buss is around 12' tall, when i worked in the oil feild we permitted 16' tall frequently i would think a bus on a stepdeck would be under that. next question would be how long is a buss typically from steers to rear axle, and is the rear overhang typically tall enough to hang over the front step? would the belly be able to clear on the ramps? i assume placement in the well might be a problem even on a double drop. i am also assuming weight should not be a problem typically buses are 3 axles so a max weight capacity of 46k should leave me pretty light, my tractor is under 20k let alone im permitted 105,500 on state and interstate routes in nd anyway

next question would be how would you guys typically handle loading something like that if unable to get it started. im a pretty good wrench i would think if it ran when parked i should be able to get it started but if not i don't have a wench tractor so i would assume you could cage the breaks or air up the bus unhook the trailer drop the air bags and drag it up with the truck, although not sure about the landing gear though.

anything else i might not be thinking of?

 

yeah i guess at this point, i don't even know what kind of bus this is, but i defiantly want to figure out any potential problems before i would get there do it, id like to be the nice guy and be able to get it done for them, but the last thing i want to do is get there and find out it can't be done, because i didn't know the right questions to ask or what would work or what wouldn't or a potential problem i didn't account for

 

i guess at this point i am assuming that the trailer is a step deck also, supposedly someone they know has a trailer that they say will work and they would let us use, i don't know to many people that would be loaning out a rgn double drop, but lots of farmers around here have steps with ramps and or beaver tails. so thats why i am assuming its a step. iv got a trailer interchange policy and as long as the trailer will work for the use and is dot legal i guess i don't have a problem using someone else trailer to do it. obviously a lot of details to figure out if i were to do it. all of the conversation about it at this point has been threw my other half she comes home brings up the conversation they had at work then i reply and she goes back to work the next day and tells them what i said.


i have run extendable steps before as well as landolls and such before, certainly not my area of expertise though. never actually ran a rgn but a few pointers im sure i could probably figure it out.

 

i tend to agree with that its one of them deals where i could see myself eating a lot of time on it in order to keep the price right. also not something i would be thrilled about doing.

if it was half the distance away i would feel more comfortable running out there in my service pickup and seeing if it could be reasonable made derivable and if not seeing it would give me a better idea of what it would take to haul it. they feel that the 400 bucks in batterys that were stolen out of it would be better put towards getting it hauled back cause they don't know what else it may need. seems how there immediate goal is to just get it moved.